The Football Thread - Page 2141

**countjimmoriarty** · May 25th, 2018, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by m100

without the bbc/itv commentators telling us how technically gifted these players are.

It'll be OK, they've still got Belgium for that...

**tsunamiSD** · May 25th, 2018, 04:23 PM

I guess most if not all of the rest of you are used to (at least over the past few years) a yearly article on 'the Richest Game.' I hadn't seen one before, and wonder if there have been such articles in any US papers. I think that Mark Zeigler has come up with another fine story...

The print version of the article is entitled Fulham, Aston Villa primed for the richest game in soccer

.
.

**mungy** · May 25th, 2018, 09:02 PM

Just had £50 on a scouse win tomorrow, just in the chance that they do pull it off I get to double my money. If Madrid win it's cash well spent

**old alal** · May 26th, 2018, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tsunamiSD

I guess most if not all of the rest of you are used to (at least over the past few years) a yearly article on 'the Richest Game.' I hadn't seen one before, and wonder if there have been such articles in any US papers. I think that Mark Zeigler has come up with another fine story...

The print version of the article is entitled Fulham, Aston Villa primed for the richest game in soccer

.
.

Unfortunately those of us in Europe can't see this article.

**buttsie** · May 26th, 2018, 07:19 AM

The above article - you could probably change your PCs region code to 1 and read it
Though not recommended as you do it too many times and it can become permanent

This article just reminds me of the obscene amount of TV revenue in the game

Up there with Leicesters 88mil from one season in the champions league
- more than the team that won it

Mark Zeigler 25/5/2018

Spain’s Real Madrid is the world’s third richest soccer team according to Forbes, worth an estimated $3.58 billion. England’s Liverpool is eighth at $1.5 billion. Their combined revenues last year topped $1 billion.

On Saturday they meet in Kiev, Ukraine, in the UEFA Champions League final, the most prized club trophy in the world’s most popular sport. The winner will get $18 million, the loser just under $13 million, in addition to the $80 million or so they received along the way in the season-long, continent-wide tournament of Europe’s best teams.

But that is not sport’s richest event of the year, or even the month. Or even the day.

A few hours earlier in London, Fulham and Aston Villa will kick off at soldout, storied Wembley Stadium for the final spot in England’s 20-team Premier League next season (9 a.m. PDT on ESPN+, an Internet streaming service). The loser remains in the ignominy and indigence of the second division, with a grueling 46-game league schedule, with paltry TV money, with road trips on rainy Tuesday nights to Ipswich Town and Preston North End and Bristol City.

“It is a special game,” said Fulham’s Slavisa Jokanovic, the Serbian coach of a club with a 112-year-old stadium and an 18-year-old leading scorer, “but on the other hand we must understand it is only one game. We must play the game, we must not be scared.”

What, them, scared? Only $250 million is at stake.

It is billed as the richest game in soccer, and by extension the richest single event in sport. But it’s more than that because Messi and Ronaldo aren’t playing in it. Grizzled journeymen of soccer’s minor leagues are. Washed-up veterans consigned to the sport’s nether regions are. Teenagers are. Tim Ream, a 30-year-old defender from St. Louis who has spent the last six seasons with teams in England’s second division, is.

It’s akin to the old PGA Tour Q School, with guys grinding over a 10-foot putt on the 18th green with a tour card on the line – five-star hotels and courtesy cars or another year sleeping in the camper at tournaments in Wichita, Kan., and Greer, S.C., riding on a slippery left-to-right break. Except this involves entire rosters of players on the fringes of the big time, entire clubs, entire cities, entire generations of agonizingly loyal fans.

And $250,000,000. (Or enough to pay the salaries of all 660-odd players in Major League Soccer and have money left over.)

It is the ultimate exponent of the promotion and relegation system used by pretty much every sports league outside North America, an annual market correction where the bottom teams in the upper league drop down a division while the top teams in the lower league replace them. In theory, your Wednesday night pub team can keep moving up each year until you’re in the bigs.

In most countries, it is based strictly on regular-season performance. And it was in England until 1990, when they decided that it might be fun – in a sort of cruelly voyeuristic way – to have two teams play before 90,000 and a global TV audience for a final promotion spot.

So the teams in 18th, 19th and 20th place in the Premier League are automatically relegated, and the top two teams in the second division are automatically promoted. Third through sixth place then stage a playoff for the last ticket on the gravy train.

