Anything and everything in football is transferable these days. With a long contract or not players can move between clubs willy nilly, as long as the right amount of money is handed over. The same happens with managers and coaches. And we all know what happened to MK Dons. It usually boils down to the cash being offered, but not always.
But as so much is available to be exchanged between clubs (players, staff, fans…) why not everything?
I watched the highly entertaining Championship play off final the other Saturday afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed it. But after the celebrations had all died down (Who knew the Scotch were all massive Blackpool fans?) you can’t help but wonder about next season.
Before the match I heard an interview with Ian Holloway on the radio and he said the same again to the BBC this week. He said that if they won promotion they were not going to go all out to stay up, spending stupid money on players and wages as some clubs had. His preferred option was to get their stadium fully completed, get the training and youth facilities up to a high standard, bringing in just a couple of players to a largely unchanged squad. To me that sounds like he has pretty much raised the white flag on the relegation battle already, and accepted his fate. And that’s more than fair enough. No Blackpool fan would have imagined they’d be gaining promotion at the end of the season this time last year. And I imagine very few would expect them to still be there in another years time. Plenty of clubs have broke the bank trying to get to and stay in the Premier League and failed. They seem set to not do this, and seem almost resigned to dropping back down in a years time.
But what if they were able to transfer the promotion place they won?
Clubs with money to burn with a wealthy backer, such as QPR, would bite their hand off! Sell the opportunity of Premiership football for, say, £50m and pocket the cash. This would give Blackpool the money they require to finish the stadium, improve their training and youth facilities and probably still have a little spare for a player or two. It’d also save the fans from having to endure a season which will offer little joy in terms of victories. Yes it’ll be a great adventure, having the likes of Man Untied, Chelsea, Liverpool and us tip up at their place, but they style of football they play wont give them much joy in the Premiership. They try and pass the ball around, and the way newly promoted teams have managed to stay up recently has been to lump the ball forward and kick lumps out of the opposition (See Stoke City) By staying down in the Championship next season they would avoid this, and who knows, they may well get another crack next season with the club better positioned at staying up. Whoever bought the place would probably also make money as they estimate a club makes £90m, and if the club had deep pockets they would be able to make a far better stab at staying up than Blackpool.
Just a thought.
why not just have ALL 20 spots open? in fact, lets open up every spot in every league for purchase. This is a ridiculous idea from start to finish. FIrst off, do you think they’d keep much fan support through something like this? SUrely blackpool doesnt expect to become man utd but their fans pay good money and im sure they’d love to see the likes of man utd, liverpool chelsea etc in their stadium. It’s one thing to say “avoiding relegation will be tough, we’re not going to overspend to stay up” and en entire other thing to say “right, we dont care about the EPL, we’re going to stay in the championship”. Blackpool is being a rational, reasonable realistic team, unlike your idea
Blackpool will almost certainly come back down in a years time. They’ll grow a lot of fans this year. A lot of them probably youngsters either going along to watch the big boys come to town or at home on Match Of The Day. At the end of the season will they take away a sense of achievement that the club (which thy may well have not even been to see the previous season) made it to the premier league? Or will they take away the memory of getting beat seven nil by Chelsea? Winning one game at home all season? Finishing as the lowest point scoring team in the league history? If that happens they’re quite likely to quickly become disillusuioned and may not return again. However, if they flog thier place they have a chance to finish building the club from the bottom up, preparing themselve for a propper assult on the premier league.
And perhaps if Pompy had managed to stay up they could have sold their place in the top league to help ease their financial problems. It would stop them going out of business ensuring the club would remain in existance. They’d drop down a few divisions, but they’d be back with new owners and be stronger for the experience a few seasons down the road.
You say what about fan support through this? What difference is this from a team who sells their league placing to them selling the crown jewels players at the end of a season? You keep hold of the players, strengthen them even, build the stadium, training ground, youth academy up and then you’ll be up there again next season, but in a far better state than you would have been enableling a far better attempt at survival.
I’m not saying its deffinately coming in next season, or it’s something that should, but why when everything else is for sale these days, shouldn’t the promotions?
I have to admit hat I don’t like it. Yes, its a nice thought but not realistic at all. It just emphasizes the point that Fotball is now completly bout the money. When players get promoted, they don’t want to wait a year! They wan to get stuck in. Also, you make alot of moneythrough promotion with TV appearences, more tickets etc.
Its a nice thought but won’t happen. Although I don’t think Patrick should be that harsh!!
I know it’s not realistic, and it’s probably never gonna happen. Surely the players would rather wait a season and then be able to play in a side, in the Premier League, which stands a more realistic chance of staying up, and not getting humped every week?
As it stands now, with precious few exceptions, the play off finalist is a sure bet to go down. The winner is pretty much resigning themselves to a season of getting whooped week in week out. Thats not good for anybody; players, fans or managers.