prem 2 division

[PKC 0]

[quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"]

The NFL is the pattern they want to follow. Clubs will no longer be part of a community where they are run and owned by local shareholders. They will be franchises owned by rich men with no real attatchment to the area or the fans. Indeed we can see the beginnings of this already happening with the foreign owners of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U etc. How long will it be before owners start trying to move clus to areas with bigger fanbases? We''ve already seen that happen with Wimbledon morphing into MK Dons so don''t think that this cannot happen.

 

 

[/quote]

Someone who knows more about the NFL than I do might be able to answer this, but my impression was that the movement of clubs by owners from one town to another was only feasible because:

1. There are some cities (LA, for example, or New York) big enough to cope with two teams.

2. At any one time there are big cities without teams.

Neither (now that Milton Keynes has a team) of those applies in England.[/quote]

Might be the case for England but remember Dublin was suggested prior to Milton Keynes, and somewhere in the proposals is having a team in Ireland.

[Tetteys Jig 830]

[quote user="ncfcstar"]What would everyone say about this idea if we were invited though?[/quote]relieved would be the word, despite everything, my support for this club stays stron because of the hope, we will have our day under the current format, the day ( or few years) that Bolton and Burnley... are having now. Our club is way more popular in terms of fanbase than theirs, and it would be daft to shut us out from top-tier football.I''m strongly against the promotion/ relegation between prem league B and Football League. I can''t see it happening without lower league being open to the top, as it is nonsensical to allow teams to stay in the top 2 leagues when teams with more potential are made to stay in the lower leagues.As for Rangers and Celtic, i won''t enter into the moral debate, but personally, i''d be happy to see them in the same league system as us. Perhaps in the long run, all of scottish football can be integrated into the same system as us with all the teams having the chance of promotion to a national (England plus Scotland + Wales) league if they are good enough. Obviously this wouldn''t work in lower leagues, what with all the travel expenses weighed up to the turnover of lower league clubs, which is why they would keep regional until they were good enough/ got high enough up the league ladder.I think Gartside would have a few questions to answer to millions of people if his plan came through and the likes of us, Ipswich, Leeds, Reading, Charlton and so on were ''frozen'' out of top league football forever.

[ricardo 7,347]

[quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"]

The NFL is the pattern they want to follow. Clubs will no longer be part of a community where they are run and owned by local shareholders. They will be franchises owned by rich men with no real attatchment to the area or the fans. Indeed we can see the beginnings of this already happening with the foreign owners of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U etc. How long will it be before owners start trying to move clus to areas with bigger fanbases? We''ve already seen that happen with Wimbledon morphing into MK Dons so don''t think that this cannot happen.

 

 

[/quote]

Someone who knows more about the NFL than I do might be able to answer this, but my impression was that the movement of clubs by owners from one town to another was only feasible because:

1. There are some cities (LA, for example, or New York) big enough to cope with two teams.

2. At any one time there are big cities without teams.

Neither (now that Milton Keynes has a team) of those applies in England.[/quote]

NFL teams move because cities are prepared to compete with subsidised stadiums and other inducements. The "Colts" were poached from Baltimore by Indianapolis and the St Louis "Cardinals" went to Arizona. The famous "Raiders" went from Oakland to LA and back to Oakland again.

Point 1. We have plenty of cities with more than one team. Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol etc

Point 2. There are plenty of big cities and highly populated areas in England without Prem teams, Bristol, Bradford etc.

Don''t tell me that poorly supported Prem clubs like Wigan, Blackburn etc wouldn''t move to a big city if they were offered the same inducements as happens in America and if Premier league rules allowed it. It is almost inevitable that Celtic and Rangers will become Prem clubs in the future. Looking even further out I would not be surprised at all if places like Dublin or Belfast also get Prem teams in the future.

Nothing stays the same forever and money will eventually decide how this all turns out. We can''t stop it, we need to be a part of it and the first step is not to linger very long in League 1.

[CanaryPurple 0]

[quote user="ricardo"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"]

The NFL is the pattern they want to follow. Clubs will no longer be part of a community where they are run and owned by local shareholders. They will be franchises owned by rich men with no real attatchment to the area or the fans. Indeed we can see the beginnings of this already happening with the foreign owners of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U etc. How long will it be before owners start trying to move clus to areas with bigger fanbases? We''ve already seen that happen with Wimbledon morphing into MK Dons so don''t think that this cannot happen.