As recently as 2006, promotion was worth a $53 million bump in TV revenues from the Prem. In 2010, $120 million. In 2015, $174 million.

Then the Premier League signed a new global TV contract worth $11 billion over three years, and the minimum promotion windfall rose to $227 million compared to, gulp, less than $10 million for staying in the second division.

The math: You get the Premier League’s annual TV payout, which this season ranged from $126.5 million to $200 million. You are also guaranteed another $100 million if you are immediately relegated the following season in the form of “parachute payments” to ease the financial blow of dropping to the second division with a roster full of bloated salaries. Include increased ticket, merchandise and sponsorship revenue, and you quickly reach a quarter-billion dollars.

Minimum. Avoid relegation in your first season in the Prem, as two-thirds of promoted teams have done over the past decade, and you’re looking at a $387 million bonanza.

Now put 22 players on a rectangle of grass, blow the whistle and enjoy the tangle of nerves, pressure, fear, agony, ecstasy.

We must play the game, we must not be scared.

“I’m not going to sit here,” said Aston Villa coach Steve Bruce, who has twice won promotion finals with other clubs, “and say that I’m not going to feel some butterflies on the day.”

Each team was allotted 38,000 tickets to Wembley, and sold them. They have played 68 times in their histories that stretch back to the 1800s; each has won 23 and they tied 22.

It is Fulham’s first game at Wembley in 46 years. Villa fans are calling it their biggest game in 36 years.

Fulham is owned by Shahid Khan, the billionaire who bought the Jacksonville Jaguars in late 2011 for a reported $770 million. In the Jags’ next season, they went 2-14 – tied with Kansas City for the worst record in the 32-team league.

Anywhere else in the world, they’d be relegated. In the United States, land of pro sports cartels, Khan’s franchise went nowhere. As a reward for its ineptitude, it was awarded the No. 2 pick in NFL Draft.

The following summer he paid $300 million for Fulham, which promptly won just nine of 38 games in the Premier League and finished 19th. The Cottagers, as they’re known, were unceremoniously relegated and haven’t been back since, finishing 17th and 20th in the next two seasons – closer to falling to the third division than reaching the first.

Last year they finished sixth and qualified for the promotion playoffs before losing to Reading in the semifinals. Reading went to Wembley Stadium instead and faced Huddersfield Town, an English power in the 1920s that hadn’t been in the top division in 45 years.

The game remained scoreless through a nervy 90 minutes and another 30 of overtime. It went to a shootout.

Reading took a 3-1 lead, meaning it could close out Huddersfield by making its final two PKs. It couldn’t. Liam Moore hit the crossbar, Jordan Obita had his shot saved, and Huddersfield players were soon piling on Christopher Schindler after he slotted home a $250 million penalty kick.

“We can give lots of people hope,” Huddersfield chairman Dean Hoyle said with a hoarse voice amid the delirious celebrations. “Smaller clubs can keep believing. You can achieve the impossible.”

Aston Villa and Fulham bid to return to the Premier League in a play-off final worth an estimated £280m if the winners survive one season in the top flight.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44178427

**pierrelm** · May 26th, 2018, 10:23 AM

"Reading took a 3-1 lead, meaning it could close out Huddersfield by making its final two PKs."

two nations divided by a common tongue.

**Greenman** · May 26th, 2018, 11:35 AM

Hmm Real Madrid made bookies favourite tonight, suits us being underdogs again just as we were in 2005. I can't lie, I am going to be on tenterhooks tonight, this is the chance we've waited a very long time for and hopefully Liverpool can cap a fantastic season off with a win, but either way we have secured Champions League football again next season. Come on you Reddddds! Mooooo Salah.

**risen** · May 26th, 2018, 06:17 PM

Oh dear Villa, what a shame, never mind. John Terry’s expression after the final whistle.

Just want Coventry City to get promoted on Monday.

How I remember when we beat the Villa 5-1, one of my colleagues had the score tattooed on his arse.

**bloke57** · May 26th, 2018, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by risen

Oh dear Villa, what a shame, never mind. John Terry’s expression after the final whistle.

Just want Coventry City to get promoted on Monday.

How I remember when we beat the Villa 5-1, one of my colleagues had the score tattooed on his arse.

The right result IMHO. Fulham were points clear of their rivals in the final table and I've seen teams before, who finished miles ahead, getting pipped to the post by whoever came sixth!

Never seems right.

