SteMiS wrote:BobbyD wrote:
It's not a perspective it's a fact, for which I provided a reliable source (The PL themselves, in our last discussion). It's a company. It's shareholders are the 20 clubs in the PL at the time in question.
I think it's a very badly run company, on both the footballing and business sides, but a company it is.
That doesn't mean it doesn't act as a regulator, however inconsistently...
It can act like Charlie Chaplin, and frequently does, but that doesn't make it a clown in anything but a metaphorical sense. It's a company which creates and sells a product. Its rules and regulations are decided by its 20 equal shareholders. Its bodies and committees, its structure and dispute handling mechanisms, its contracts and its obligations all come down to its 20 equal shareholders. That's not a regulator, it's a corporate body.
SteMiS wrote:I don't think being a pro market liberal is inconsistent with regulation. The market is full of regulation to prevent dominant actors (like the Big 6, for example) abusing their power to the detriment of the industry and it's consumers...
The financial market regulation is a completely different kettle of fish. There are instances where I agree regulation is warranted, for instance where a company is not only selling a position but making the market on which that position trades (although caveat bloody emptor), or where there is potential for massively leveraged positions to bring down the financial markets and end civilisation as we know it. This is football... It hurts, but no one gets hurt.
You want to talk about financial regulation to prevent a sugar daddy picking up a club, filling its coffers with a near infinite amount of oil dollars and trying to buy every trophy in sight? I'm opposed, but it's a reasonable topic of discussion. There's a couple of problems though. One is we already have FFP, and it obviously doesn't work, and two that actually cements the advantages of the better off clubs rather than undercutting it. But trying to disadvantage a club just because they are successful? Unconscionable. It reminds me of when I was a kid and Tesco was the fifth biggest retailer in the UK. Nobody will ever catch Sainsburys. 30 years later and Tesco are the fifth biggest retailer on the planet and people are complaining that they have an unfair advantage so big nobody else can compete... 20 years ago united were untouchable. Today not so much... Football is supposed to be a competition. Be better at it than other people and you will rise. Sit back on your flabby haunches with your wreath of laurels slipped over one eye and very soon you'll find yourself as a mid-table has been with a crippling wage bill who hasn't won the league in nine years, mentioning no names. If you are better at running a club, better at spotting talent, better at negotiating, better at analysing opposition, better at developing players, better at utilising players, better at turning individuals in to a team then more power to you.