Reds Fight The Blues

Wigan Athletic chairman Dave Whelan has said that Liverpool's 'scandalous' call for clubs to be able to sell their own overseas TV rights would 'kill half the Premier League.' Liverpool managing director (and greedy waste-of-space cock-bucket) Ian Ayre believes that the current system - where overseas Premier League revenues are shared equally between the twenty Premiership clubs - is 'unfair to bigger teams.' What this has to do with Liverpool who've finished seventh and sixth in last two years in the Premier League is, frankly, beyond this blogger but, there you go. Probably some of that 'wacky Scouse humour' were always hearing so much about. Like Tarby and Stan Boardman and his 'fokkers.' Hilarious. Whelan said: 'I have just read his [Ayre's] comments and I find them diabolical - I just can't believe what he has been saying. It is absolutely scandalous. It would kill Wigan Athletic. It would kill Blackburn.' Liverpool would need at least thirteen other clubs' support for any changes to be made. But Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea are all understood to be against it - at least, publicly - and so is just about everybody else with half-a-frigging-brain in their head. The league's rights deal, which expires in 2013, is worth £1.4bn. Ayre wants to adopt the Spanish model of total and utter shit-faced greed, where individual clubs have the freedom to negotiate their own packages based upon their global popularity. Which, for the purposes of this argument seems to mean 'how many cheap and nasty replica tops we sell each year in Malaysia.' Ayre believes that it would generate far more money for 'the top teams,' allowing them to recruit the best players and 'stay competitive in Europe.' And, he believes that Liverpool somehow qualify as one of these 'top teams' who 'can't stay competative' apparently, purely because his team does sell lots of cheap and nasty replica shirts in Malaysia. Despite the fact that - as noted - Liverpool haven't even finished in the top four of the Premier League for the last two seasons. So, essentially, this jumped up little insignificant squirt reckons, despite actual league position, that Liverpool are one of a so-called 'Big Four' in England. One imagines Manchester City at the very least, and Tottenham Hotspur at a push, might both have something to say about that piece of rank and arrant glakery. The Latics chairman Whelan - someone never short of an opinion, on pretty much anything. often (though not in this particular case) nothing whatsoever to do with him or his club) - is quoted by several newspapers as saying: 'It is the "American Dream," this?' Which isn't, actually, a proper sentence, but never mind. 'They are thinking "How can we get more money?" But you won't get more money by killing the heart and soul of the Premier League and of football in England. The worst thing for English football is for teams like Liverpool - the Top Four let's say - who want to get rid of virtually half the Premier League. We will finish up like the Spanish league with just two teams in it, no competition, no anything, no heart and soul in the league. What we have is the finest league in the whole world and what Liverpool are calling for would absolutely wreck it. The likes of Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn, Wolves, Sunderland and Newcastle couldn't compete.' Latics manager Roberto Martinez agrees, arguing that the Spanish model has 'not worked' in his native country. 'Real Madrid and Barcelona are getting richer and the others are finding it harder, year by year, to compete. That is great for the two football clubs but no good for the league. The good thing we have [in England] is the competitive edge. That is there for a reason. We should realise why.' Asked whether fans in Spain are starting to get bored by the dominance of their own Big Two, Martinez said: 'Yes. They end up supporting Barcelona or Real Madrid. They don't support their own [local] teams because they are not competing. You end up splitting Spain into two football teams. The league suffers.' Liverpool don't, really seem to have any supporters in this thing, with other clubs scrambling to distance themselves from the proposals and the Sports Minister Hugh Robertson believing that the 'provocative' idea would 'lead to an erosion of the competitiveness of domestic football.' Robertson continued that the Premier League, which he describes as the country's 'greatest sporting export,' would not be best served by Liverpool's idea. So, here's an idea for Ian Ayre, then: Why don't Liverpool simply sod off and set up their own one-team league so they can win it every year? Let's see how many replica shirts you can sell in Malaysia then you plank.

The Greed Roadshow

A spokesperson for Liverpool football club has suggested that it will challenge the arrangement which sees Premier League clubs share equally the billions earned each season from overseas TV rights deals. 

Ian Ayre, Liverpool's managing director, said that change to the established broadcast deal, worth around £3.2bn to all twenty Premier League clubs from 2010 to 2013, is a 'debate that has to happen.
' The Anfield club would prefer to move to the Spanish La Liga model, which enables Spain's top teams - Real Madrid and Barcelona - to negotiate their own, extremely lucrative contracts with foreign broadcasters. 

