Should the professional game of football be reduced from 92 teams to 60 teams?

[mrkwxbenn]

My Idea is to reduce professional football to 60 teams as 92 professional so called businesses is unsustainable in realityView attachment Football 2025 premier league.xlsx

Premier League 1
Premier League 2
EFL North
EFL South

All the divisions of 15 teams each

 

[sledger]

Hello Ben

 

[GIMH]

My club is ranked 65th so I veto this

 

[mrkwxbenn]

Yes I appreciate it like Turkeys voting for Xmas but is football sustainable with 92 so-called professional clubs this peiod of isolation should be used to look at how football will be structured in the future.

 

[sledger]

What does "sustainable" mean in this context?

 

[Furball]

Surely if it wasn't sustainable you'd have clubs going to the wall left right and centre?

 

[mrkwxbenn]

My bad.

What is the phrase "The quickest way to turn a big fortune into a small one, buy a football club"

I suppose as long as there are people who want to throw money away owning a football club.

Will just have to see how many clubs go to wall after this virus.

 

[GIMH]

Surely if it wasn't sustainable you'd have clubs going to the wall left right and centre?

Watch this space I reckon. A few lower league vanity projects may be in a bit of bother.

 

[Pothas]

Yeah there were a number of clubs already in real trouble so it would be a surprise if they all survived this. It is down to bad owners rather than there being too many clubs though.

 

[D/L]

Don't we already have few enough professional Association Football teams nurturing enough young, home grown talent with a view to their becoming players good enough to play for our national football teams?

 

[Furball]

Watch this space I reckon. A few lower league vanity projects may be in a bit of bother.

True, I can't imagine Bury and Bolton were alone in being in severe financial distress

 

[cpr]

Macclesfield are basically gone in all but name, think Oldham have had some missed wage payments too - Basically when Ed Woodward is the only chairman in Greater Manchester not facing financial questions, somethings going wrong in the area.

 

[GIMH]

It took going up to expose how badly ran Macc have been for years. Terrible stuff really.

 

[Uppercut]

Would it be a feasible option to let clubs fail and have them resurrected as fan-owned enterprises?

 

[D/L]

Would it be a feasible option to let clubs fail and have them resurrected as fan-owned enterprises?

Probably not; most stadia occupy valuable real estate and would be snapped up by corporations for redevelopment. Some may, I suppose, have potential for resurrection as an Association Football club but fans, other than possibly very rich ones, would be nowhere near to being involved in such an enterprise.

 

[GIMH]

It's what tends to happen lower down anyway, though the Bury situation has been a strange one. I guess because the club still technically exists.

 

[GIMH]

Halifax, Wrexham, Chester, Darlington, Hereford to name but a few

Wrexham the only one there that didn't actually fold and so is still technically the same club. Halifax, Chester and Hereford all still playing at the ground of the old clubs. Not sure on Darlington. But generally all basically regarded as the same club.

Clubs like Middlesbrough and Leeds would have had to reform as new clubs had today's rules been in place when they had their disasters. Same for Rangers if the English rules applied in Scotland.

 

[D/L]

We have here the possibility of many clubs folding at more or less the same time and there being an over-supply of prime real estate. What happened to clubs in the past, on a piecemeal basis, may not happen in such a situation.

 

[Uppercut]

Halifax, Wrexham, Chester, Darlington, Hereford to name but a few

Wrexham the only one there that didn't actually fold and so is still technically the same club. Halifax, Chester and Hereford all still playing at the ground of the old clubs. Not sure on Darlington. But generally all basically regarded as the same club.

Clubs like Middlesbrough and Leeds would have had to reform as new clubs had today's rules been in place when they had their disasters. Same for Rangers if the English rules applied in Scotland.

Yeah I had a few of those examples in mind, but they're obviously not thought of as positive outcomes. Would be interesting to know how the fans feel about it in hindsight.

Interesting about Middlesbrough/Leeds, I never knew that.

I think Rangers might technically be a different club? The Celtic fans went through a phase of calling them "NewCo". Their situation was especially bad, instead of just one club-destroying grifter there were several, each with competing claims to different parts of the club.

 

[Furball]

I think Rangers might technically be a different club? The Celtic fans went through a phase of calling them "NewCo". Their situation was especially bad, instead of just one club-destroying grifter there were several, each with competing claims to different parts of the club.

The footballing assets (ground, history, badge etc) were bought by a new company, hence "NewCo"

Can't say I recognise your description of our demise though. We were destroyed by two people - David Murray, who ran up a shitload of debt and who had used Employment Benefit Trusts to pay our players in the early 2000s. HMRC had ruled use of EBTs illegal and were coming after us for a massive settlement, which put off buyers.

Except for the Shyster who bought us in 2011 - Craig Whyte. Who decided not to bother paying PAYE, which HMRC also came after us for. When we went into administration as a result, HMRC were our biggest creditors by far and went after us for what they thought we owed in EBTs as well, so they were always going to obstruct a CVA to come out of admin.