Topic: Sportsbet.io's English Premier League Football Pool Discussion Thread - page 493. (Read 141506 times)

Oh, that's a story for a Guy Ritchie movie. PSG could not afford Neymar due to FFP rules so PSG did not buy Neymar.
There's a rule in Spain that every player needs to have a release clause fee inserted in his contract. Basically, if a club wants a player and a player wants to go, the club pays the release clause and the club that owns the player has to accept the offer. There is also a rule that a player can buy himself out, pay his release fee to the club and become a free player - free to sign for anyone on a free transfer.

So - PSG owners paid Neymar ~200 million pounds for a few pictures and an obligation to be the mascot during the Qatar world cup, said it is not relevant to the transfer, Neymar bought his contract from Barcelona and signed for PSG on a free. So, PSG did not pay 1 penny for Neymar. Their owners did, of course, but that money is not in PSG's books.

if they want, they'll find a way around how to bypass FFP. I still not understand, how PSG buy Neymar (and Mbape) in the same transfer window. Some of his sponsors pay a big percentage of transfer cost. Same situation with Ronaldo's move to Juventus.

I expect that it will bring some prominent names which have an expired contract, plus there will be cheap players because of a pandemic... Things can be fine for Newcastle, maybe only a new low oil price can ruin their plans. 

^  I think they had a great chance this year after beating Real imo, before Rona happened.


Maybe around 6 transfer windows, three years.  And depending on how good their backroom staff is as far as scouting goes.

I think Poch could be a good pick to build something over there.  

City spent a lot of money to win the title a couple of times. They have really underperformed in Europe though, Pep needs to earn his money by winning the CL.

@hilarious that is a brilliant idea. They probably don't even need to do it without stirring the Toon hornet's nest. Just pump the prices of hospitality tickets, pump the price of VIP tours off-games, pump every possible prawn-sandwich-catering package and they could really get themselves a nice pocket of change to get their dream team.

@harko two seasons maybe, but even that lineup won't be guaranteed to gel together in one season, so maybe 3 seasons minimum to play well together, but then you'd still need to beat City and Liverpool regularly.

Other than Kylian Mbappe and perhaps, Walker... That fantasy team looks really achievable in two transfer windows, if you ask me.

First they need to look for a coach of high calibre with plan to stick him with a him for a long term regardless the results, 2nd they should approach bigger teams for player who are surplus to requirements, Barca, Real and Juventus comes to mind they'd get more than averagely fantastic players for great price, the only con being the wages such players would cost, they might end paying more in wages than they've avoided in transfer fees.


Sticking to coach for a longer period would make that easier, but United's whoredom when it comes to managers, meehh!

Hahah, this is some funny journalism.

Although I'm sure Newcastle's owner will find a way to pump money into the club, the lineup in which Mbappe is surrounded with Dembele, Almiron and Longstaff really made me laugh.
Yes, you can have money. Yes, you can even spend it freely. But no - you cannot pair Mbappe with Almiron, Moussa Dembele and Matty fucking Longstaff. Not even in Fifa anymore.

I expect FFP rules to be more lenient and Newcastle to take maximum advantage, but even like that it would take them 5 years to assemble a team decent enough to challenge the top 4.

^  City wanted to copy Barca's template and had long term plan on how things should pan out.  And it wasn't just about winning trophies, it was also about building their academy and producing young talents like how Barca does it.

And they picked their transfers well over the years on average...  Unlike United after SAF.

I used to do the dodgy streams before but they were too unreliable and with lag and stuff or just cutting out. You end up missing out on goals. I would never pay for Sky unless they showed all games so for now I'll just stick with dazn which is great. I'm still hoping for some sort of UK-based service. Dazn are actually going to launch in the UK soon but I think it will mainly be for boxing. I'm sure they'll try bid on getting some of the PL rights when they're next available but not sure they'd have the money to outbid Sky. They'll probably do what Amazon did and just bid for a smaller package or maybe get BT's games if they drop out (which is speculated they will) or they just outbid them.

This article made me laugh:

https://talksport.com/football/695238/newcastle-takeover-outrageous-xi-new-owners-chelsea-man-city-transfer/


Little reason? Apart from Financial Fair Play rules. You know it's slow for news when people are making ridiculous fantasy teams up:



Newcastle should just start charging 10k for a game ticket and get their owners to buy the tickets every week. They'll soon rack up enough money 'legitimately' to then start spending and become the new City  .

^  Yup...  I got rid of cable like a couple of months later after getting used to the firestick.  It has everything both paid and free stuff.  I personally like Kodi a lot.

As would I and I already get them all through Dazn but you need to jump through a few hoops to get it, but I would happily pay more for a UK-based service. They'll probably do their own subscription service eventually (and they do in some countries already) but they probably don't want to take the risk just yet whilst also severing ties with Sky and other big broadcasters. Once they go from TV to streaming there's probably no going back. What they should do is launch the service alongside TV broadcasters and give them a discount on the TV rights and maybe phase TV out. They still won't be able to show the 3'o clock games in the UK though unless they change the law. It's a silly and outdated one though.

There's this guy, a former leader in my state, imagine a huge tract of land and sea full of oil, and full of timber, and extremely small population. We only hit 50% literacy LAST YEAR, we still fight diseases most countries eradicated decades ago (right now we have rabies, hand foot and mouth disease, in addition to Covid). Yet our GDP is massive, most goes towards central government (if anyone ever wonders how Malaysia got so rich), and massive untold amounts into the pockets of our ex leader, now retired.

