https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11790/11962084/hearts-captain-steven-naismith-accepts-50-per-cent-wage-cut-and-vows-to-stay-at-club
Good for him! What's happening/going to happen to lower league clubs is a tragedy! How many Bury's are there going to be I fear ? The government has to step in ASAP to share the wealth and coherse the PL with its power to do so.
Danny Higginbotham got it spot on when he said.
"I'm sick and tired of hearing people in the game going on about whether Liverpool should be given the title,let's start worrying about the small clubs who could go bust,and lots of players losing their jobs"
I think there is a big chance that the lower leagues will go back to amateur status
We have to remember the history of football and that the only reason any club playing before a paying audience remained amateur was because the people involved didn't believe any of the players needed additional income. It was the existing wealth of interested parties that determined wage and not what a club could or couldn't afford. The fragility of football in its lower echelons has been driven by greed at the top, which leads to unnecessary risks often being taken to get a club into a healthier state and the reverse happening. A more even distribution of money would derive a much more level competitive playing field. Sport has tended to echo life especially in the past three to four decades of opportunism and short term thinking.
Perhaps longer term thinking would have benefited all of us, even dealing with 'flu epidemics.
Quote from: toshes mate on March 24, 2020, 07:26:08 AM
We have to remember the history of football and that the only reason any club playing before a paying audience remained amateur was because the people involved didn't believe any of the players needed additional income. It was the existing wealth of interested parties that determined wage and not what a club could or couldn't afford. The fragility of football in its lower echelons has been driven by greed at the top, which leads to unnecessary risks often being taken to get a club into a healthier state and the reverse happening. A more even distribution of money would derive a much more level competitive playing field. Sport has tended to echo life especially in the past three to four decades of opportunism and short term thinking.
Perhaps longer term thinking would have benefited all of us, even dealing with 'flu epidemics.
You're quite correct, though, things being as they are, those tops clubs will argue (and they do have an argument here) that it is they who bring in the most income into the sport (via TV rights etc) and therefore they deserve the lions share of the pot.
It is a hard argument to break, however much we all believe that the grass roots need that money more than those at the top, but, with the threat of the breakaway super-league ever on the horizon, the FA is not likely to look to upset those at the top any time soon.
The result is the status quo we have had for the past 26 years, the divide between the top and bottom clubs growing ever wider.
Unless, and I'm not 100% in favour of this approach, we start to implement salary caps, and that would need to be EUFA-wide, then the money will continue to flow to the top, in an never-ending race to .. I'm not sure what tbh, but I know I'm not going to like it!
This Italian is out driving an ambulance. https://sportstar.thehindu.com/other-sports/italian-rugby-player-maxime-mbanda-voluntary-ambulance-driver-helping-coronavirus-patients-italy-covid-19-outbreak/article31133446.ece
