• 4 Apr 2024, 11:14 p.m.

    Strange to see Fulham's broadcast revenue so much lower than everyone else's. Are they not chosen for TV as much? Or does this include their own pay to view income too (and they're crap at it?).

  • 4 Apr 2024, 11:17 p.m.

    You're looking at it the wrong way.

    Those charts are absolute validation of the business model being pursued by EPL.

    The Sky 6 are massive and that's what sells the league to armchair fans around the world. They love the fact ' their' team is big as those charts show. And they throw their money at the TV subs because of it.

    The other 14 teams might as well be called Team 1, Team 2 etc, they are irrelevant to the business model.

    You and I see those charts and get depressed. EPL chiefs and 99% of ' fans' worldwide see them and love them.

  • 4 Apr 2024, 11:20 p.m.

    You can repeat that every week. It won’t happen.

    I’m touched by the romantic naïveté of talkback right now…yearning for some Corinthian past and a business model that is destined to failure.

    Why do I say that? People. That’s why. Anyone who’s been involved in grass roots sport knows what I’m talking about.

    By the way, before I get the wrath of all and sundry. I’m a great believer in the beautiful game. As Socrates* said “Beauty comes first. Victory is secondary. What matters is joy”

    *the beardy chain smoking medic captain of Brazil.

  • 4 Apr 2024, 11:23 p.m.

    With the exception of the TV stuff, you've mostly just described non league football.

  • 4 Apr 2024, 11:27 p.m.

    That's where my interest is growing.

  • 5 Apr 2024, 2:35 a.m.

    You can have elite sport, or you can have sport that is not massively distorted by money. I don’t think you get to have both.

    Scum like Forest can try to be in the elite league where, barring miracles, the best we get is the chance to test ourselves against the best teams and players in the world a dozen times a season. Sometimes we’ll beat them and that will be nice.

    I’m all for the top sides fucking off to a closed super league.. but what we’ll be left with is basically the Championship. The income levels will fall dramatically for the clubs left behind, billionaires will lose interest, and good players will leave as soon as they get the offer.

    You wanna even the PL out? You need salary caps that everyone can spend up to. This will not be a thing unless, at the very least, the Spanish, Italian, French and Germans all sign up to it.. and all accept there will be more leakage of players to mercenary leagues as a result. And this won’t happen because the richest clubs in all these leagues don’t want it to.

    PSR was never intended to deliver competitive leagues… even in theory. It is nominally to stop clubs going bust from overspending. Obviously it’s not going to stop that, and it’s design is clearly anti-competitive.. but whilst you can argue for changing the rules so they do what they are supposed to do.. no point expecting them to address a problem that was never on the table in the first place.

  • 5 Apr 2024, 8:16 a.m.

    So to conclude there are 2 certainties in supporting Forest in the Premier League:

    1)You're gonna win fuck all
    2) Accountants

    Cosmic.

  • 5 Apr 2024, 8:44 a.m.

    Except that non-league has all that other part of the pyramid above it. Much as I enjoy a trip into non-league it's a different scale, which is both a positive and a negative. The EFL as the professional league in the country would have better financing than non-league currently does and better quality. It wouldn't attract all the money of the Premier League but it would still have the support of domestic football fans. The quality would obviously suffer compared to the Premier League, in terms of the talent on show, but the competitiveness would increase for most clubs. I enjoy a trip to Ilkeston to be part of a crowd of several hundreds, but Forest would still get crowds of several thousands in a truly domestic league. Wages would come down, we would lose the top echelon of players, but we'd still have players like Yates, Worrall and better to watch, people would still want to be footballers and football fans.

  • 5 Apr 2024, 9:10 a.m.

    Speaking of non league. Brigg Towns captain just made his 200th appearance. Club went to town. His kids were mascots, guard of honour from both teams. Loads of messages of support from teammates, including my favourite, a former player who joined a rival doing his message in a Brigg town top!
    Imagine the uproar if MGW did a congrats message to Jose Sa, but wearing a Wolves top.
    Zebras want £80 to sponsor a players shirt next season. Quite tempted.

  • 5 Apr 2024, 9:27 a.m.

    Maybe they’ll bring back the Simod Cup. We’ll win that.

  • 5 Apr 2024, 11:35 a.m.

    And the Guinness soccer sixes.

  • 7 Apr 2024, 4:35 p.m.

    As well as everton's likely punishment being announced tomorrow, it's also the date we should find out the timeline for our appeal.

  • 8 Apr 2024, 1:57 p.m.
  • 8 Apr 2024, 2 p.m.

    Two points for a second infraction? I mean what the fuck? We got four for sneezing!

    This is a joke.

    Chicago: Having a mardy.

  • 8 Apr 2024, 2:03 p.m.

    It's a "we're bored of this shit, I wish we'd never started this" punishment.

  • 8 Apr 2024, 2:04 p.m.

    Breach is £16.6m. Haven't read the full judgement but I think that implies a one year overspend of about £21m over the allowed £35m.