 

 

[/quote]Someone who knows more about the NFL than I do might be able to answer this, but my impression was that the movement of clubs by owners from one town to another was only feasible because:1. There are some cities (LA, for example, or New York) big enough to cope with two teams.2. At any one time there are big cities without teams.Neither (now that Milton Keynes has a team) of those applies in England.[/quote]

NFL teams move because cities are prepared to compete with subsidised stadiums and other inducements. The "Colts" were poached from Baltimore by Indianapolis and the St Louis "Cardinals" went to Arizona. The famous "Raiders" went from Oakland to LA and back to Oakland again.

Point 1. We have plenty of cities with more than one team. Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol etc

Point 2. There are plenty of big cities and highly populated areas in England without Prem teams, Bristol, Bradford etc.

Don''t tell me that poorly supported Prem clubs like Wigan, Blackburn etc wouldn''t move to a big city if they were offered the same inducements as happens in America and if Premier league rules allowed it. It is almost inevitable that Celtic and Rangers will become Prem clubs in the future. Looking even further out I would not be surprised at all if places like Dublin or Belfast also get Prem teams in the future.

Nothing stays the same forever and money will eventually decide how this all turns out. We can''t stop it, we need to be a part of it and the first step is not to linger very long in League 1.

[/quote]Ricardo, you plainly are the person I was looking for who knows way more about the NFL than I do! And, just to be clear, I am probably as worried as you are by the power of money and the big clubs and the Premier League and what might happen in the future.That being said, I am still dubious as to franchising being a problem because I don''t see IN PRACTICE how it would work. The point about English cities being big enough to have two teams is that pretty much most of those cities HAVE two teams already. You will correct me if I''m wrong but I think LA has supported two teams in the past, but now doesn''t have one. Plainly if someone moved the Cincinatti Bengals, for example, to LA that would probably work, because there are fans there crying out for a team - any team - to watch.But take your example of Wigan. Where actually could Wigan go? To Belfast or Dublin? Possibly. But once those cities have been taken, where else? To become the third team in Manchester? I don''t see that working. To become yet another team in over-populated (in football terms) London? Ditto Birmingham. Or completely away from its roots to rural East Anglia, to try to become THE team in Norwich, with us still in opposition? If I were a rich owner I would be dubious about spending my money on a risky venture like that.

[ricardo 7,347]

[quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"]

The NFL is the pattern they want to follow. Clubs will no longer be part of a community where they are run and owned by local shareholders. They will be franchises owned by rich men with no real attatchment to the area or the fans. Indeed we can see the beginnings of this already happening with the foreign owners of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U etc. How long will it be before owners start trying to move clus to areas with bigger fanbases? We''ve already seen that happen with Wimbledon morphing into MK Dons so don''t think that this cannot happen.

 

 

[/quote]

Someone who knows more about the NFL than I do might be able to answer this, but my impression was that the movement of clubs by owners from one town to another was only feasible because:

1. There are some cities (LA, for example, or New York) big enough to cope with two teams.

2. At any one time there are big cities without teams.

Neither (now that Milton Keynes has a team) of those applies in England.[/quote]

NFL teams move because cities are prepared to compete with subsidised stadiums and other inducements. The "Colts" were poached from Baltimore by Indianapolis and the St Louis "Cardinals" went to Arizona. The famous "Raiders" went from Oakland to LA and back to Oakland again.

Point 1. We have plenty of cities with more than one team. Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol etc

Point 2. There are plenty of big cities and highly populated areas in England without Prem teams, Bristol, Bradford etc.

Don''t tell me that poorly supported Prem clubs like Wigan, Blackburn etc wouldn''t move to a big city if they were offered the same inducements as happens in America and if Premier league rules allowed it. It is almost inevitable that Celtic and Rangers will become Prem clubs in the future. Looking even further out I would not be surprised at all if places like Dublin or Belfast also get Prem teams in the future.

Nothing stays the same forever and money will eventually decide how this all turns out. We can''t stop it, we need to be a part of it and the first step is not to linger very long in League 1.

[/quote]

Ricardo, you plainly are the person I was looking for who knows way more about the NFL than I do! And, just to be clear, I am probably as worried as you are by the power of money and the big clubs and the Premier League and what might happen in the future.

