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DumbleDelia is Magic

It's like another world!!

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The Premiership never ceases to amaze me. It is a completely different ball game (pardon the pun!) to the rest of English football. As Big spending Chelsea splash out another £20M on one player it makes you realise the financial gulf between the Premiership and lower divisions. Ok, Chelsea are a special case but all over the Premiership teams will spend millions of pounds each year, whereas the rest of English football are forced to barter between themselves, or pick up the Premiership freebees. Surely this cannot be right?

When we got promoted the prospect of having an extra £20/25M in our pockets was wonderful. We''ve strived and grafted for 9 years to get success and now we''re reaping the benefits. Luckily we''re being sensible with our money. We''re not overspending and we know our limits. What happens though when a Premiership club gets relegated though: They become just another "lower league" club and go back to being potless until they reach the big time again.

At the moment the Premiership is split up into 3 groups (as I see it anyway). The first is the group which knows they will challenge and get richer by the year (Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea etc) The second is the group which plods along knowing they probably won''t get relegated but at the same time knowing they aren''t going to win the league (Spurs, Villa etc) And the rest are teams which have the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads, knowing that if they get relegated it could spell disaster. And thats just the Premiership. For the Championship, League One and League Two (strange writing that!) it''s a struggle in some cases to survive let alone get promoted. Where''s the fun in that? The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer.

If English football, and football as a sport is going to progress, surely some of the wealth needs to be divided up more equally. So far this pre-season we''ve spent 750K and could well spend nearer the £2M mark. In all my time as a Norwich fan, I''ve been chuffed if we''ve spent half a million in the close season! As for clubs like Cambridge or Northampton 750K would be what they could only dream of.

I realise this has turned into a rant but if football continues on the path it''s going it looks like there will be 20 or 30 clubs in the world who have all the money they could possibly want - and the other few thousand get the rest!

Fair? I think not

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This is exactly what I was trying to say on another thread about the Russian''s billions not ultimately being good for football. Ooops - better not get me started on that one again! Where are my tranquilisers?

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The powers that be in the football world need to do something to make a more even playing field. Quite what they can do is difficult to say but a maximum wage for each division would be a start. Put a stop on people like abramovich taking over clubs to which they have no previous connection and are obviously only interested in an ego trip. We''re all pleased to be in the prem but the division is fast becoming a pointless exercise in which there is only a small percentage of the teams with a chance of winning the title. Ten years ago we could rightly claim to have an outside chance of winning the title but nowadays we and many others like us haven''t got a cat in hells chance and that can''t be good for the game.

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DD, this is the world of reality, i.e. in all facets of life the most is in the hands of the few. Please don''t take my comments as being disrespectful to you but, at your age, it is natural and normal to express the ideological point of view. However, to tinker with freedom and democracy by "equalizing" often creates as many problems as it solves. Young people have to put years on the clock through personal experience before their views moderate from those that you currently appear to hold. It''s not an intellectual thing. The same is true with football. This is the point MG7 was putting across on another thread. As long as investment is occurring in British football as much or more than in many other countries, that investment will have a trickle down effect and benefit many in the UK. Try and legislate that into an "equlization" approach and the investor disappears, for soccer and any other business.

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You''re absolutely right DD, but I think in the end its inevitable that the superclubs will go off into some sort of Euro league with all the money, and the remainder will be returned to the people as it were. And give me ''real'' football at CR over ''virtual'' TV football from Old Trafford any day.

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Fair point YC. I''m not saying lets have an equalization of football. If the FA told sky and other investors to give every football club £XXX I''m sure they would be told in no uncertain terms where to go! Of course there must be a hierachy in any way of life, especially football. I''d just prefer the hierachy to be slightly less weighted. Ok, I know thats a bit of a naive and utopian view, but if competition could be increased slightly surely that would be good for the game.

