17 Apr 2020 18:08:32
Ed02, when this nightmare is over, life will never be the same again, and all businesses will look at how things are run. One of these will be, in my opinion, unnecessary travel. Do you think clubs will look at flying all around the world, pre-season, to far flung places just to earn a fat buck. This, I'm sure, is one of a multitude of things that will need looking at. Just interested in your view on things. Cheers.

{Ed002's Note - International travel has been, from a business perspective, something of a matter of cost savings for many years and many businesses try and curtail it. Some business understand they are working in a global market place and carry on as though there is no big deal about it. I fly a lot, I suspect well beyond what many of the people here can comprehend, and that will never recede. I have a PA who does most things for me to make my life tolerable, but right now she is seeing the lockdown out in Israel for me rather than working from her home just outside of Windsor. Clubs will be looking to continue as before and I cannot see any that will be looking to cut team travel at all. Clubs will continue to play internationally and whilst it may well take a year or more to start getting fully back to normal, FIFA and UEFA will continue to look to themselves and not consider others. UEFAs recent threats led to the "elite" sites having a WebEx on Wednesday - without UEFA present.

Football needs to decide what sort of restructuring is required. Putting aside any "breakaway" or counter proposal, my fears have always been the vast number of professional clubs there are in England well below the Premier League. I hold a reasonably strong view in terms of the need to restructure football in Europe in any case. Previously I have said that the eventual "breakaway pan-European league" would force the restructuring of many of the national leagues, possibly resulting in a British league with perhaps only a couple of professional tiers and then regionalised amateur leagues below that. Now we have a situation that will change the financial paradigm and may make clubs and authorities look at the situation with lower tier sides regardless.

Financially I do not see that so many pro sides can be sustained within the sport which, like it or not, will see more and more money going in to the highest levels of the game. Governments will ensure that grassroots sport get funding but everything in the middle (Southern, Northern, Conference, Division 2, Scottish Divisions 1-3, League of Wales will not get the funding needed to continue on any sort of professional basis. For me, clubs should already recognise this and put their efforts in to getting their finances in order to see if they can make it to a British professional league that will need to flourish without perhaps six sides that have eventually gone down the pan-European route - and have gone for good (it would be two or perhaps three initially) or even separation from the Premier League and Championship.

Clubs like Accrington Stanley will need to carry on as amateurs or face extinction (yet again) like Bury. Recently Hartlepool has been struggling - again it needs to adapt. The mighty Third Lanark have started their long journey back to the top - it can be done. These are all proud clubs with a history.

The game has changed significantly and will continue to do so whether the supporters of certain clubs like it or not. Football at the highest level is big business and attracts the sponsorship it does because the sponsors wish to tap in to the disposable income of the fans and ride the back of the advertising that flows naturally from the success some clubs achieve. Long gone are the days of the cloth-capped, hobnailed-booted, chimney sweep making his way, rattle in hand, to cheer on his team at Anfield on a Saturday afternoon. I have explained that there will be changes, probably within the next 8 to 10 years, which will force the restructuring of all of the leagues in Europe and likely do away with the likes of UEFA. You will have the opportunity to see the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Juventus and the other major European sides play in week-on-week regular competition at The Emirates, St James Park, Stamford Bridge or wherever. Fans of the sides who take the plunge will have the opportunity to visit cities such as Milan, Barcelona, Munich, etc. every couple of weeks to watch their team play. If you want to don your cloth cap, have a pint of wallop with your chums before going off to the local match through the grim, wet and cobbled streets of the Northwest of England where there is smog, dead & dying pit ponies laying on the street and only chips and fried curry to eat., perhaps one of the sides from the suburbs will have survived so the Liverpool and Everton supporters can go and watch them?

This will be a case of getting with the game. I will try to referred to this as the "Post Apocalyptic Zombie Scenario" from now on.}


1.) 17 Apr 2020
17 Apr 2020 19:51:02
Many thanks for your brilliant reply, Ed02. Much appreciated.

With regards to my point on travel. Shouldn't clubs be factoring in their carbon footprint, moving forward? Or don't they care?

{Ed002's Note - Most don’t care - basketball team in the States pay the offset. Not sure many others do.}


2.) 17 Apr 2020
17 Apr 2020 20:42:57
Ed002.

What’s your profession that requires the extensive travel.

{Ed002's Note - Gentleman adventurer and retired rodeo clown.}


3.) 17 Apr 2020
17 Apr 2020 21:16:52
Ed02, with regards to your life as a "gentleman traveller" do you not care about your own carbon footprint? Countless people are saying during this lockdown that technology, nowadays, shouldn't necessitate circumnavigating the globe when one can just sit in front of a laptop to tell someone to sack Brenda in accounts.

