Random Football Musings

Fancy Mark Shield pulling out a random, unpredictable, poorly timed decision. Never could have seen it coming.

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Was watching Euro qualifiers and did some research on the Polish National team, just going by club results, Milik, Lewandowski and Piatek have a total of 75 goals in 102 games, not too shabby considering Milik just came back from a major injure, Lewa had a poor 2017 season and Piatek just started with Milan

WoSo has been coming along in leaps and bounds in the last few years, but we can really start to say itā€™s truly arrived now the hoolies are getting on boardā€¦

Anyone got into NPL post HAL? I donā€™t live in Sydney anymore so canā€™t follow us but have started to enjoy NPL Vic. I love NSA (not fussed who wins) live football, its cheap, a 10min drive from home and my kids have a good time. Its a very ethnic club and I have a different background but its a good way to get thru international breaks.

I must admit Iā€™m not to keen on that decision by the youngster. A bit like walking in cricket. Play the refs call

it seems odd, because as a referee you can reverse a decision.
if he said to the ref, nah I tripped over itā€™s not a penalty she should have changed it and given a drop ball.

The most common ones Iā€™ve seen are people owning up to small deflections for corners when you award a goal kick.

Not sure why the kid didnā€™t go to the ref, has happened before. Maybe he wanted to make a bigger statement? End of the day itā€™s a 14 year old kid, not going to hold him up in the same way youā€™d expect an adult to behave. Good on him anyway

Kid probably didnā€™t know you could talk to the ref about this.

Has anyone considered that maybe it was just an awful penalty?

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This is bizarre:

Will Bolton start their League 1 season with a points deduction because of this?

Having followed Portsmouth and their drop down the ranks to almost being relegated to Conference football at the end of the 2014 season, I can certainly sympathise with any Bolton fans on hereā€¦

Any questions about points deductions are irrelevant, as things stand. We may not have a Bolton Wanderers at all next season. If they canā€™t (or wonā€™t) pay their players, and wonā€™t voluntarily enter administration, the courts can issue a winding-up order and that will be the end of the club.

Coventry City are in a similar position re: expulsion from the league.
SISU refuse to have them play at the Ricoh next season and with no home ground nominated for next season the Football League can kick them out of the league all together.

Can somebody with a better grip of Financial fair Play explain what rules clubs like Milan and Manchester City have broken? I understand the basic premise of FFP, such as not losing more than 10 million a year and spending X% of revenue.

However, I want to understand if its a blatant disregard for FFP, or if its more a case of Milan and City pushing the boundaries of the rules through clever navigation and scheming. Or is it just simply journalist speculation?

For the record, my European club is Liverpool and I have no allegiance to either City or Milan. Liverpool also escaped punishment of FFP just 4 years ago, as stadium and infrastructure costs are not include in FFP. I struggle to see a significant difference between investing in players or infrastructure. As neither guarantee success or future increase in revenue.

I dare say many clubs will hire lawyers to go through every single word of the FFP regulations, looking for ways to take advantage of the system.

For sure, the big clubs didnā€™t like the sound of FFP but itā€™s not hard for them to find ways around it. For example, Cityā€™s completely ludicrous amount of money they got for Etihad sponsoring their stadium in recent years. Itā€™s allowed them to spend more in the transfer market and other areas. While it sounds insane and even devious to an average person, I donā€™t think that broke any FFP regulations.

There has to be more examples of similar things happening, but the City one always comes to my mind as an example of being able to successfully take the piss out of FFP. If anything, FFP is more likely to solidify the status quo instead of level the playing field. There are only so many billionaires who will want to invest in a football team.

Didnā€™t they close that loophole? Itā€™ll be exactly the same rules of the game as corporations do to get out of paying tax. You find a loophole, exploit it, loophole gets closed, repeat.

My understanding is that the clubs are more getting investigated for skirting the rules, rather than flagrant breaking them, theyā€™d have to be stupid, especially the bigger clubs. City would take a decent hit if they missed out on Champions League Football as a punishment. I recon weā€™ll see the middle league clubs trying to hide them breaking the laws and bigger clubs working their way around them

Cheers for the responses.

I had assumed as much as both of you. I am getting the feeling that City in particular are pushing the boundaries as much as possible in the early days of FFP, in order to increase the strength of the team and increase the profile. This is likely to result in an increase in revenue which will be used when the loop holes are closed. As it is, Cities revenue was over 500 million last year and in company with Barcelona, Madrid and United.

Iā€™ve seen a few comments in recent weeks about the pending investigation into City. It appears to be mostly bitter United fans, but seen Liverpool fans as well. Especially since it looks like they will ultimately fall short of the league titleā€¦ AGAIN.

Most of the complaints are cos city werenā€™t a BIG CLUB but thatā€™s proven to be bollocks for years now

How much longer until football gets its shit together when it comes to concussed players? Obviously thereā€™s less instances of head knocks compared to other, full-contact sports but the scene with Vertonghen in the CL semi this afternoon was sickening.