bono_man2002
Blue Crack Addict
I want to post a video of Walkers goal vs Arsenal but I can't. Amazing goal.
LONDON -- Some of the Premier League's foreign owners want to abolish the relegation and promotion system, a senior English soccer executive said Monday.
With half of the Premier League's 20 clubs under foreign ownership, League Managers' Association chief executive Richard Bevan said if more teams are sold to overseas investors they could force a dramatic change to the rules.
"There are a number of overseas-owned clubs already talking about bringing about the avoidance of promotion and relegation in the Premier League," Bevan said at the Professional Players Federation conference in London. "If we have four or five more new owners, that could happen."
Forcing through any change to the Premier League's rules requires the support of 14 of the 20 clubs.
"Certainly you'll find that with American owners and you'll find that with some of the Asian owners (they have been talking about scrapping relegation)," Bevan said on the sidelines of the conference.
Arsenal, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester United and Sunderland are owned by Americans, while Blackburn is under Indian ownership and Queens Park Rangers has Malaysian backers.
Under the current system, the three bottom clubs are relegated each season from the top flight to the second-tier Championship, while three clubs are promoted from the Championship to the Premier League.
Bevan wants The Football Association to implement rules that would prevent the current promotion system from being changed.
"If you look at sports all around the world and you look at sports owners trying to work out how to invest to make money, you will find that most of them like the idea of franchises," Bevan said. "If you take particularly American owners, without doubt, there have been a number of them looking at having more of a franchise situation and that would mean no promotion or relegation.
"Obviously if I was an American owner and I owned a football club or I was an Indian owner I might be thinking I would like to see no promotion or relegation, my investment is going to be safer and my shares are going to go up in value.
Would be an appalling thing to happen. Part of the romance of the European leagues are promotion/relegation battles, and the underdogs who can rise to take on the richer clubs. Swansea anyone?
The USA is different in that their professional top flight is single tiered.
The English system is a massive pyramid in which thousands of clubs can theoretically play in the Premier League. Indeed, a club playing in the East Berkshire league could, in 12 years time or so, play in the EPL should they secure promotion every season. That's a cool thing, and that should not be done away with at any cost.
What and uninspired, awful game. United looked like they overslept, missed their breakfast...and didn't have time for a wake-up shower.
The guys on Fox Soccer said Rooney looked like the only one who had any fire. I disagree...I didn't think he didn't do much of anything either...
I'm not blaming Evans for the loss, but that red card was incredible. That looked a little like my 7th-8th grade team on defense at times.
I will be interested to see what direction the United goes in from this point on.
Why wasn't Vidic in?
At the very least he was playing defense, something that nine of the other United players weren't doing.
I assume Jonny Evans has a batch of filthy photos of Sir Alex somewhere.
The only concerning thing to me though is that United played exactly the same v. Liverpool last week. Against Liverpool, that ends up as a draw. Against City, it's a 6-1 embarrassment.