**judy84** · May 26th, 2018, 07:57 PM

Careless hans

May 25th, 2018, 04:23 PM	#21402
tsunamiSD Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Posts: 53,024 Thanks: 633,290 Thanked 640,295 Times in 53,106 Posts	'Richest' Game I guess most if not all of the rest of you are used to (at least over the past few years) a yearly article on 'the Richest Game.' I hadn't seen one before, and wonder if there have been such articles in any US papers. I think that Mark Zeigler has come up with another fine story... The print version of the article is entitled Fulham, Aston Villa primed for the richest game in soccer . .

May 25th, 2018, 09:02 PM	#21403
mungy Veteran Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Manchester UK Posts: 3,400 Thanks: 8,933 Thanked 64,097 Times in 3,422 Posts	Just had £50 on a scouse win tomorrow, just in the chance that they do pull it off I get to double my money. If Madrid win it's cash well spent __________________ My links expire with 1 months inactivity. If they are down PM me and I will re-upload.

May 26th, 2018, 07:57 PM	#21410
judy84 Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2013 Location: Wilts Posts: 2,008 Thanks: 34,481 Thanked 21,442 Times in 2,021 Posts	Careless hans Last edited by judy84; May 26th, 2018 at 08:31 PM..

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May 26th, 2018, 07:19 AM	#21405
buttsie Porn Archeologist Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: earth Posts: 12,714 Thanks: 92,252 Thanked 241,298 Times in 12,746 Posts	The above article - you could probably change your PCs region code to 1 and read it Though not recommended as you do it too many times and it can become permanent This article just reminds me of the obscene amount of TV revenue in the game Up there with Leicesters 88mil from one season in the champions league - more than the team that won it Mark Zeigler 25/5/2018 Spain’s Real Madrid is the world’s third richest soccer team according to Forbes, worth an estimated $3.58 billion. England’s Liverpool is eighth at $1.5 billion. Their combined revenues last year topped $1 billion. On Saturday they meet in Kiev, Ukraine, in the UEFA Champions League final, the most prized club trophy in the world’s most popular sport. The winner will get $18 million, the loser just under $13 million, in addition to the $80 million or so they received along the way in the season-long, continent-wide tournament of Europe’s best teams. But that is not sport’s richest event of the year, or even the month. Or even the day. A few hours earlier in London, Fulham and Aston Villa will kick off at soldout, storied Wembley Stadium for the final spot in England’s 20-team Premier League next season (9 a.m. PDT on ESPN+, an Internet streaming service). The loser remains in the ignominy and indigence of the second division, with a grueling 46-game league schedule, with paltry TV money, with road trips on rainy Tuesday nights to Ipswich Town and Preston North End and Bristol City. “It is a special game,” said Fulham’s Slavisa Jokanovic, the Serbian coach of a club with a 112-year-old stadium and an 18-year-old leading scorer, “but on the other hand we must understand it is only one game. We must play the game, we must not be scared.” What, them, scared? Only $250 million is at stake. It is billed as the richest game in soccer, and by extension the richest single event in sport. But it’s more than that because Messi and Ronaldo aren’t playing in it. Grizzled journeymen of soccer’s minor leagues are. Washed-up veterans consigned to the sport’s nether regions are. Teenagers are. Tim Ream, a 30-year-old defender from St. Louis who has spent the last six seasons with teams in England’s second division, is. It’s akin to the old PGA Tour Q School, with guys grinding over a 10-foot putt on the 18th green with a tour card on the line – five-star hotels and courtesy cars or another year sleeping in the camper at tournaments in Wichita, Kan., and Greer, S.C., riding on a slippery left-to-right break. Except this involves entire rosters of players on the fringes of the big time, entire clubs, entire cities, entire generations of agonizingly loyal fans. And $250,000,000. (Or enough to pay the salaries of all 660-odd players in Major League Soccer and have money left over.) It is the ultimate exponent of the promotion and relegation system used by pretty much every sports league outside North America, an annual market correction where the bottom teams in the upper league drop down a division while the top teams in the lower league replace them. In theory, your Wednesday night pub team can keep moving up each year until you’re in the bigs. In most countries, it is based strictly on regular-season performance. And it was in England until 1990, when they decided that it might be fun – in a sort of cruelly voyeuristic way – to have two teams play before 90,000 and a global TV audience for a final promotion spot. So the teams in 18th, 19th and 20th place in the Premier League are automatically relegated, and the top two teams in the second division are automatically promoted. Third through sixth place then stage a playoff for the last ticket on the gravy train. As recently as 2006, promotion was worth a $53 million bump in TV revenues from the Prem. In 2010, $120 million. In 2015, $174 million. Then the Premier League signed a new global TV contract worth $11 billion over three years, and the minimum promotion windfall rose to $227 million compared to, gulp, less than $10 million for staying in the second division. The math: You get the Premier League’s annual TV payout, which this season ranged from $126.5 million to $200 million. You are also guaranteed another $100 million if you are immediately relegated the following season in the form of “parachute payments” to ease the financial blow of dropping to the second division with a roster full of bloated salaries. Include increased ticket, merchandise and sponsorship revenue, and you quickly reach a quarter-billion dollars. Minimum. Avoid relegation in your first season in the Prem, as two-thirds of promoted teams have done over the past decade, and you’re looking at a $387 million bonanza. Now put 22 players on a rectangle of grass, blow the whistle and enjoy the tangle of nerves, pressure, fear, agony, ecstasy. We must play the game, we must not be scared. “I’m not going to sit here,” said Aston Villa coach Steve Bruce, who has twice won promotion finals with other clubs, “and say that I’m not going to feel some butterflies on the day.” Each team was allotted 38,000 tickets to Wembley, and sold them. They have played 68 times in their histories that stretch back to the 1800s; each has won 23 and they tied 22. It is Fulham’s first game at Wembley in 46 years. Villa fans are calling it their biggest game in 36 years. Fulham is owned by Shahid Khan, the billionaire who bought the Jacksonville Jaguars in late 2011 for a reported $770 million. In the Jags’ next season, they went 2-14 – tied with Kansas City for the worst record in the 32-team league. Anywhere else in the world, they’d be relegated. In the United States, land of pro sports cartels, Khan’s franchise went nowhere. As a reward for its ineptitude, it was awarded the No. 2 pick in NFL Draft. The following summer he paid $300 million for Fulham, which promptly won just nine of 38 games in the Premier League and finished 19th. The Cottagers, as they’re known, were unceremoniously relegated and haven’t been back since, finishing 17th and 20th in the next two seasons – closer to falling to the third division than reaching the first. Last year they finished sixth and qualified for the promotion playoffs before losing to Reading in the semifinals. Reading went to Wembley Stadium instead and faced Huddersfield Town, an English power in the 1920s that hadn’t been in the top division in 45 years. The game remained scoreless through a nervy 90 minutes and another 30 of overtime. It went to a shootout. Reading took a 3-1 lead, meaning it could close out Huddersfield by making its final two PKs. It couldn’t. Liam Moore hit the crossbar, Jordan Obita had his shot saved, and Huddersfield players were soon piling on Christopher Schindler after he slotted home a $250 million penalty kick. “We can give lots of people hope,” Huddersfield chairman Dean Hoyle said with a hoarse voice amid the delirious celebrations. “Smaller clubs can keep believing. You can achieve the impossible.” Aston Villa and Fulham bid to return to the Premier League in a play-off final worth an estimated £280m if the winners survive one season in the top flight. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/44178427

