I am intrigued to understand your maths @drcongo which seem to be flawed but whether it is "near 20%", or 17.4% or 17.3913% is probably not the most important point. Cutting fixtures significantly cuts gate money significantly. How do you deal with that?
Whether it's financially workable, I don't know (I don't even know if it's ever been looked at), but it's worth exploring imo as fewer games = better football and improved player welfare. In theory, you'd also see the cups taken more 'seriously' because teams wouldn't be having to contend with such a packed schedule. We play far more games than any other 'big 5' country (although that's partly because we're the only one with two cup competitions).
Given the importance of financial sustainability, you have to put financial workability towards the top of any proposal.
50% of clubs playing in the first round of a cup are knocked out in that round. You can't bank on uncertain cup revenue replacing certain league revenue.
I don't think playing fewer league games will make any difference to us playing fringe players in the League Cup would it? As long as we have a development team we're going to want to blood those players in competitive matches and there really aren't many competitons to do so.
The biggest cup sin we've made in recent years is playing second string teams in the FA Cup, to the extent we lost at home to Tranmere and Hartlepool in the last 3 seasons. The only blot on Ainsworth's copybook IMO.
It's a tough one, because in both of those seasons we barely scraped into the playoffs, so GA could counter that keeping the starters fresh might have made that tiny bit of difference to get us over the line in the league. I remember debate around both cup losses as to whether folks would rather win the cup game if it meant losing the next league game. In both cases we would have missed the playoffs if that hypothetical deal was brokered, as we won the next league games in reality.
Edit: We might still have snuck into the playoffs last season as we finished three points ahead of Plymouth, so it would have depended on the scoreline of the hypothetical loss.
To correct myself before someone else does, it's not correct to say we played a second string team in those FA Cup matches, but we did rest key players. Which I personally would still never do in the FA Cup.
It's amusing Barcelona got a pretty tough draw, anyway/. My understanding is that they have pushed their chips to the middle of the table by selling off future profits, and have to do well in the CL to avoid even more serious trouble. It would be hilarious if they crashed out at the group stages.
The allocation of money and places and various coefficients effectively mean it was rigged years ago. If their ESL dream had gone through they would be guaranteed participation and probably a share of the profits. You have to wonder how that progresses, maybe a few years down the line they have to allocate badly run failing teams even bigger profit shares to stop them stinking out the 'competition'
I think that would come in the form of something other than rigging the draw for the Champions League group stage, which Real would almost certainly get through regardless of who they played.
I'd copy the Coupe de France and allow teams from the British Overseas Territories to compete. One or two allowed from each as per French format, with regional qualifiers.
Because right now the winner is invariably a Premier League team who gives a decent account of themselves in the competition.
If the League Cup becomes Championship and below, its fair to assume most of the time, the winning team wont progress past the qualifying rounds or group stage.
If you want to revamp the cup competitions, revamp the financial disparity between the money given to clubs in the different tiers so that concentrating on the league isn’t such an all consuming focus. It might have the knock on effect of preventing more Bury type situations and the too-big-to-fail clubs might also rein it in a tad too.
All for clearing up the disparity so that promotion isn't just for gamblers and relegation isn't the killer.
I don't think it's fair or workable to shift too much of the rewards from leagues onto cups with less games and more randomness btw as it might just be a bit easier to game for short termists and upstarts like your Wrexham's to game.
PL clubs debating scrapping FA Cup 3rd and 4th Round replays and having teams in Europe field U21s in LC. It looks this is all going to keep going one way.
Comments
I will admit I haven't thought that far ahead...
17.4% if you want the exact number Eric. Some may feel that is "near 20%). Thanks for your useful clarification though.
How would you compensate for the 17.4% loss in gate revenue?
That's not exact, and it's nearer 15% than 20%
This too many games narrative is nonsense isn't it?
Restricting squad sizes is nonsense too.
I make it 13.6363636364%
Surely it can't be exact as different opposition attract different crowd numbers?
Agreed. The Prem clubs aspect is probably the only appeal of this competition.
I am intrigued to understand your maths @drcongo which seem to be flawed but whether it is "near 20%", or 17.4% or 17.3913% is probably not the most important point. Cutting fixtures significantly cuts gate money significantly. How do you deal with that?
Would players get paid less for less games? If not the rest is going to kill clubs.