{Ed002's Note - I “appreciate” the damage I am doing and depending on who books my travel the offset is paid - probably more often than not. I do what I can from my office by spent 226 days in hotels last year.}


4.) 18 Apr 2020
18 Apr 2020 09:20:01
Rome for air travel the only people that can make a difference are the airlines by offering less flights.

If Ed002 didn’t fly last year all those flights would still be taking off unless he has a private jet.


5.) 18 Apr 2020
18 Apr 2020 09:54:19
WYred, if there was less demand for flights, airline companies wouldn't fly empty planes.


6.) 18 Apr 2020
18 Apr 2020 13:44:18
Some airlines are upping their game in terms of carbon offsetting projects. Work is being done to develop electric planes but batteries are a way off being sophisticated enough yet.

Demand for flights will never go away.


7.) 18 Apr 2020
18 Apr 2020 14:49:58
Never say never. The world is changing Shaq.


8.) 18 Apr 2020
18 Apr 2020 16:13:08
Question for ed2 please in the event of a pan European break away league and the beginning of a british league, do you think teams from the Republic of Ireland (although not British) might be included in this league? The appetite for British football over here might make it financially advantageous for such a league? Thanks in advance really appreciate your input and knowledge on this site.

{Ed002's Note - Firstly, I think that it is great that the League of Ireland allows clubs from Northern Ireland in, but I think they may well need to integrated further to make it viable - but certainly the matter has been raised in the past, as has integration with Scotland. But unfortunately the politics of the situation could potentially get in the way.

Already we see such stupidity as the Olympic Game where a "Great Britain Olympic football team" represents the UK rather than just Great Britain - and at one point there was a discussion that it should not be allowed at all as there was no GB or UK league.

When eventually the leagues in Great Britain need to reorganise, they should (in my view) include the whole of Ireland howevermuch a bold move it is. The problem will likely be the inability of Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland politicians. But I would like to see it happen.}


9.) 18 Apr 2020
18 Apr 2020 19:29:08
To ask what seems to me the obvious question. Are Liverpool 1 of the 6 looking to go into a pan European league?

{Ed002's Note - Liverpool are not included in the group of 21 “elite” European sides.}


10.) 18 Apr 2020
18 Apr 2020 16:59:56
Thank you so much for your reply and I totally agree with you that it would be politics that's gets in the way but I feel it would add such a different dinamic to a said league people from across all borders would be behind it! Thanks again.

{Ed002's Note - So would I.}


11.) 19 Apr 2020
19 Apr 2020 12:19:03
The concept of a breakaway league has always upset me, regardless of whether Liverpool were to be involved or not. This period without football though should, I think, act as some small warning to those still looking to wring every last penny from the game. Perspective and time away from the game has made me and a few others that I know of reflect on the fact that I don’t quite miss the game as much as I thought I would, and when football eventually resumes it will presumably not be in front of packed stadiums - and I hope that that will emphasise the importance of the fans.
I don’t mean to sound like a Luddite, but ‘progress’ isn’t always a good thing.


12.) 19 Apr 2020
19 Apr 2020 16:43:12
I'm more interested in how you get into the "elite" gang? Invite only? Yearly subscription fee? Recent trophy haul? How rich your owner is? Maybe if we actually knew who these "elite" clubs were we could draw our own conclusions?


13.) 19 Apr 2020
19 Apr 2020 19:18:22
Derry playing in the League of Ireland isn't so great when you factor in that they were forced out of the Northern Irish league in the 70s for what are best described as 'political reasons'.

There is a bit of a push starting in the Republic to have an All-Ireland league, but honestly I don't think the money works. Especially for clubs in the North who'd have much greater travel costs and based on results in Europe and the various attempts at an all-Ireland cup competition in the past few seasons, most of them wouldn't last in the top division with clubs from the Republic to compete with. Not sure it'd do the likes of Wexford and Galway any favours to be going up to Belfast and Ballymena a few times a season either. The IFA are wholly uninterested. Now if it was bundled as a product with a decent TV deal (from who I have no idea. I've seen Asian markets suggested, but they're hardly that bothered with semi-pros they've never heard of? ) that could fork out a decent wedge of prize money, it'd be different. Certainly the League of Ireland needs something anyway.

Hadn't thought about Ireland as part of a pan-British Isles league. Not sure how well it'd work. In terms of structure, facilities, finances etc. surely most Irish clubs are behind current League Two sides in the UK and there'd need to be a lot of money involved to bridge the gap. It might work out for some clubs after some short term pain.

{Ed002's Note - I am not sure how far behind they would be - particularly when you take account of the Scottish clubs.}