That being said, I am still dubious as to franchising being a problem because I don''t see IN PRACTICE how it would work. The point about English cities being big enough to have two teams is that pretty much most of those cities HAVE two teams already.

You will correct me if I''m wrong but I think LA has supported two teams in the past, but now doesn''t have one. Plainly if someone moved the Cincinatti Bengals, for example, to LA that would probably work, because there are fans there crying out for a team - any team - to watch.

But take your example of Wigan. Where actually could Wigan go? To Belfast or Dublin? Possibly. But once those cities have been taken, where else? To become the third team in Manchester? I don''t see that working. To become yet another team in over-populated (in football terms) London? Ditto Birmingham. Or completely away from its roots to rural East Anglia, to try to become THE team in Norwich, with us still in opposition? If I were a rich owner I would be dubious about spending my money on a risky venture like that.[/quote]

Yes CP, some cities do have two or more teams in the Prem. Manchester 2, Birminham 2, Liverpool 2, London 5 but there are plenty of large cities without a Prem team. Nottingham,Leeds, Bristol, Bradford etc all have populations big enough to support a team at that level.

Los Angeles supported two teams in the past. The Rams and the Raiders but the Rams now play out of St Louis having moved there when the Cardinals decamped to Arizona. New York also supports two teams, the Giants and the Jets.

My point about franchises is that owners no longer have a connection to the community and if better facilities were on offer elsewhere and rules permitted, then there is nothing to prevent them moving their teams the same way as in USA. Why wouldn''t the owner of poorly supported Prem team not want to accept a lucrative offer from say Bristol or Bradford? Do you really think the present Bristol City or Bradford City team would compete for crowds and rescources against a team who would be guarenteed to play Arsenal, Man U Liverpool, Spurs etc etc every year with no threat of ever being relegated?

People think we will never move to a closed league system but this was the defacto case for many years with the Football League. It is only in recent years that there has been a promotion and relegation system in operation right through the whole structure of English football. When NCFC finished bottom of Div 3 South in 1956 they did not automatically get relegated. They had to apply for re-election. In effect it was a foregone conclusion as the league was virtually a closed shop and very few teams ever failed to gain re-election. Peterboro tried for years to get elected but always failed because the league clubs tended to looked after their own. If memory serves, they finally got in when Accrington Stanley went bust.

My main point in all this is that when the money becomes concentrated in one league (the Prem) it is inevitable that those clubs will want to protect their own self interest and so will always be tempted to vote for a closed league should the opportunity arise.

 

[Boyo 0]

This cannot happen and probably wont for a long time anyway.  When it does happen (god knows when) it will take so much out of the beautiful british game.  No where in the world has a club system as good as ours with fans as passionate as ours.  Promotion and relegation are the two best things in football and taking that away would ruin evrything.  The next best things are local derbies.  Imagine when it happens and Ipswich are invited and we aren''t, terrible, the biggest game of the season gone, and it would also happen to so many other teams.  It would also mean teams like us, Sheff Wed, Forset and Charlton, who should be doing much better would be playing teams like we are at the moment all the time, rubbish.  I don''t think it will happen for a very long time as there would be to many objections but it will some day and I hope we are part of it, or it will be teams like us, with a great history who end up going down the drain and there will lot''s of folds.

[Boyo 0]

[quote user="ricardo"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"]

The NFL is the pattern they want to follow. Clubs will no longer be part of a community where they are run and owned by local shareholders. They will be franchises owned by rich men with no real attatchment to the area or the fans. Indeed we can see the beginnings of this already happening with the foreign owners of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U etc. How long will it be before owners start trying to move clus to areas with bigger fanbases? We''ve already seen that happen with Wimbledon morphing into MK Dons so don''t think that this cannot happen.

 

 

[/quote]

Someone who knows more about the NFL than I do might be able to answer this, but my impression was that the movement of clubs by owners from one town to another was only feasible because:

1. There are some cities (LA, for example, or New York) big enough to cope with two teams.

2. At any one time there are big cities without teams.

Neither (now that Milton Keynes has a team) of those applies in England.[/quote]

NFL teams move because cities are prepared to compete with subsidised stadiums and other inducements. The "Colts" were poached from Baltimore by Indianapolis and the St Louis "Cardinals" went to Arizona. The famous "Raiders" went from Oakland to LA and back to Oakland again.