May 26th, 2018, 10:23 AM	#21406
pierrelm Vintage Member Join Date: Jan 2012 Location: Midst the fen mists Posts: 5,450 Thanks: 55,798 Thanked 72,920 Times in 5,422 Posts	"Reading took a 3-1 lead, meaning it could close out Huddersfield by making its final two PKs." two nations divided by a common tongue.

May 26th, 2018, 11:35 AM	#21407
Greenman Live Legend of VEF Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Underground lair somewhere in the world Posts: 20,353 Thanks: 30,936 Thanked 383,516 Times in 19,356 Posts	Hmm Real Madrid made bookies favourite tonight, suits us being underdogs again just as we were in 2005. I can't lie, I am going to be on tenterhooks tonight, this is the chance we've waited a very long time for and hopefully Liverpool can cap a fantastic season off with a win, but either way we have secured Champions League football again next season. Come on you Reddddds! Mooooo Salah.

May 26th, 2018, 06:17 PM	#21408
risen Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Stuck in the middle Posts: 1,100 Thanks: 68,798 Thanked 15,539 Times in 1,092 Posts	Oh dear Villa, what a shame, never mind. John Terry’s expression after the final whistle. Just want Coventry City to get promoted on Monday. How I remember when we beat the Villa 5-1, one of my colleagues had the score tattooed on his arse.