I can’t sit here and tell you what we are going to do for the next 10 years to keep it that way but
Posted in General on 28. Aug, 2010
I can’t sit here and tell you what we are going to do for the next 10 years to keep it that way, but there is no doubt that we have become very important to a lot of people’s lives.”Like the TV soaps, it is hard to see what is going to take over I liken football to the grocery business. We’ve always needed food but nobody ever thinks that grocery stores or supermarkets won’t be there in five years’ time. The game has become part of people’s lives in the way that shopping has It will just take on a new slant. People now go to a supermarket and expect a lot of choice, for the supermarkets to be cleaner and nicer. So it is with our stadiums.”We have to make certain the product is acceptable and affordable I keep preaching this to our chairmen. It’s not about what Ken Bates is charging for his top-price executive boxes It’s what the cheapest seat is. We have to keep the stadiums full.”TV overkill?”I don’t believe that’s the case.
Saturation won’t happen until all 16,056 Football League games, the 380 in the Premiership and all Champions’ League and other matches, are available live on television.”We are now at a point where nobody is going to be able to sit at home and watch every game that is on the box What we have is not saturation, but more choice. It’s back to the supermarket thing.”The transfer system?”Well, it didn’t seem to collapse during the summer. The new rules come in next month and the way they have been drawn up is a disincentive for players to break contracts. I don’t think we will have the Armageddon we were perhaps worried about this time last year.
There is still a lot of detail to be worked through, but why the European Comm-ission took us to the brink to come up with a system that is so ridiculously complicated when we would have been better off sticking to the one we had in the first place is for them to answer.”Hooliganism?”I think it is wrong to say there has been a resurgence, although we at the Premier League have never thought it had gone away. Anyone who goes to enough matches will know it is either a small problem or a potentially large problem. But I think we are much better at managing it than we were 10 years ago We are not complacent. The threat is always there.”Wembley?”My personal view is that a national stadium is hard to justify given the number of good stadiums we have already, but if we are going to have one why throw away the world-renowned brand name that is Wembley?Logistically and geographically, I suppose you could argue that it should be somewhere up the M6 near Coventry or Birmingham but that is hard to justify economically. I am not a Londoner but I think that if you are going to have national stadium it should be in the capital.
And I have to say that had they gone to the market with the original plan that was unveiled two years ago this week they would probably have got the money straight away.”But a whole lot of stuff went on which pushed the price up. Including the dispute over whether there should be an athletics track. I am not opposed to having a track, but it would have to be one that could be converted back to seats for football purposes.”Prediction for the season? “I don’t do predictions but I do have a wish list and high on that is my hope that on the last day of the season we are flying around in a helicopter wondering where the trophy is going.”. Football’s grand opening to the 2001/2 season, the Charity Shield match, is at the centre of a row over an alleged breach of charity laws. Football’s grand opening to the 2001/2 season, the Charity Shield match, is at the centre of a row over an alleged breach of charity laws.
The Football Association is being investigated by the Charity Commission, which claims that for the second year running the FA has failed to make clear on tickets how much of the take at the gate will go to charitable causes.Simon Gillespie, director of operations at the commission, said: “We have opened a formal inquiry into the FA as we take this matter very seriously. We contacted the FA last year and got a firm commitment from them that they would meet their legal obligations for this year’s match.
But it doesn’t appear that they have been met.”Hours before the kick-off between Manchester United and Liverpool in the traditional showpiece fixture between last season’s Premier League champions and FA Cup winners, the FA was forced to deny allegations that they kept some of the money generated by the tie for themselves rather than distributing it to charities. But a spokesman admitted that there had been difficulties in passing information on to fans about where their ticket money goes.Adrian Bevington said yesterday: “We deny and refute completely the allegations made in reports today regarding suggested ticketing arrangement problems with the Charity Shield. This is highly inaccurate, as are the figures that refer to the amount of money the FA takes from the game. We are a non-profit-making organisation and all non costs generated from this fixture are donated to charity.”The match generates more than £1.5m from ticket sales. The two clubs in the match can expect about £50,000 each to donate to charities of their choice, while a further £100,000 is set aside for projects earmarked for help by the Chairman’s Fund.The rest is given to over 100 community causes, each of them receiving about £7,500..