£113M Madness

it's madness like this that has a knock on affect through the whole game and why so many never will be's are paid a fortune to hardly ever kick a ball.
The game has got to go bang before much longer, it is not a sport anymore and the whole heart of the game has been ripped out.
 
It is indeed madness. £113m and he’s only the fifth biggest transfer fee ever.

But, it’s been madness for years. Fans and pundits alike thought that Shearer moving for £15m was madness back in the ‘90s. The direction of travel in football finances has only been going in one direction.

The bubble hasn’t burst yet and I don’t think it ever will. I think what you’ll see is pure greed taking the wealthiest away to play in a European maybe even global ‘super league’ where the fans really will be forgotten about. The EPL/EFL will soon be regarded as second rate and end up back on terrestrial TV again.

Football is an entertainment after all. Yes, it attracts a different breed of loyalty from its followers than the theatre or people who go to stand up comedy events but it’s its still competing in a crowded market place for people to attend. Throwing more money at the best players is the way to keep interest up, to keep winning games and make the latter stages of tournaments. As well as that there’s huge commercial revenues to be made too. Anyone who thinks that football is a game is kidding themselves. It’s a business.
 
I think it will.

Not adding much to any debate here I realise.

What makes you think that, Pete?

I’ve been hearing that adage for years and it never lets up. The money thrown around at the onset of the PL, Ambramovich’s millions at Chelsea, Neymar’s transfer fee, Middle Eastern oil money, the Chinese silly money league, the wellpaid one-last-job nature of the US league. Sure, there has been bumps along the way that upset the odds every now and again (ITV Digital collapse, Italian referee scandal, Leeds United’s boom and bust), but generally every season sees fees, wages, interest and commercial performance grow. It’s a capitalist’s wet dream. There’s more and more to grow into, more to sell, more to pay out but more to haul in.

Unless we see a terminal decline in interest in football, the bubble will stay strong. It’s not the only leisure pursuit that is bloated with money as TV and movie stars, pop singers and other sportsmen and women are rich beyond their wildest dreams because people keep going and putting their money into these experiences. Hell, even going on YouTube and living your life in public as a professional ‘influencer’ with no discernible talent aside from whoring yourself to any company willing to pay you in cash or kind can secure you a mansion nowadays.

If the bubble is to burst, it’s not just football that will implode. It’ll be because the entire economic system that we know of that’ll come tumbling down. As of 2019, it’s still strong because football is still growing.
 
Pretty sure it was 2-1, first game of the season, and Matt Murphy got the other.

Still the only time I've been to Stoke......
Thanks for the correction, too many game, too few brain cells haha ?
 
What makes you think that, Pete?

I’ve been hearing that adage for years and it never lets up. The money thrown around at the onset of the PL, Ambramovich’s millions at Chelsea, Neymar’s transfer fee, Middle Eastern oil money, the Chinese silly money league, the wellpaid one-last-job nature of the US league. Sure, there has been bumps along the way that upset the odds every now and again (ITV Digital collapse, Italian referee scandal, Leeds United’s boom and bust), but generally every season sees fees, wages, interest and commercial performance grow. It’s a capitalist’s wet dream. There’s more and more to grow into, more to sell, more to pay out but more to haul in.

Unless we see a terminal decline in interest in football, the bubble will stay strong. It’s not the only leisure pursuit that is bloated with money as TV and movie stars, pop singers and other sportsmen and women are rich beyond their wildest dreams because people keep going and putting their money into these experiences. Hell, even going on YouTube and living your life in public as a professional ‘influencer’ with no discernible talent aside from whoring yourself to any company willing to pay you in cash or kind can secure you a mansion nowadays.

If the bubble is to burst, it’s not just football that will implode. It’ll be because the entire economic system that we know of that’ll come tumbling down. As of 2019, it’s still strong because football is still growing.
Always been the case IMO. The betting scandals too. All professional sports clubs are franchises, they're businesses. And? I don't have much of a problem with that and the wages J Felix is getting. I like watching good football.
 
If the bubble is to burst, it’s not just football that will implode. It’ll be because the entire economic system that we know of that’ll come tumbling down. As of 2019, it’s still strong because football is still growing.

A certain amount of prescience?
 

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