Liverpool MD suggests per-team TV deals.

[Weebull]

Ian Ayre warns of the long-term consequences: "If we carry on sharing that international revenue equally, you are disadvantaging us."

He told BBC Radio Merseyside: "It is a debate that needs to be had on a more collaborative basis between the clubs of the Premier League.

"I am certain that if you are a Liverpool fan living in Liverpool, you subscribe to Sky because you support Liverpool, and if you are a Blackburn fan you subscribe to watch Blackburn.

"So it's probably right and proper that the money in this country is shared the way that it is.

"But if you go further afield then it is a myth that the Premier League is huge.

"It is popular but the clubs that are really popular are the cubs like Liverpool, Manchester United and Arsenal.

"We saw that in Malaysia in the summer. We were 5,000 miles from home and we had 80,000 fans watching us play and 40,000 turning up to watch a training session."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15269831.stm

There aren't enough words to describe what a terrible idea I think this is. The Champions League money (and the original Premiership break-away, in fact) has already distorted the playing field to the extent that you have to ***** hundreds of millions of pounds, like Man City, just to get to dine at the top table. God knows how much worse individual TV deals would make it.

Yes, he's right that there are way more Liverpool fans our in the far reaches than Bolton, or Fulham fans. But isn't it enough that they rake in money from shirt sales and these far east tours? Why feel the need to hoard even more money for themselves?

It's sheer short-termism too. At some point, Spanish football fans are probably going to get very bored by the fact that every Barcelona or Real Madrid game (that doesn't involve them playing each other) is a forgone conclusion, and watch less. Is all that money really going to be worth it, just for the two league games that actually matter? I doubt it.

Apparently Man Utd and Chelsea have already distanced themselves from it (though I haven't seen that officially anywhere yet), which is good. I had a horrible feeling this would appeal to them, and Arsenal. I do not want my team's continued success* to come at the financial expense of nearly every other club in the country.

*Insert your own joke about Arsenal complete lack of success recently here.

 

[Weebull]

edit: I've said before that I'd be in favour of some sort of system similar to what they have in the US (shared revenue etc) however that would have to be implemented throughout Europe or as Ayre talks about, we won't be able to compete with the likes of Real.

I agree, I'd love to see a similar system, which is why I dislike the current setup too. Frankly though, I'm not sure I could care if it makes us weaker in Europe though. Alpherah can go off and watch Barca or whoever's winning if he wants, but I support the club I do because they're my club, no more, no less. I think league wins would be much more important in a more competitive league anyway.

I'd love to see a system whereby all teams in the league had exactly the same amount of money to outlay every season. Make success entirely down to who can put together the best team within the budget, and not just how much they can spend. Any money for finishing positions goes straight to player/staff bonuses. Any income from extra revenue, hell, let the owners and shareholders fill their boots with that, I don't care.

 

[Weebull]

Thats a bit of a silly thing to say in all honestly Weebull, suggesting I'm some kind of glory supporter, who's supported Liverpool since, well, since i can remember. Remind me how great we've been at winning things in the last 20 years?

I'm only teasing . We all know over-hyping your teams chances of winning is practically as good as doing the deed for Liverpool fans anyway.

Me too, but only if its rolled out world wide/Europe wide. Honestly i would hate to see our clubs become insignificant in europe because, like it or not, the CL is the best competition in the world because fans want to see the best players.

Frankly I'm not too sure I'd care. The achievement of winning the league amongst a much more level playing field would be a greater achievement than winning the CL, imo. And if other countries wanted to join our system, heck, we could have our own competition. Sod the rest.

The problem is then it would favor the teams in the London area, they would be able to attract better players due to location.

As DM said, the whole point of a salary cap is that you CAN'T have all the best players at your club, as you won't have the money. So even if the London appeal was enough to win over players on its own, that would only give the capital's teams first dibs on maybe two players each. If your lot proved anything last year, it's that you don't necessarily need the marque names to win things.