Point 1. We have plenty of cities with more than one team. Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol etc

Point 2. There are plenty of big cities and highly populated areas in England without Prem teams, Bristol, Bradford etc.

Don''t tell me that poorly supported Prem clubs like Wigan, Blackburn etc wouldn''t move to a big city if they were offered the same inducements as happens in America and if Premier league rules allowed it. It is almost inevitable that Celtic and Rangers will become Prem clubs in the future. Looking even further out I would not be surprised at all if places like Dublin or Belfast also get Prem teams in the future.

Nothing stays the same forever and money will eventually decide how this all turns out. We can''t stop it, we need to be a part of it and the first step is not to linger very long in League 1.

[/quote]

Ricardo, you plainly are the person I was looking for who knows way more about the NFL than I do! And, just to be clear, I am probably as worried as you are by the power of money and the big clubs and the Premier League and what might happen in the future.

That being said, I am still dubious as to franchising being a problem because I don''t see IN PRACTICE how it would work. The point about English cities being big enough to have two teams is that pretty much most of those cities HAVE two teams already.

You will correct me if I''m wrong but I think LA has supported two teams in the past, but now doesn''t have one. Plainly if someone moved the Cincinatti Bengals, for example, to LA that would probably work, because there are fans there crying out for a team - any team - to watch.

But take your example of Wigan. Where actually could Wigan go? To Belfast or Dublin? Possibly. But once those cities have been taken, where else? To become the third team in Manchester? I don''t see that working. To become yet another team in over-populated (in football terms) London? Ditto Birmingham. Or completely away from its roots to rural East Anglia, to try to become THE team in Norwich, with us still in opposition? If I were a rich owner I would be dubious about spending my money on a risky venture like that.[/quote]

Yes CP, some cities do have two or more teams in the Prem. Manchester 2, Birminham 2, Liverpool 2, London 5 but there are plenty of large cities without a Prem team. Nottingham,Leeds, Bristol, Bradford etc all have populations big enough to support a team at that level.

Los Angeles supported two teams in the past. The Rams and the Raiders but the Rams now play out of St Louis having moved there when the Cardinals decamped to Arizona. New York also supports two teams, the Giants and the Jets.

My point about franchises is that owners no longer have a connection to the community and if better facilities were on offer elsewhere and rules permitted, then there is nothing to prevent them moving their teams the same way as in USA. Why wouldn''t the owner of poorly supported Prem team not want to accept a lucrative offer from say Bristol or Bradford? Do you really think the present Bristol City or Bradford City team would compete for crowds and rescources against a team who would be guarenteed to play Arsenal, Man U Liverpool, Spurs etc etc every year with no threat of ever being relegated?

People think we will never move to a closed league system but this was the defacto case for many years with the Football League. It is only in recent years that there has been a promotion and relegation system in operation right through the whole structure of English football. When NCFC finished bottom of Div 3 South in 1956 they did not automatically get relegated. They had to apply for re-election. In effect it was a foregone conclusion as the league was virtually a closed shop and very few teams ever failed to gain re-election. Peterboro tried for years to get elected but always failed because the league clubs tended to looked after their own. If memory serves, they finally got in when Accrington Stanley went bust.

My main point in all this is that when the money becomes concentrated in one league (the Prem) it is inevitable that those clubs will want to protect their own self interest and so will always be tempted to vote for a closed league should the opportunity arise.

 

[/quote]

If clubs did end up moving do you think we would see some in EA? there are only two teams in EA, Norwich and Ipswich.

[Making Plans 936]

Just seen this posted on BBC 606 website

1. Should the Scottish FA and FL be abolished and all football north of the border brought under the auspices of the English FA and FL?

2. Should the Scottish national side be forced out of existence and all players eligible to play for Scotland be forced to register as English players?

3 Should some English teams look to combine to give themselves larger grounds and fan bases as well as income so that they have a chance to compete in a new Premier league? For example should Ipswich and Norwich combine to become The East Anglian All Stars with a new ground near Telford say? Should Portsmouth be absorbed by a bigger club like Southampton and as a final example should Swansea and Cardiff join forces to become the All Welsh Wonders?

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]For example should Ipswich and Norwich combine to become The East Anglian All Stars with a new ground near Telford say?[/quote]telford ?

