The Round Ball Game - II

[LMcD]

Just watching John William Henry II apologise to us, the Liverpool fans, on the lunchtime news. Paraphrase "We should have known we could never do it without the support of the fans..."

I feel exultant today. WE DID IT! WE WON!

Anyone who protested - here or other social media, fanzine websites, signed petitions, banners outside stadia, Klopp and the Liverpool players who spoke out quickly, Carra and Neville, managers and other famous footballing figures - we can feel proud. And it was the UK fans who led the way!

I love this beautiful game! It is our game! Let battle be rejoined for footballing honours! Foxes for the Cup! The top four chase continues....and Real v Chelsea, PSG v City...will have their precious, historical resonances after all....

Ipswich for mid-table!
As for the ESL - why can't the 3 remaining teams play one another every week?

[DracoM]

<< Just watching John William Henry II apologise to us, the Liverpool fans, on the lunchtime news. Paraphrase "We should have known we could never do it without the support of the fans..."

I feel exultant today. WE DID IT! WE WON! >>

Phew!!

.......by the skin of our teeth - and the upfronting by such as Jordan Hnderson.

[Mario]

That'll be Mansfield Town, presumably!

Very good LMcD!

But also...

Those damn upstarts, the Peacocks! We put six past them!

Mario

[jayne lee wilson]

Ipswich for mid-table!
As for the ESL - why can't the 3 remaining teams play one another every week?

It would certainly be easier to win the Champions League without them! But I guess they'll be back later today...

Those Investigative Journalists should be getting busy for the full-length drama-documentary......"Three Days in April....The Coup that Never Came"....it practically writes itself ((Cut from New York - to Madrid - to Klopp Press Conference & Milner - to outside Stamford Bridge....)
- so long as you can identify the personnel in the High Castles of Power.....

Other title ideas welcome!

[LMcD]

It would certainly be easier to win the Champions League without them! But I guess they'll be back later today...

Those Investigative Journalists should be getting busy for the full-length drama-documentary......"Three Days in April....The Coup that Never Came"....it practically writes itself - so long as you can identify the personnel in the High Castles of Power.....

Other title ideas welcome!

The April Fools
The Return Of The Dirty Dozen
The Tale of the Bonkers Bankers
J P Morgan And The Half-Baked Project

[eighthobstruction]

....Oh nice statement from Bill Henry.... ( he did do this with his investment company too [2012?]; decimating stock pricing , but rose again)....

[cloughie]

The April Fools
The Return Of The Dirty Dozen
The Tale of the Bonkers Bankers
J P Morgan And The Half-Baked Project

Or ‘They wanted to do what?’ But we can be sure they’ll be back with some other ‘slightly more sellable idea.

[vinteuil]

Or ‘They wanted to do what?’ But we can be sure they’ll be back with some other ‘slightly more sellable idea.

... there is an excellent article by Matthew Syed in The Times today pointing out the astonishing hypocrisy of the reactions of FIFA and UEFA, the Premier League and the Champions League in all this - their greed having in his view ruined the game ages ago. And he concludes :

"The Super League has been arriving by stealth and increment for years, with football reshaped in ways that have disenfranchised most fans while being welcomed by many of the insiders who are now screaming blue murder. And this is why it is likely that the ESL proposal will re-emerge in amended form soon enough — if not with razzmatazz and controversy, then via a more slippery process with the governing bodies onside. For isn’t this what sport has become in a globalised age? And I, for one, don’t see any obvious appetite for change from those who run the game."

.

[Mario]

For Spurs supporters - Cityzen Kane

For Utd supporters - The Hunt for Red Ed

For Liverpool supporters - You’ll never win

For Man City supporters - We don’t need no regulation

For Arsenal supporters - Kroenke Kroenke gives us a five

For Chelsea supporters - From Russia with love


Mario

[eighthobstruction]

.....yes v, but I would consider myself a failure if I had to think of private equity deals + add ons +Shell companies, temporal and quantitative earning, tax fiddles all day....let them have their fun, I am glad that the circles in which they move mean i will never have to meet them....everything now adays is monetised and commodified....

[jayne lee wilson]

Or ‘They wanted to do what?’ But we can be sure they’ll be back with some other ‘slightly more sellable idea.

And we'll protest, the players and managers will protest, and WE WILL WIN AGAIN!

Sometimes it is best to protest from inside the inferno. Suppose Klopp or Milner or Henderson (God Forbid!) had resigned immediately - they would have had less clout, not more.

I'm a former academic; latterly a businesswoman; I see how these things can go. Often very unpleasantly; but you keep fighting.

You think Klopp didn't press the case, passionately, behind the media scenes? I bet he did. He said right away in those early press conferences that he would not resign but talk to the owners about it...
He's the most adored and devoted Liverpool Leader since Paisley. And one of the most intelligent, coming from the more democratically organised Bundesliga.
I'd love to read the transcripts of Klopp, Henry and the Owners. I truly suspect we have a lot to thank him for, now and in the future...

Support your team; show them the love; don't surrender to defeatism; never give up. I'm still laughing today, feeding the Stray Cats & knocking back the cognacs...

[DracoM]

And for the crappy owners? I hope 'Cold Comfort Farm'?

[Frances_iom]

And we'll protest, the players and managers will protest, and WE WILL WIN AGAIN!
...

I somehow doubt it - Syed is I think correct - Football, like pop-music, is just a branch of the entertainment industry - players, even teams, are just like bands to be bigged up so the fans( ie those that provide the crowd noises in the TV shows) think they matter but in reality it is the big money from a global TV audience, probably Chinese as the Yanks sewed their market up years ago - the stupid, and in many ways obscene wages, paid to those who can kick a ball merely act to restrict entry to the lucrative end of the market

[LMcD]

Or ‘They wanted to do what?’ But we can be sure they’ll be back with some other ‘slightly more sellable idea.

The Revenge Of The Fat Cats?

[jayne lee wilson]

I somehow doubt it - Syed is I think correct - Football, like pop-music, is just a branch of the entertainment industry - players, even teams, are just like bands to be bigged up so the fans( ie those that provide the crowd noises in the TV shows) think they matter but in reality it is the big money from a global TV audience, probably Chinese as the Yanks sewed their market up years ago - the stupid, and in many ways obscene wages, paid to those who can kick a ball merely act to restrict entry to the lucrative end of the market

Respectfully Frances, you've missed the point here: in Liverpool, Turin, Madrid, Milan, Montevideo and elsewhere, they really do matter; football runs deep in the cities' culture, has done, for decades; and anyone who plays for or manages or owns those clubs will soon run into trouble if they don't know that and how to relate to them. Think of Maradona in Napoli.
In fact, the "crowd noises in the TV shows" actually prove that point, not that the fans are in any way dispensable; the soundtrack is a shallow substitute, but it is pretty miserable watching Covid-era football without that noise (not that it stopped us, devoted as we are!) - the deep breath of passionate support and hope.

All battles for human rights, on any and every cultural, LGBT or racial level, usually win only partial victories which have to be rejoined again and again. Look at the USA on the News today: A battle has been won (again) but it will return; all that matters is - someone stood up, again and again; and made their voices heard, individually and collectively; some lives may improve because of that.

This Super League debacle is over for now, probably for some years; it will never come back in the same form. Practically speaking, the Champions League reforms due for 2024, which will improve the chances of lower-ranked sides, will actually prevent any further such loveless ignorant ambitions. (The German Model of club ownership seems some kind of ideal; to implement it here, much harder. But it is out there.)

The Covid-era itself will pass, although the world will be changed.
But the repercussions of all this may well be long and deep...to predict their effects, much harder...