Taib Mahmud, totally under the radar but he has also been rumoured to be the richest man in Asia. Take into account his entire dynasty and he puts some names to shame. He stays out of limelight because he doesn't do things like buy football clubs!

Oh and I do hope that streaming shake up happens!!! It's criminal how I actually subscribe to a local service for English games and I still don't get to watch all of them.


Hope you're well buddy. I've been working remotely for almost 4 years in a new country now, so I haven't met any of my friends (I don't have many anyway) for that long, and because of my circumstance, I hardly even meet people. I know only my butcher, neighbour... probably a bit more used to it than most, but it's still a rather lonely existence. That time I got out in Qatar for a few days was pretty cool, meeting real people for the first time in zonks. Now without football, it is a bit more depressing and especially with paycuts and now filling weekends with jobhunting rather than football. Bloody depressing... but we're all be okay I think.

Should go see you guys when we celebrate the league win!

hilarious -

I’d be more than willing to pay a monthly subscription for all games to be televised, I don’t know why they don’t do it. I’m sure Barca & Real have this service.

Probably depends how old you are as well. Blackburn, Newcastle and even teams like Leeds were all top teams either winning or coming runners up and look where they all are now. Even Aston Villa and Norwich came second and third in the inaugural Premier League season and I remember that one and especially the season before where Leeds won the very last First Division before it became the PL beating Manchester United to it.

Apparently the games might be free to air once they return:


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52387971

I really hope this shakes up the system and they either start live streaming more games or start showing the 3'o clock matches. It's about time football in the UK got with the times as all the games are live streamed in many other countries. If they don't get shown on TV within their contractually obligated time frame they'll have to issue a billion+ in £s so they're going to need to recoup that money from somewhere. I wonder what sort of impact that would have on the league's finances and if they could even afford to do it. I'd be surprised if they have a spare billion pounds just sat in a bank account they can dish out. They might have to do some sort of sweetheart deal with the various TV companies where they give them huge future discounts on the football rights packages.

My bad, just did some research and found out you guys are right. Well in my defense, I started watching premier league and keeping tabs on clubs in the 2010s, although before then I alway had Chelsea as my favorite club from childhood. Never knew Manchester city were this poor before the oil money came in to change things around.

Still though I think the competition in the league right now won't let Newcastle succeed as Manchester City did. We have the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City fighting to become a dormant force, with Chelsea, Leicester also putting in some effort meanwhile back then it was just Manchester dominating with few challenges from arsenal/Chelsea (I think).

I'm not that social anyway so going outside isn't that much of a big deal, but I must admit it does start to feel a bit claustrophobic when you're essentially forced to stay inside. The only difference between a house and a prison is you can choose to walk out the door anytime at home but even that has been limited now. I think things will start to get bad though if the lock down happens for most of the year or even years. The toll it will take on people's mental health may cause more issues than the virus especially in the long-run. The economy collapsing and business and jobs disappearing is likely to cause a huge recession which will only make people's mental state worse. Instead of doing nothing during these times there's lots of stuff you can be doing. Read. Watch films, maybe even write something yourself. Now's a great time to start exercising as well if you don't already. Buy a couple of dumbbells or a skipping rope or even just do body weight exercises.


Newcastle were a far bigger team than City and they're possibly in a similar situation now, only Newcastle have the FFP rules to deal with so I doubt they're going to achieve the success City did. Man City weren't really ever a top club before the money. They've been a very average one for most of their existence. They were 15th back in 05/06 and narrowly avoided relegation in 03/04. Go back to 08/09 and 07/08 and they finished 10th and 9th and it was only then when they got the oil money they started to slowly creep up the table in the following seasons before finally winning it in 11/12. City will likely be the last team to achieve something with money just being thrown at them and that's the only reason players did go to them because they were offering record wages and transfer fees.

'The Sun' is at it again:  Premier League clubs plan to return to training on May 9 after telling players to get ready to go back to work

Not really. Before the Abu Dhabi group took over in 2008, Man City was a mid-table to bottom of the league team, they even got relagated to 2nd division in the late 90's and early 2000's. Blackburn Rovers and Aston Villa were top teams back in the day, one had won the PL title and the other the Champions League 

Nope, not really. Man City was bought in 2007, they ended the season in 14th place. They were nowhere near the top club definition, Newcastle is more so now than City was when they got bought.
City still managed to get Robinho after a season in which Darius Vassel, Elano and Stilian Petrov were their top 3 players.
That season they ended 9th I think and bought Adebayor, Tevez, Lescott and Santa Cruz for huge amounts, also ended outside top 4.
Then bought Dzeko, Yaya Toure, Silva, Kolarov, Milner and Boateng for over 150 mil which was huge then, and ended in top 3.

So, bottom line, money will eventually prevail if you have it and if you're able to spend it.

^  City wasn't a top club before the oilers took over.  They were the cooler side tho...  Unlike the more commercial Man U.  

Even if they wanted to buy 10 first-team players, the possibility of them successfully getting top players at the peak of their careers, is highly impossible. Which top player will want to play for a team that hardly find themselves in the top half of the table, talk more of competing for the top 4/6 spots of the league or go as far as winning the tournament.

Manchester City transformation was quite possibly because they were already a top clubs but just lack funding and a managerial genius to transform the club into one of Europa finest. Newcastle still has a long way to go in achieving any Cinderella story that involves them coming out from no where and because a strong contender for the title.