Ultras / Firms

[Otherside]

I can see the Celtic March and the Icelandic one, but yeah, others gone it seems.

Went to a few minor league games back when I was living in small town Wales. Proud members of the Welsh Premier League. Not as glamorous as the English or Scottish premier ones. No segregated stands though. Just home and away fans enjoying it together, win or lose.

Was nice to watch a few games where noone felt the need to start a fight over a bloody football match. And because of that, they allowed beer.

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[Cuchculan]

Most times in games like that, come half-time, the fans switch ends of the ground. Something that would never be allowed in bigger games. Happens in non league games in England too. Some non league teams can get big crowds. If they do, the whole switching of ends is not allowed. Wrexham, from Wales, have dropped that far, but still have a huge following. They still play with the English non league teams. With the hope of some day making it back into the third division and rising back up. To think they once used to play in the top flight in England. Their fall was fast. All the good players have to be sold.

Here in Ireland the league is bad. Standard is poor at times. Used to go to games in the 90's. One team we would travel around Ireland with. Home and away games. Always a good bit of craic at the games. The banter and the likes. Nothing worse than a wet Friday night in Tolka park freezing your rear end off.

[Otherside]

All money as well now with the big teams. Had that European Super League nonsense. Look at who owns those teams. Billionaire investors outside of the country. Few Americans. One Emirati Sheikh. A Russian. Big money in football. Decided to try and make more money with the Super League. Sell the rights to the games to the TV Channels, the advertising. Would have interesting if it went ahead. Would UEFA and Premier League have stopped them competing outside of ESL? Rumours the players were threatening to strike. Players would have been banned too, even if they moved. Would have been unable to play for a national team.

Smaller teams? Not so much of that nonsense. Who wants to watch Welsh Town with an difficult to pronounce name play? Noone is going to pay huge money to watch that on TV.

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[Cuchculan]

Hard to explain how it all works. But the smaller teams do depend on the the bigger teams for a lot of theit income. All got to do with TV deals and various other things. Part of it makes its way to smaller teams in other divisions. Had the elite clubs broken away and left the English game, those smaller clubs would have suffered as a result of it. Because of a loss of income.

I thought the right move was made. They were told if they did break away the players involved could no longer play for the countries. The second I heard that one I knew teams would back out of it. Most of what was done the players had no idea about it at first. These were the owners meeting up and talking. The owners don't care about the players. Is a business for them. Most have no idea about football. Was all about money. FIFA made the right call. Banned all the players from playing for their countries and banned all the teams from playing European club football. It worked.

[Otherside]

Definatley agree, the right choice made by UEFA and FA. Fans here were furious. Was big protests over it. Would have been a contest with those six clubs automatically qualifying each year, no merit in it at all.

As for the players? Cant imagine they were to happy about being told theyd be blacklisted from playing for England/there national team. So supposedly considered going on strike.

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[Cuchculan]

These club owners know nothing about football. That is the main problem. To them it is an investment. How can we make the most money out of our new business. It would have been the top few teams in the bigger countries only. If one ends bottom of the new league they could be dumped out of it. Dumped to were exactly? As they would have been banned in their own country. Whole idea was they would leave the door open for more clubs to be promoted to the league. Again this would never work. They had assumed the FA would play ball. Finish top of the top division and you join this super league. Without backing from the FA this simply couldn't work. So you would have the same elite teams years in, year out. People would get bored with it. It was not thought out at all. Fair to say it failed badly.