Quote:
Originally Posted by dudeosu
I don't follow soccer much at all, what's so wrong with their system (or whatever) that makes them financially unstable?
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I said financially unsustainable, but unstable works too
The main problem is that wages constitute a major part of a clubs financial responsibility. Wages continue to rise higher and higher and higher.
Revenues from things like attendance, prize money for winning competitions and TV money is also rising just not enough to sustain the wage bills.
There is also the problem of over saturation. There are simply too many football clubs competing for fans. I live in a city of 372,000 and we have two clubs in the top flight league and numerous small clubs.
When I lived in Hamburg which is a much larger city the city had five notable clubs.
London is a massive city but has a staggering 14 professional clubs.
European football has never been that bright when it comes to marketing itself. It has always relied on historical popularity to carry it.
Up until the mid 80s uniform makers like Adidas, Puma and Umbro actually
received payments from the clubs in order to to let them wear their uniforms.
Finally someone has the presence of mind to think "wait....aren't we the ones doing them a favor?"
They got into TV deals late and even now days the TV deals are lucrative but the networks are still getting a fairer end of the deal since what they are paying is not the full price of the product they are getting back.
Then there is the problem of promotion and relegation. Being relegated to a lower league kills your finances. Your TV revenue is destroyed, you sell less tickets and generally have to charge less for them and you have players who don't like the idea of playing in less of a league do you have to sell them for less than they are worth.
Those are the main points and dozens of smaller ones. Unfortunately things going to come to a head in a few years and some touch choices are going to have to be made about how things are going to continue.
It will be interesting to watch.