[Camuldonum 0]

Like Ricardo I have been convinced for a long time that there will eventually be an elite "closed" League.  I don''t think it will be the current PL in the entirety but certainly big clubs like Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and other major players in Europe would be up for it financially.

It will be hard for all of them to extract much more money from the punters in this country but regularly playing games in China, Japan, India and the Middle East is a whole new ball game (no pun intended).  It will, in my opinion, become a Touring League (with a sponsored strip for each region).  Oh, yes, the possibilities of huge money are almost endless.  While some here may get bored with the PL top of the table domination that will not be the case for people in the regions mentioned watching these stars live.

I have no idea when it will happen but I really do believe it will. 

[CanaryPurple 0]

Ricardo and I will simply have to agree to differ on this. And in10 years'' time we will know who was right.I think (and I know he will HATE this analogy) he is making the Maxwell mistake (otherwise known as the Thames Valley Royals stupidity) of assuming that the American model of sport can be applied anywhere else.Leave aside the irony that in America sport seems to operate not on truly capitalist "ideals" but on socialist (the draft favouring the bottom and the closed circuit system) principles.I have (at great psychological risk) put myself in the mid of a Texas billionaire who has bought Wigan. I STILL cannot for the life of me see where I would move Wigan to. I just don''t see where I would franchise the club. Nor can Trudy, my glamorous expert on UK "soccer".The idea of a closed shop I get. And worry about. But the clubs forming that closed  shop would be the big clubs happy where they were. They would need no franchising.

[ricardo 7,347]

[quote user="CanaryPurple"]Ricardo and I will simply have to agree to differ on this. And in10 years'' time we will know who was right.

I think (and I know he will HATE this analogy) he is making the Maxwell mistake (otherwise known as the Thames Valley Royals stupidity) of assuming that the American model of sport can be applied anywhere else.

Leave aside the irony that in America sport seems to operate not on truly capitalist "ideals" but on socialist (the draft favouring the bottom and the closed circuit system) principles.

I have (at great psychological risk) put myself in the mid of a Texas billionaire who has bought Wigan. I STILL cannot for the life of me see where I would move Wigan to. I just don''t see where I would franchise the club. Nor can Trudy, my glamorous expert on UK "soccer".

The idea of a closed shop I get. And worry about. But the clubs forming that closed  shop would be the big clubs happy where they were. They would need no franchising.[/quote]

We must agree to differ then CP. However, I recall hearing similar arguments when the idea of a Premier League was first mooted. Lots of people buried their collective heads in the sand and said it just couldn''t happen, but it did.

I think we can all see the next possible move with ideas continually being floated about a European League. In the final analysis the big club owners are only motivated by money and to my way of thinking this means that we are in for big changes within the structure of English football.

I won''t predict a timetable but I think it will all come to pass eventually.

[Old Shuck 183]

Hm, yes, the "East Anglian All Stars", rolls off the tongue, doesn''t it?

But playing in TELFORD?

Oh dear!

Norwich and Ipswich "combining" occasionally gets dragged into the mix. Am sure they would be as anti-that happening as we would be. Norfolk n''chance, to borrow a phrase.

"East Anglian All Stars", oh dear oh dear, really....

[norfolkchance1 0]

Names like East Anglian all stars sound like the sort of names Konami use on Pro Evo when they haven''t got an official licence for a team.

How about Merseyside Rangers for Liverpool Everton and Tranmere, or Greater Manchester Globetrotters for all the clubs in Greater Manchester.

These people are just talking pure fiction, remember all the fuss when Wimbledon moved to MK, magnify it by 10 or a 100 for this and all the daft ideas about Rangers and Celtic.

[norfolkchance1 0]

Thats more like it: 1 down 1 to go.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8353937.stm

Now just cut the other stupid idea and lets get back to normal.

[Lord Horn 0]

[quote user="norfolkchance1"]Thats more like it: 1 down 1 to go. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8353937.stm Now just cut the other stupid idea and lets get back to normal.[/quote]

I''ll drink to that!

