Topic: Bolton's Gartside: Scrap Relegation and Bring In Salary Cap

[rafathegaffa83]

Looks like Bolton's chairman is worried they won't be staying in the league much longer. The relegation comment is stupid, as it would make the league far more boring, corporate and stale. Relegation battles are incredibly enjoyable things to watch as a neutral, as the season flickers its dying embers in April and May.

Gartside calls for two-tier Premier League and curb on foreign tycoons
Martyn Ziegler
The Guardian, Friday October 24 2008

One of the most senior figures in English football has called for revolutionary changes to the Premier League. Phil Gartside, the Bolton Wanderers chairman and one of the longest-serving in the top flight as well as a member of the Football Association's board, is proposing a two-division Premier League be set up, and perhaps even with no relegation to the Football League.

Gartside has also demanded that club owners be protected from foreign tycoons and for consideration to be given for players to be wage-capped. He admits his call will cause huge controversy, especially with clubs in the lower leagues, but said it was vital that football had a debate to address problems in the game and the increasing lack of competitiveness at the top of Premier League.

"We have to start considering what the structure of the league is," Gartside said, "and it is time to look at two Premier Leagues - Premier League One and Premier League Two - and the way the finance is allocated. You could have 36 Premier League clubs split into 18 and 18 and that would also solve the problems of the winter break and supporting the England team.

"It would even everything out and it would make it more competitive on that basis. We have already got to the situation where the three clubs that go down from the Premier League are usually the three that come up, although a couple of others might sneak in. I don't have the answers but it is certainly time for a debate - perhaps even on not having relegation from a second division of the Premier League."

Gartside, who has been a Bolton director for 20 years and chairman for nine, said clubs should not fear change. He added: "It would be revolutionary but I don't think this would be as revolutionary as when the Premier League was set up, and we should open our minds to change. I know a lot of Football League clubs won't like it but a lot will.

"If the FA and the government are going to start looking at debt structure and financial constraints on clubs then we are going to have to do something."

Gartside added that owners of clubs such as Bolton, Middlesbrough, Wigan Athletic and Blackburn Rovers needed protection from overseas investors seeking to take over clubs. "The traditional type of owner are something of a dying breed, instead you have the sheikh of wherever and people like the [Manchester United's] Glazers coming in.

"Local businessmen like [Bolton owner] Eddie Davies, the late Jack Walker [at Blackburn], Dave Whelan [Wigan] and Steve Gibson [Middlesbrough] have given their town teams unbelievable financial backing. They need to be protected in some way from the influx of outside investors with seemingly unlimited funds."

Gartside said time was running out because once foreign owners became an overall majority in the Premier League it would be impossible to protect their interests.

"There is still talk about foreign takeovers of Newcastle, Everton and Liverpool, again, and once we have 14 foreign owners in the Premier League we have a problem," he said. "At the moment we can still muster enough votes against anything that might change the structure for the worse. Come the day when you have 14 foreign owners, we won't be able to do that."

Gartside has also changed his mind about wage-capping and now believes it might be the only way to maintain competitiveness. "I have been against wage-capping in the past but it has come to the point now where we have to look seriously at it. When Manchester City go out and spend £30m on a player and then pay him whatever he wants as a salary, then that raises the bar for us next time we go into the transfer market. We have to look to see whether we can bring in a system of wage-capping, perhaps like they have in American football or Aussie rules."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/oct/24/bolton-wanderers-premier-league

[AllyouneedisRush]

This was on the radio yesterday..... pathetic to say no relegation.  Can't see it happening, he just seems desparate with those comments and ideas..

[Degs]

The quality of the teams that have come up this year blow his argument out of the water.
If the teams coming up beat Arsenal, Aston Villa, and draw with Liverpool and sit higher in the table than Spurs and Newcastle, and in the case of Hull sit higher than everybody bar the top 2, then why is relegation and promotion a bad thing?

We have 2 promoted sides in the top 10 at the minute.

He says that whoever goes down will automatically come right back up.
Coventry, Southampton, Leeds, Wimbledon, Nottingham Forest, Leicester.

He's just shitting one because he's staring at a side destined to be relegated with a shit manager at the helm.

I fucking hate Bolton, they have an empty ground, an ale house footy team, a ground that just come off the back of and Ikea lorry, fans that even soccer a.m. would be ashamed of "who are ya", and they're the c*nts who play James Brown when a goal is scored and have two lads running up and down the touchline with big fuck off flags.

[jooneyisdagod]

Sounds like a very worried man to be honest.  That is the only conclusion I can draw from that.  The man seems to be clutching at straws and I don't understand why.

[Walter Sobchak]

i hear spurs are backing this...in fact they want the no relegation rule brought in for this season...

fnarfnar

[Okkervil]

Ive got nothing against a salary cap. Everything else he says is bollocks.

[mjgill85]

Ive got nothing against a salary cap. Everything else he says is bollocks.

Unless it's implemented world (or European) wide, it's not going to happen.

Works in America (and Canada) because their sports are largely their own and their teams don't regularly compete against teams from other nations.