Whether it's financially workable, I don't know (I don't even know if it's ever been looked at), but it's worth exploring imo as fewer games = better football and improved player welfare. In theory, you'd also see the cups taken more 'seriously' because teams wouldn't be having to contend with such a packed schedule. We play far more games than any other 'big 5' country (although that's partly because we're the only one with two cup competitions).
Given the importance of financial sustainability, you have to put financial workability towards the top of any proposal.
50% of clubs playing in the first round of a cup are knocked out in that round. You can't bank on uncertain cup revenue replacing certain league revenue.
Maybe we can take a lesson from the Champions League draw and raise funds for smaller clubs by auctioning off easy draws to the highest bidder.
Have a look at the famous names all over the place and then have a look at Real Madrids group and explain how this is in fact all luck.
I don't think playing fewer league games will make any difference to us playing fringe players in the League Cup would it? As long as we have a development team we're going to want to blood those players in competitive matches and there really aren't many competitons to do so.
The biggest cup sin we've made in recent years is playing second string teams in the FA Cup, to the extent we lost at home to Tranmere and Hartlepool in the last 3 seasons. The only blot on Ainsworth's copybook IMO.
It's a tough one, because in both of those seasons we barely scraped into the playoffs, so GA could counter that keeping the starters fresh might have made that tiny bit of difference to get us over the line in the league. I remember debate around both cup losses as to whether folks would rather win the cup game if it meant losing the next league game. In both cases we would have missed the playoffs if that hypothetical deal was brokered, as we won the next league games in reality.
Edit: We might still have snuck into the playoffs last season as we finished three points ahead of Plymouth, so it would have depended on the scoreline of the hypothetical loss.
People cry this every year and it's just not happening. Rigging a draw like that would be nigh-on impossible.
To correct myself before someone else does, it's not correct to say we played a second string team in those FA Cup matches, but we did rest key players. Which I personally would still never do in the FA Cup.
Isn't there one year where the real draw was exactly the same as the practice draw, or something weird like that?
They messed up the last 16 draw last season and had to do it again https://www.espn.co.uk/football/uefa-champions-league/story/4546776/champions-league-draw-redrawn-after-uefas-man-united-error
I was thinking of the below, but as it is the knockout stages and 8 teams were seeded, it was not so unlikely compared to the group stages:
https://www.sbnation.com/soccer/2012/12/20/3787866/uefa-champions-league-draw-2013-knockout-stage-rehearsal
I think you're underestimating how corrupt UEFA are capable of being.
It's amusing Barcelona got a pretty tough draw, anyway/. My understanding is that they have pushed their chips to the middle of the table by selling off future profits, and have to do well in the CL to avoid even more serious trouble. It would be hilarious if they crashed out at the group stages.
The allocation of money and places and various coefficients effectively mean it was rigged years ago. If their ESL dream had gone through they would be guaranteed participation and probably a share of the profits. You have to wonder how that progresses, maybe a few years down the line they have to allocate badly run failing teams even bigger profit shares to stop them stinking out the 'competition'
I think that would come in the form of something other than rigging the draw for the Champions League group stage, which Real would almost certainly get through regardless of who they played.
.
I'd copy the Coupe de France and allow teams from the British Overseas Territories to compete. One or two allowed from each as per French format, with regional qualifiers.
Because right now the winner is invariably a Premier League team who gives a decent account of themselves in the competition.
If the League Cup becomes Championship and below, its fair to assume most of the time, the winning team wont progress past the qualifying rounds or group stage.
Ah, gotcha - I didn't see the suggestion to remove PL teams
If you want to revamp the cup competitions, revamp the financial disparity between the money given to clubs in the different tiers so that concentrating on the league isn’t such an all consuming focus. It might have the knock on effect of preventing more Bury type situations and the too-big-to-fail clubs might also rein it in a tad too.
All for clearing up the disparity so that promotion isn't just for gamblers and relegation isn't the killer.
I don't think it's fair or workable to shift too much of the rewards from leagues onto cups with less games and more randomness btw as it might just be a bit easier to game for short termists and upstarts like your Wrexham's to game.
PL clubs debating scrapping FA Cup 3rd and 4th Round replays and having teams in Europe field U21s in LC. It looks this is all going to keep going one way.