[B]

[HazzaJet 252]

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]For example should Ipswich and Norwich combine to become The East Anglian All Stars with a new ground near Telford say?[/quote]telford ?[/quote]Personally I think that if we combined with Ipswich the players would form a useless partnership. The East Anglian All Stars would also be a ridiculous name if our stadium was in Telford. It might sound a bit better if you put "Former" in it though

[Barclay hero 0]

[quote user="Jimmy Smith"]

I think Gartside would have a few questions to answer to millions of people if his plan came through and the likes of us, Ipswich, Leeds, Reading, Charlton and so on were ''frozen'' out of top league football forever.
[/quote]

I get the feeling he wont be too bothered if the rest of the country was upset with him.  He wouldnt have to face the fans of Norwich, Ipswich, Charlton Leeds etc any more

[YankeeCanary 0]

[quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"][quote user="CanaryPurple"][quote user="ricardo"]

The NFL is the pattern they want to follow. Clubs will no longer be part of a community where they are run and owned by local shareholders. They will be franchises owned by rich men with no real attatchment to the area or the fans. Indeed we can see the beginnings of this already happening with the foreign owners of Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U etc. How long will it be before owners start trying to move clus to areas with bigger fanbases? We''ve already seen that happen with Wimbledon morphing into MK Dons so don''t think that this cannot happen.

  [/quote]

Someone who knows more about the NFL than I do might be able to answer this, but my impression was that the movement of clubs by owners from one town to another was only feasible because:

1. There are some cities (LA, for example, or New York) big enough to cope with two teams.

2. At any one time there are big cities without teams.

Neither (now that Milton Keynes has a team) of those applies in England.[/quote]

NFL teams move because cities are prepared to compete with subsidised stadiums and other inducements. The "Colts" were poached from Baltimore by Indianapolis and the St Louis "Cardinals" went to Arizona. The famous "Raiders" went from Oakland to LA and back to Oakland again.

Point 1. We have plenty of cities with more than one team. Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol etc

Point 2. There are plenty of big cities and highly populated areas in England without Prem teams, Bristol, Bradford etc.

Don''t tell me that poorly supported Prem clubs like Wigan, Blackburn etc wouldn''t move to a big city if they were offered the same inducements as happens in America and if Premier league rules allowed it. It is almost inevitable that Celtic and Rangers will become Prem clubs in the future. Looking even further out I would not be surprised at all if places like Dublin or Belfast also get Prem teams in the future.

Nothing stays the same forever and money will eventually decide how this all turns out. We can''t stop it, we need to be a part of it and the first step is not to linger very long in League 1.

[/quote]

Ricardo, you plainly are the person I was looking for who knows way more about the NFL than I do! And, just to be clear, I am probably as worried as you are by the power of money and the big clubs and the Premier League and what might happen in the future.

That being said, I am still dubious as to franchising being a problem because I don''t see IN PRACTICE how it would work. The point about English cities being big enough to have two teams is that pretty much most of those cities HAVE two teams already.

You will correct me if I''m wrong but I think LA has supported two teams in the past, but now doesn''t have one. Plainly if someone moved the Cincinatti Bengals, for example, to LA that would probably work, because there are fans there crying out for a team - any team - to watch.

But take your example of Wigan. Where actually could Wigan go? To Belfast or Dublin? Possibly. But once those cities have been taken, where else? To become the third team in Manchester? I don''t see that working. To become yet another team in over-populated (in football terms) London? Ditto Birmingham. Or completely away from its roots to rural East Anglia, to try to become THE team in Norwich, with us still in opposition? If I were a rich owner I would be dubious about spending my money on a risky venture like that.[/quote]

CP, off topic from NCFC I know but, just to add something to the interchange between you and Ricardo on the U.S. perspective, it is a little too simplistic to say "LA has supported two teams in the past." It''s true that LA is the second biggest media market in the United States but neither the Rams or the Raiders were happy with being in LA. For anyone who attended games at the Coliseum they would know it left a lot to be desired. They rarely could fill the stadium. The owner of the Raiders was unhappy there and has not been totally happy since taking the franchise back to Oakland because that has not historically yielded the required payback an owner in California seeks (which is why they moved out of Oakland in the first place ). Presently, owners of other NFL franchises who have a desire to build a new stadium in their current location do not necessarily want a team in LA. They love to use the threat of moving to LA to grease the path to a new stadium in their current city. A threat they could not use if an LA franchise was in place. Of course, there is a lot more complexity to this scenario but Los Angeles will never hit the heights or ability to "fill the stadium" the way the New York franchises can.  

[yellow hammer 0]

Just to add my two cents worth to the mix. I have talked with many football fans across the European continent and there widespread unhappiness that the UK has four national sides competing for entry to the European and World Championships - namely England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, while the other countries, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and so on only are allowed to field a single national team.