[redway101]

Ive got nothing against a salary cap. Everything else he says is bollocks.

It just wouldn't be practical to implement, it would be too easy to get around and frankly would be a nightmare to police.

Just put a transfer limit on the amount any one club can spend in a year either as a fixed amount or a percentage of turnover. Personally I'd just limit spending direct from any one club to something like £20 million a season. It would be easier to track the transactions of individual clubs rather than players.

The effect would be to balance the distorting effect of the huge sums in the game and force managers and clubs back to the concept of developing teams over several seasons. It would improve competition within the Premiership and lower the cost of players over the long run.

Actually I'd go the whole hog and change the legal status of a sporting club to a not for profit organisation. Clubs can still trade as a commercial entity but every penny goes back into the club. It would get rid of the sharks hoping to make a quick buck.

[Okkervil]

Unless it's implemented world (or European) wide, it's not going to happen.

Works in America (and Canada) because their sports are largely their own and their teams don't regularly compete against teams from other nations.

Very true.

[The Manhattan Project]

Salary caps won't work unless every football association on Earth adopts them.


Banning relegation is dumb. It means that Premier League 1 and Premier League 2 will eternally feature Bolton and their dull football and empty seats.

[wacko]

My question is, is why are relegated clubs given parachute payments? It just gives them a massive advantage over the rest of the division.

Why isn't the money given to promoted clubs to give them a better chance of competing in the Prem?

[Zizou]

My question is, is why are relegated clubs given parachute payments? It just gives them a massive advantage over the rest of the division.

Why isn't the money given to promoted clubs to give them a better chance of competing in the Prem?

To stop them plummeting like a stone financially after being relegated, but I agree with you, all it does is give them a license to be mismanaged.

[Degs]

My question is, is why are relegated clubs given parachute payments? It just gives them a massive advantage over the rest of the division.

Why isn't the money given to promoted clubs to give them a better chance of competing in the Prem?

It's basically there as a guarantee to the promoted clubs.
Wihtout the guarantee of parachute payments then the promoted clubs would not be able to be competitive in the transfer market without being financially irresponsible.

They know they have a high chance of going down, so in the past you either took a huge gamble and spent big - if you went back down your club would be crippled financially for a few years or didn't bother and just sunk like a stone.  The huge gulf that exists between the divions needs the parachute payments to act as a guarantee, e.g. you can spend 12 million (fees and wages) because if you go down then for the next two years you'll get 12 million.
The payments aren't massive, it's 6 million per season for 2 seasons.

It means the likes of Hull can sign Geovanni and West Brom can sign Carson, they know that if they go down they can afford his wages for the next 2 seasons.

To those who say that it means as soon as they go back down they are destined to come back up (like Gartside here) I'll say what happened to:
Watford?
Sheffield United?
Charlton Athletic?

By the logic Gartside dispays here about yo yo clubs.  And by arguing that parachute payments give a "massive advantage" over other clubs then they would have come back up - none did.

Well what about the ones that went down last year?
Birmingham are doing well in 1st but Reading are in 3rd and Derby way down in 14th.

And what about all the clubs who have gone down recently and have yet to reappear?
Leeds, Leicester, Coventry, Southampton, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday?

The reality is we got 2 clubs coming up this year who have never played in the Premier League before.

The argument is baseless.

[BIGdavalad]

And what about all the clubs who have gone down recently and have yet to reappear?
Leeds, Leicester, Coventry, Southampton, Nottingham Forest, Sheffield Wednesday?

Two of them are in the third tier even (and a third's only just got back into the second tier and are currently bottom of it), which further goes to show what a fat bollocks-talking c*nt that Gartside is.

[Degs]

Two of them are in the third tier even (and a third's only just got back into the second tier and are currently bottom of it), which further goes to show what a fat bollocks-talking c*nt that Gartside is.

And then you look at how many teams in the original Premiership have stayed there.
7
1 of which is currently in the relegation zone without a win and one is 16th.

42 teams have competed in the Premier league.
Enough to fill the league two times over.

It's a myth that the Premiership has kept the clubs in the lower divisions down.

[Ryba]

Could have made an argument for two relegation spots instead of three last season with Derby being a joke, but this season has proved that the system is fine as it is.

This is the Premier League, not an American-style franchise system.

[adopted_scouser]

We have already got to the situation where the three clubs that go down from the Premier League are usually the three that come up, although a couple of others might sneak in.

That used to be the case, it's rarer now though.  I agree with the salary cap, but scrapping relegation is bollocks.

[IloveGuinness17]

A salary cap would be a very interesting propostion. No relegation? Get the fuck out of here.

[Ryba]

A salary cap would be brilliant to be honest... City could fuck right off

[Billy The Kid.]

Scrap relegation? What an absolute penis head. I wonder if he'll still have the same view next season when Bolton are gone down a division. Imagine the likes of Stoke staying in the league, every time the ball goes out of play and waiting for Rory Delap to amble all the way up, wipe the ball with his shirt, puff his cheeks, flex his big fat ears and hoist in his throw in. Lets reward one dimensional pub teams with eternal membership of the premier league eh? Fuck off you purple helmet.