Are there too many games?

[SaddVillan]

Think some people are confusing games with "income maximisation opportunities"

The money mad fuckers running the game want fewer games for which they can't jack up the prices and more sell-out "spectaculars" that they can flog off to Sky/Amazin/TNT et al.

Hence the change from a 42 game First Division to the 38 game EPL and the emasculation of domestic cup competitions to carve out more mid-week nights for spurious Euro competitions.

The same is true with international competitions UEFA and FIFA have expanded the Euros and the World Cup to generate more income and now we've got the recently announced World Club Competition.

The genie's out of the bottle.

I'm not sure it's going to go back in.

[SaddVillan]

Apologies for the double post.

[Drummond]

Ditch the tours, ditch the club world cup, ditch half the internationals

Absolutely not.

Really? Do you like them? I think they just take the players away from clubs, for largely meaningless games.

[Demitri_C]

Ditch the tours, ditch the club world cup, ditch half the internationals

Absolutely not.

Really? Do you like them? I think they just take the players away from clubs, for largely meaningless games.

He especially loves the under 21 games 🙂

[cdbearsfan]

Ditch the tours, ditch the club world cup, ditch half the internationals

Absolutely not.

Really? Do you like them? I think they just take the players away from clubs, for largely meaningless games.

Tell the San Marino lads that their win the other day was "meaningless".

[Beard82]

If there are too many matches - they dont come from the domestic tournements.

Its also off that the clubs that moan the most have squads designed for it.  Rodri gets injuried, and on the BBC there is an article on who they can buy. 

Whilst most clubs just have to live with losing there best players for a season.

[Beard82]

Ditch the tours, ditch the club world cup, ditch half the internationals

Absolutely not.

Really? Do you like them? I think they just take the players away from clubs, for largely meaningless games.

Tell the San Marino lads that their win the other day was "meaningless".

Thats a good point - a certain amount of humality is needed.  I think we spend too many weekends away - but if I raise not seeing the in-laws as a solution - theres outrage.  Similar thing in football - sometimes you need to do things for the greater good.

[astonvilla82]

Moaning bunch of( fit in any word you wish too)

[SoccerHQ]

Ditch the tours, ditch the club world cup, ditch half the internationals.

Job done.

That's the only increase footballers in our country have had in a long long time, without them, the number of games has reduced as the league reduced from being a 22 team league.

Clubs need to manage their resource better, and if they don't let the players go on strike and the clubs can be fined and deducted points for not fulfilling fixtures.

I wasnt round in the 80s and before. What were the games like then? Would you say they were as demanding as they are now?

I know the european cup was two legged knock out games but was it more games than our current Cl format?

I know the actual english league as ut was known then was bigger than what it was now though

It was less organised. Some teams used to play after the final games had ended due to congestion. Also have a look at Boro in 96/97 season, got to both cup finals and in those days there were replays for pretty much every knockout round including the league cup final so they had to cram in about 16 games in final two months of the season.

At least now everything finishes on time for every club. However that means seasons stretch into June now with the internationals. What they should do is introduce a rule that for none tournament summers no one plays past June 1st for club matches and then you wrap the internationals up by 8th June so all players get a month off before pre season starts and then you can start the next season a week earlier.

[astonvilla82]

Ditch the tours, ditch the club world cup, ditch half the internationals

Absolutely not.

Really? Do you like them? I think they just take the players away from clubs, for largely meaningless games.

Tell the San Marino lads that their win the other day was "meaningless".

Your win was meaningless

[PeterWithesShin]

I reckon internationals are an important source of income for a lot of football associations around the world.

After years of us slagging off fans of the Sky clubs and their fans for their attitudes to domestic cups, not bothering to watch trophy presentations, not giving a shit about the rest of the leagues etc it's taken us less than 2 years of being decent, 1 CL match and 0 trophies for nearly 30 years to be not much different.

[SoccerHQ]

I just looked and in the 81-82 season we played 65 games including the European Cup final.  We played 65 games last season.

Squad sizes were a lot smaller 40 years ago, pitches were a lot worse so had to take more out of the players.

Really interesting looking at the schedule of 81/82 season. The first league game didn't take place until Sat 29th August.

Then two midweek league rounds in September along with European cup which of course was straight knock out in those times.

We played nine european games to win the tournament whereas now we play one fewer just in an endless group stage so that's straight away the first problem.

All the league cup games are listed for some reason as Sat 30th Jan 1982 so not sure what the timeline was for that season.

Xmas matches were 19th December and then 28th Dec so I presume Weather was disruptive that season.

The biggest issue of course was in those times you'd have one international on a Wednesday perhaps every other month and then straight back into club action on the Saturday. You lose so many weekends in a season playing two internationals every month and the nations league has to be the most pointless tournament around, lose three weekends up to December having to play that and all it really leads to is some nations getting a backdoor route into play offs if they need it.

Season ended on Fri 21st May (I presume put forward 24 hours to help us for the European final which was nice of the authorities) and then European cup final was 26th May.

That's the ideal schedule to me.

[astonvilla82]

I reckon internationals are an important source of income for a lot of football associations around the world.

After years of us slagging off fans of the Sky clubs and their fans for their attitudes to domestic cups, not bothering to watch trophy presentations, not giving a shit about the rest of the leagues etc it's taken us less than 2 years of being decent, 1 CL match and 0 trophies for nearly 30 years to be not much different.

Well that's one of the reasons they are successful because they don't give a shit, the days of being nice Aston Villa are over hopefully

[Pat McMahon]

I just looked and in the 81-82 season we played 65 games including the European Cup final.  We played 65 games last season.

Squad sizes were a lot smaller 40 years ago, pitches were a lot worse so had to take more out of the players.

Really interesting looking at the schedule of 81/82 season. The first league game didn't take place until Sat 29th August.

Then two midweek league rounds in September along with European cup which of course was straight knock out in those times.

We played nine european games to win the tournament whereas now we play one fewer just in an endless group stage so that's straight away the first problem.

All the league cup games are listed for some reason as Sat 30th Jan 1982 so not sure what the timeline was for that season.

Xmas matches were 19th December and then 28th Dec so I presume Weather was disruptive that season.

The biggest issue of course was in those times you'd have one international on a Wednesday perhaps every other month and then straight back into club action on the Saturday. You lose so many weekends in a season playing two internationals every month and the nations league has to be the most pointless tournament around, lose three weekends up to December having to play that and all it really leads to is some nations getting a backdoor route into play offs if they need it.

Season ended on Fri 21st May (I presume put forward 24 hours to help us for the European final which was nice of the authorities) and then European cup final was 26th May.

That's the ideal schedule to me.

I remember our game against the Albion on 12 December being cancelled because of the snow - I came back from university in Sheffield that day and even in those pre internet days knew the game was off. I can’t recall the Boxing Day cancellation though.

The Swansea home game on 21 May was played on a Friday night not because the league wanted to help us but because the cup final was the following day IIRC.

[Dave]

Ditch the tours, ditch the club world cup, ditch half the internationals

Absolutely not.

Really? Do you like them? I think they just take the players away from clubs, for largely meaningless games.

All the stuff that PWS said. No, I personally couldn't give a toss about most international games. Even the ones I do give a toss about, I don't really care about the results.

But without them and the income that they generate, the football structure of scores of countries without massive TV and sponsorship deals does not exist.

It's akin to suggesting that Villa might have a few more supporters if fewer clubs existed, so let's just abolish the whole pyramid below Championship level. Not everything in football has to happen just to offer a slight marginal gain for the richest few clubs at the top of it.