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yankee

I am still an eternal optimist, and still believe in dreams and have an ideological point of view on many issues in life, not just football, it is not purely an age thing, it just reflects the kind of person you are. I am not saying one way is right, the other wrong, they are just different - if i sat down and really thought about why some clubs can spend £25 million and others can''t and concluded it wasn''t fair then i wouldn''t bother watching football at all - truth being for me is that i go to football because it is about dreams - it is both agony and esctasy, cruel and sometimes unbelievably good - (to tell you the truth yankee, following norwich city, for me, is just like being permenantly in love, you never know what you are going to get and what mood they are going to be in). Last season our dreams all came true - some of us could see promotion earlier than others, as now, some can see our survival in the prem - (and i haven''t asked 1st wiz for any crystal ball gazing either).

Don''t just give DD a hard time because he is young, i would be willing to bet he may become more cynical as time goes by, but i bet you he still continues to dream on about our team when he is as old as me!

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I think the FA should share the cash amongst all league clubs. Well it seems OK, as the powers that be in the FA, don''t mind sharing their secretary....allegedly!..... ;~)




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Yes DD, you''re absolutely right...

It''s something that has been known for the past 5 or more years and has been said a million times before.

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gazza, to recognize the realities of life does not mean one gives up on dreams. They are two entirely different things and, of course, sometimes dreams come true. Before too many of us assume that things have really changed so much in the pursuit of being English champions, however, let''s look at the facts of the past 40 seasons. Only ten different teams have won the championship during that time. Liverpool based teams have won it 40% of the time, with Lancashire based teams winning 68% of the time. Indeed, we all know that, for the ten seasons commencing in 1972-73 season, Liverpool won eight times and Everton twice. Other cities ( never mind other parts of the country ) must have wondered when they would get a look at the trophy. So domination is not a new paradigm. All that''s happened in the past 12 seasons is for two other teams, Manchester United and Arsenal to dominate, with the singular season interruption by Blackburn. In fact, with the level of wealth in London, for that region to have only lifted the trophy 15% of the time during those 40 years seems disproportionately low, and that was only accomplished by Arsenal. It''s, therefore, no great surprise to see a loaded investor and a hungry London team ( in this case, Chelsea ) dare to suggest a change is required. One or two other teams may well follow the same path. Once in a rare while over the next 40 seasons a small dream team may emerge and surprisingly lift the trophy ( such as Notts Forest and Blackburn in the past ). Maybe it will be Norwich or some similar sized club. For this to happen, however, a lot of other unlikely scenarios have to fall into place to allow good fortune to shine, such as was the case with Greece this year.

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The problem is that the FA has pretty much sold its right to do anything about it. The big clubs and sky are now much more powerful and have the Fa over a barrel. This coupled with the fact the FA is run by people like David Dein (Arsenal chairman). If football is to be a business have these people never heard of a conflict of interest. The transfer window and limits to loan signings is blatently favouring the huge clubs with huge squads. The fact is we''re gonna have to spend valuable wage bill money on a third choice keeper, because of these restrictions. although personally I fail to see why we couldn''t have kept Crighton on if he wanted to stay. Does anybody know has he retired? or gone to play for someone else?

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Did you read that interview with MWJ in the Pink Un the other day DDiM?

It''s interesting to note that he reckons promotion is worth more like £14m, rather than £20-25m. Would certainly answer a few questions.

Link is [link]http://www.pinkun.com/content/ncfc/Story.asp?Brand=PINKUNonline&Category=Norwich&ItemId=NOED26+Jul+2004+08%3A38%3A06%3A900[/link]

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When people talk about what its ''worth'' they mean more than just the sky money. There''s increased ticket sales, merchandise, extra televised games, overseas rights, sponsorships etc etc. The basic Sky payments are a big part, but only a part of that, hence the difference in the figures.

I wouldn''t think the club will make any more out of tickets this season than last (slightly higher attendances, but 4 less home games). Will we sell more shirts this season than last?

Truth is we won''t know the details for a couple of years when we read next years accounts.

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