Although I argue that it is Football Associations that make up EUFA and FIFA, and as inventors of the game we had Football Associations long before the rest of them ever played the game, there is still a lot of resentment of this fact.

Should Glasgow/Celtic join an English-based Premier League that would mean three out of the four countries all playing under the control of the English FA.

This would then give a lot of ammunition to those who want to see our four countries sending a single British team to the European and World Cup. Michel Platini and the other continentals are no lovers of the English game and would love the opportunity to pull us down a peg or two as they see it.

Glasgow/Celtic in the Premiership could see the end to the England football team.

Just another reason why we should not support this idea.

[CanaryPurple 0]

Thanks, Yankee, for the expert explanation. It had, from a distance, seemed strange that LA was not such a hotbed as one might have expected. However my basic contention remains true, I think. That franchising works in the US because there are more cities (including potential double-team cities) than there are NFL teams. So there are always teamless cities that can seduce a team away from its hometown. And that just doesn''t apply in England.As to yellow hammer''s excellent point, that applies perhaps even more strongly outside Europe. "Third world" footballing countries have for years complained that having four home nations reduces their chances of getting to the World Cup finals.

[Dr. Ink 0]

I can actually see this happening and quickly. The top few established Prem clubs including Manure, Chelski, Spurs, Mancity, Liverpool, Arsenal generally want fewer league fixtures and a larger global audience giving more revenue. Also they will not have to filter any funds down the football tiers below the 2 prem leagues.

The rest of the Prem realistically have the sole objective of remaining in the Prem and by voting "Yes" to the proposal it could guarantee this. Those near the top of the CCC will also be up for this assuming they will be the ones suddenly thrust into the new system of promised riches.

Norwich - Unlikely to be included solely due to the league we''re in.

[pete_norw 0]

Did I dream it or did the idea get thrown out the window yesterday, ? but have to admit I would like the Idea of I UK team but that has as much chance of happening as me becoming director of Norwich city

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote]However my basic contention remains true, I think. That franchising

works in the US because there are more cities (including potential

double-team cities) than there are NFL teams. So there are always

teamless cities that can seduce a team away from its hometown. And that

just doesn''t apply in England.[/quote]It doesn''t at present.  However, if a new league was formed, with only 36 spots and no promotion / relegation then there would be cities that would not be represented within that league.  Maybe franchising might not occur within 5 or 10 years of a Gartside league starting, but possibly after ?

[blahblahblah 2]

[quote user="pete_norw"]Did I dream it or did the idea get thrown out the window yesterday, ? but have to admit I would like the Idea of I UK team but that has as much chance of happening as me becoming director of Norwich city[/quote]Rangers and Celtic being in the Premier League was thrown out.  The 2 league proposal is still being talked about.

[pete_norw 0]

Thanks for that blabla I must be going mentle in the old age

[CanaryPurple 0]

[quote user="blahblahblah"][quote]However my basic contention remains true, I think. That franchising

works in the US because there are more cities (including potential

double-team cities) than there are NFL teams. So there are always

teamless cities that can seduce a team away from its hometown. And that

just doesn''t apply in England.[/quote]It doesn''t at present.  However, if a new league was formed, with only 36 spots and no promotion / relegation then there would be cities that would not be represented within that league.  Maybe franchising might not occur within 5 or 10 years of a Gartside league starting, but possibly after ?[/quote]Blah, I can see that as a very slight possibility. But I suspect that if we ever got to a self-contained 36-team Premier I and Premier II then those three dozen teams will be chosen not on footballing merit but on financial factors.It won''t matter if, say, Sheffield doesn''t have a team in the top footballing 36 when the change comes; the men and women with the money will pick one. So the big footballing areas of population will all be represented.That is one of the reasons why I still cannot see how you are going to be able to franchise a club like Wigan, which was one of the examples given, away from Wigan.

[singing canary 0]

seems a pointless idea .. so teams cant get promotion . surely if thats the case the is no point in playing to start with .

[blahblahblah 2]

Ah, well, with our supporters we''ll be in the 36 regardless then -  we''re 15th best supported club in the country.  I still don''t like the idea though.

[norfolkchance1 0]

Would UEFA or FIFA have a problem with this non promotion idea.

Never heard of it happening anywhere else.