The Premier League has focused on collective selling of TV rights since its inception in 1992, involving each club getting an equal share but with bonus amounts awarded for finishing in higher positions. Any change to this system would most likely anger smaller clubs worried at the potentially widening gulf between them and the top teams. In the last round of negotiations, the Premier League was able to more than double international revenue from TV rights, from six hundred and twenty five million smackers in 2007 to 2010 to £1.4bn for 2010 to 2013. Action from the league is now shown in two hundred and twelve countries - which is pretty good considering there are, according to the United Nations, only two hundred and four countries in the world - via ninety eight broadcast partners. It is widely expected that the next deal will be even bigger. But Ayre believes that the 'big four' clubs - by which apparently he means Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal - should be able to tap into their own popularity overseas to sell TV rights. The arrogance of which would be staggering were it not for the fact that it's pretty much what we've come to expect from these jokers. And, by the way, if we're talking about a 'big four' in England then why are either Liverpool or Arsenal in there when Manchester City aren't? I'm just saying. 'Personally I think the game-changer is going out and recognising our brand globally,' the Liverpool managing director swaggeringly told BBC Radio Merseyside using that dreadful 'global market bollocks-speak so loathed by the vast majority of football supporters. You know the people who - in theory, at least, pay your sodding wages, Ian. Of course, as the vast majority of the pimps, the liars and the thieves who run our football clubs will be delighted to tell us, gone are the days when fans coming through the turnstiles can dictate pretty much anything to the - frequently absentee - chairmen and directors who have wormed their way into the heart of the game. But, as we've noted on this blog many times in the past, you can bet your bottom quid that if next Saturday nobody turns up at any Premier League match all of them, collectively, would shit in their own pants and run a mile looking for a way out. 'Maybe the path will be individual TV rights like they do in Spain. There are so many things moving in that particular area,' he continued. Sadly, ladies and gentlemen, this is exactly what's killing football. The measure of a club's success or failure is no longer anything to do with how they perform on the field but, rather, how many cheap and nasty replica shirts they sell in Malaysia. That's why Premier League clubs attract the owners they do - the floggers of mucky mags, dodgy sports gear that falls to pieces when you get it home or shady foreign wide boys out to make a quick killing. Either that or, in the case of two or three, a play thing for a man with more money than sense until they get bored with it and want to play with something else. Greed is what runs English football now, dear blog reader. Greed mixed with fear of failure. Everybody's scrambling to get to the big table for their lick from the trough but, a few of those who've been there for a while don't want to share their  moolah with Norwich and Swansea, with Blackpool and Hull. They want it all to themselves. And, what's more, they don't want Sunderland to have much either. Or Newcastle. Or Everton. Or Stoke. And, certainly not Fulham, Wigan or Bolton. Because they're nothing. Little squirts whom the big boys kindly allow to tread the same field as them. But, heaven help them if they start getting all uppity with ideas above their stations and actually go to Anfield and give the Thieving Scouse Schleps a beating. That's just not part of the plan. In the playground we call such filthy, full-of-their-own-importance bastards what they actually are, bullies. Ayre added: 'What is absolutely certain is that, with the greatest of respect to our colleagues in the Premier League, but if you're a Bolton fan in Bolton, then you subscribe to Sky because you want to watch Bolton. Everyone gets that. Likewise, if you're a Liverpool fan from Liverpool, you subscribe. But if you're in Kuala Lumpur there isn't anyone subscribing to Astro, or ESPN to watch Bolton, or if they are it's a very small number. Whereas the large majority are subscribing because they want to watch Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal.' Have you ever noticed, dear blog reader, how whenever anybody uses the phrase 'with the greatest respect too...' they're about to say something staggeringly disrespectful to someone? T'was always thus. So, well add rude to arrogant and greedy, then. 'So, is it right that the international rights are shared equally between all the clubs? Some people will say: "Well you've got to all be in it to make it happen." But isn't it really about where the revenue is coming from, which is the broadcaster, and isn't it really about who people want to watch on that channel? We know it is us. And others. At some point we definitely feel there has to be some rebalance on that, because what we are actually doing is disadvantaging ourselves against other big European clubs.' Oh boo-hoo. My heart sodding bleeds for you. This, remember, is from a club that could afford to spend thirty five million smackers on Andy Carroll just eight months ago. I don't see you being too 'disadvantaged,' you disgraceful Scouse chancers. For the breakaway to go ahead, it would require fourteen of the Premier League's twenty clubs to back the move - so that means it's never going to happen. Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson recently claimed that clubs should get more from overseas rights, but also said that the collective bargaining system was 'fair.' It it also the case that La Liga's individual system has attracted much criticism within Spain and elsewhere due to the ease with which Real Madrid and Barcelona have gained a massive financial advantage over their rivals. But Ayre believes that the current situation in the Premier League risks the so-called 'top clubs' (and, once again, let us marvel at the fact that he's including his own in that bracket) from 'losing ground' on their overseas rivals. Which, coming from a club that haven't been in the Champions League for either of the last two seasons because they finished seventh and then sixth and behind the likes of Tottenham Hotshot, Sheikh Yer Manchester City and, on one occasion Aston Villains, in the Premier League might suggest that they should be thinking about getting their priorities right before they worry about 'the top clubs in Europe.' They could start by winning their next couple of matches and getting past yer actual Keith Telly Topping's beloved (though still unsellable) Magpies and into fourth place in the Premiership. Cart before the horse, guys, cart before the horse. 'If Real Madrid or Barcelona or other big European clubs have the opportunity to truly realise their international media value potential, where does that leave Liverpool and Manchester United?' Love the way this clown has suddenly started speaking for another club. One that actually has been in the Champions League for the last two years. As have Real Madrid and Barcelona. Which, just to repeat, Liverpool have not. Because - in the words of Andy Cameron - they 'didne qualify.' Which was funny, frankly. 'We'll just share ours because we'll all be nice to each other?' he said, sarcastically. 'The whole phenomenon of the Premier League could be threatened. If they just get bigger and bigger and they generate more and more, then all the players will start drifting that way and will the Premier League bubble burst because we are sticking to this equal-sharing model? It's a real debate that has to happen.' Greedy effing Scouse whingers. Some things, it seems, never change.