The English Premiership is a Cr*p Competi

Am I the one out there in �football-fan-land� who can see The English Premiership for the sham it is?

A foregone conclusion, before a ball is even kicked.

Self perpetuating bore.  

Scottish Football x 2.

Face it - The Premiership is a crap competition, with limited coverage on Sky for supporters of clubs outside the �Big Four�.

In case you haven�t noticed, here�s how biased Television coverage is.

For the first few weeks of the season, in August: Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal get 4 games each and the 5th best performing club from last season, Everton, gets 1!

And Everton fans only get that game courtesy of the fact they are playing Arsenal.    

In-fact what makes the A-League worth watching is the even nature of the teams & even media coverage.     

Sure the standard is high in The Premiership � but who cares when the same-old clubs perennially pick-up the silverware?   

The emperor has no clothes, guys.   

This lack of competition means I�m tuning into The Bundesliga for my European football entertainment and  enjoying The A-League.   

Love to get some feedback from �the great unwashed� on this.

That�s to say the minority of local fans who don�t support a Top Four team (that�s all 10 of you) and those of you who are Kiwi-born followers of the English game.  

Cheers.

Paul.

Always thought it mildly amusing that people took the piss and rattled on about the SFL being sh*t and that only two teams had any chance of winning it (which I agree with, btw) but it's nice to hear someone finally admitting that the EPL is basically the same. Different season, same few teams with any show of winning it.

Hey, whether the Sky coverage comes from N.Z or overseas dictate, from my perspective - who cares? Either way there is a clear bias. I pay my subscription and get to see my team play once.

Everton finished 5th and get one solitary game in August? The 4th club gets four? I can supply further examples if you want them.

Fox Television in Australia covers all A-League games live. Painting The Phoenix as some-how hard-done-by by Aussie TV is a load of cobblers.  

But that�s what makes The A-League a great competition to watch � you can actually get to watch your team play, every minute of every game.  

The German Bundesliga is a much more open competition. Since the English Premiership stated in 1992 just four clubs have taken the title compared to six German clubs over the same period � so to argue Bayern dominate, is simply not true (Dortmond have won three times for example)     

German Football allows only German ownership, so they don�t get the distortions overseas money now brings to The English game.

Yes, they do have the larger clubs, but their top-league is much more of a competition (keep thinking that foreign word �competition� )  

That�s why you can a club like Wolfsburg has a chance of winning, not just a solitary game against the so-called big boys � but the title itself last season.

What chance does a compatible sized club in the Premiership, like say Bolton, stand of winning the so-called Premiership? Nil, nothing, zip, nought.    

Imagine watching a horse-race where only four horses from a field of 20 could win, race-in-race-out?

How could you say that was exciting?  Exciting for who? The punters who have tickets on the �Top Four� and no one else, that�s who!  

The only people who defend the imbalance and lack of competition in The Premiership, just happen to be the supporters of The Big Four (probably about 80% of all football followers in N.Z from my experience)  

The Bundesliga is currently superior competition, whether you want to accept it or not.

Gentlemen, you seem to be getting side-tracked on TV Coverage.

The fact still remains The Premiership, which I need to remind some of you, began in high-hopes in 1992(not 1983) � but is now no better than Scottish Football for its predictability.

It has no depth, uneven and is not a great competition (again I need to mention that word �competition�)     

Clubs like Stoke and Burnley versus Chelsea and Manchester United is like watching Auckland Reactor race a plough-horse.

If you think The EPL is the �best�, as two of you have stated, at least tell me reasons why you think it is better competition than say The German  Bundesliga?  

Again, the only ones who seem to think the EPL is the best � just happen to be the supporters of The Big Four � with a vested interest for this insurmountable overseas money-driven imbalance to continue.

It�s mostly only the zombie-like hordes of ManU, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool Fans who think the EPL is a �great� competition -or- those with English 'blood'.  

Your response is as predictable as the competition itself.

Getting back to my first post - what do other �neutral� fans think?

That�s the adopted Kiwi Wolves and Fulham supporters etc � not the ones who came to N.Z having been born into the game in England.

I would like to hear what these �neutral� Kiwi fans from �the great unwashed clubs� what they think about The EPL?

Do you also feel disenfranchised like me?   

Cheers. 

Paul.     

No.

Thanks for pointing-out something I missed. That�s to say the reason why most so-called fans in this country follow the so-called Premiership is (a.) The team they �support� has a fair-shot at winning a trophy or at the very least 75% of all games (b.) They are from England or have family ties to a club.

You would have thought some local youngsters would have adopted Blackburn with its Kiwi ties � but even kids know damn-well Blackburn (minus its whiskey billionaire)  stands no-chance of being more than mere make-pieces. So that's why my local sport-shop only sells four premiership strips.   

For about one-third of clubs, the season involves around avoiding relegation.   

To indicate a highlight of the season for a fan of say Stoke, Wolves is to win a game against one of the big clubs, is a grand indictment as to what a crap �competition� the EPL is.

Same with those that reminisce about them/dad being at a game where [insert highlight dating back at least a decade or more]     

Who wants to watch game after game of miss-matches, hoping for the occasional fluke-win?  

Wop-de-f@#k!

Sadly, there will be English fans who will never see their clubs win a single major trophy in their entire lives � but this situation suits the Top Four supporters.      

As we saw with Wolfsburg last season, The German league is much more even and less dominated by the almighty euro. It is possible for the less resourced �poorer� clubs to win the league title, unlike the EPL.

Let me prove my point minus as much subjective angles as possible, in a forum of this kind. .  

Odds at bookies to win this seasons Bundesliga show eight clubs (Bayern, Shalke, Wolfsburg, W.Bremen, Stuggart, Dortmund, Hamburg, Hoffenheim) are all paying less than 20 to 1 to win. Only five EPL clubs (Man City now in the picture) are paying less than $20 � and 10 of the 20 are at 1000 to 1 or more. Only four clubs in the Bundesliga are at odds over 500 to 1 and only 1 is at 1,000 to 1. Spurs (rated 6th best chance) are at 150 to 1.

At bet365 Hull, Birmingham and Burnley are at 10,000 to 1. Ten friggin� thousand to one! Put ya house on it!

The bookies clearly think the Premiership is a great competition and has plenty of depth � not!  

Clearly those that run betting agencies need to operate objectively without any bias, they have their livelihoods on the line and don�t survive on glamour, history and pontifications.

Nice chatting.

Paul.       

Fab-point about the lack of investment by the foreign-owned Big Four in home-grown English youth/player development. It�s not a priority to them and their overseas masters when they know they can simply �pick-off� talent from other clubs, top-up the overdraft.      

In this years Champions League, between Arsenal, Man.U and Chelsea, there were just seven English players took the field in the quarter-finals.

FC Schalke, who went out in the round before from memory, fielded seven German players from the one squad.

Bayern (2nd last season) is a big-club in any-ones books, can boast Lahm, Ottl, Rensing and Schweinsteiger as products from their youth system.

What examples can you give from Chelsea?  

The structure of the Bundesliga supports the German national team aspirations � for the betterment of the local game as a whole. One of them is no individual entity can own more than 49% of a club. Rules also keep player costs at no more than 45% of a clubs turnover (compared to 66% in England) This means less player-power.  

The fans also get a say in how the sport is run in Germany e.g. fighting to retain embankments and traditions that have long since disappeared in England.

Whilst the UK revenue overall was twice that in Germany the Bundesliga produced a profit 150 million Euro more last season.  

On average it�s half the price to see a Bundesliga game than an EPL and the crowds are similar in size.

Despite what you read The Bundesliga also can offer fans more goals per game than any other major European League = more attacking football.       

The whizz-bang �great� competition called The Premiership does no favours to the English national team, who failed to qualify for Euro 2008 and are regular under-achievers, despite supposedly operating �the best league in the world�.

Unfortunately for The English game, the clubs supported predominately by Englishmen , owned by Englishmen, developing English players are all �bottom feeders� & operate well below the four (soon to be five) foreign owned, foreign supported glam clubs who lord over-them like some landed-gentry over a feudal serfdom.

Self interest rules.

There-in lies some of the problems in the structure of football in England and why again The Premiership is a crap competition, especially when put up against the current Bundesliga.

Cheers there.

Paul.       

Hello there,

Sorry to point-out the bleeding obvious and to air my views which just happen to differ from your own & clearly you are a bigger-fan than me because you have a tattoo.

So pray-tell where else do I put a post of this nature?

By the way, when I last looked this was New Zealand and not North Korea.

I was expecting my summation would meet with derision from supporters of the �Big Four� � after all it is in your own myopic self-interest to ignore the facts and bask in the self-satisfaction of a system which perpetuates your dominance at the expense of the game as a whole.   

Financial polerisation is the key to your clubs success and one of the main reason why The Premiership a crap-competition & the model for the game is unsustainable.       

That�s why I have directed my post to the (a.) supporters of the other 90 odd clubs in England (b.) Kiwi born followers of the English game.

The Leeds, Southampton, Leicester etc supporters � what do you think about the structure?  

Frankly I don�t care what the fair-weather sailors onboard Arsenal,ManU, Chelsea or Liverpool (this week) think about the governance of the game in the U.K � it�s like debating the age of the earth with a biblical creationist.  

So you go-on ignoring the 3.0 billion pound debt-bomb, lack of English players in the English game, obscene wages, the rich getting richer, lack of depth, overseas ownership, lack of investment in developing players, clubs having a 10,000 to 1 chance of winning etc etc.

You all sit cosy, whilst Rome burns.

Continue to say now �great� the game in England is � when it isn�t.    

Ignore the facts I have provided why the German Bundesliga is a superior competition under superior governance � all of which have been missed whilst you �bury your heads in the sand� and rave on above what a big fan you are by getting a tattoo and the standard "I've been supporting my club since [insert last time your big-four team wasn't in the top half of divison one] I've heard it all before.

If you truly loved the game, as you profess, you would want to see it changed.

See ya.

Paul.