Was Tyrone Mears or similar on loan there last year/ year before?
Did he score whilst there?

You are misguided if you think the ills of football are due to billionaires buying football clubs. The problems started with the ending of shared gate receipts (can you name the clubs involved in pushing this through?) and those clubs involved in selling the game to BskyB.



In general, I do find it amusing that fans of some of the old SKY 4 clubs are now calling for salary caps etc.. I don’t remember them asking for this when their position at the top was being cemented by the financial doping of the CL.

My own opinion is that it would be better to have all clubs operating from an equal base. However, that is never going to happen. The clubs I blame for that, are those agreed to the initial SKY deal and that small group of clubs who were responsible for the ending of shared gate receipts.

Can't agree, mate.

Barry has been very good for City. IMO you get to appreciate Barry more if you watch him 'live' as you get to see that he is intelligent and hardworking. He fills gaps, effectively fills gaps created by his teammates and he tracks runners very well. He's also a powerful unit and sticks his foot in. You should not underestimate how important he is to City.

Hargreaves? Not sure on that one. I do like him as a player, although I do feel he has been overrated. However, if he can stay fit (guffaw) then he could be a useful signing. I hope this doesn't mean that this means Milner is less likely to play in midfield. IMO Milner is a good midfielder (although a Championship winger).

Very true. The big 5 at the time wasn't it? Spurs, Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool and United?



I don't think anyone is calling for it, just suggestions of something different and a fairer way of doing things. I can't see any changes happening to the way transfers are done anytime soon, whatever way transfers were done teams like United, Chelsea and City etc would still attract better players anyway.







shared gate receipts ended in 1983 didn't they? That'd be long before the PL and SKY deal came to fruition. You can't possibly be saying that the SKY and PL deal hasn't been much better for football in this country?

Yep, to use the NFL for the example, the team who performed worst in the season gets the #1 draft pick, which means the top prospect coming out of college football that year is theirs for the taking, while the Super Bowl winners go last.

And isn't it the case that a salary cap cannot be enforced without a gentleman's agreement? Meaning all 20 clubs have to agree, if one objects (and you can bet City, United, Chelsea and a couple others will), its a no-go?

That's quite a good idea. So it's the college players they choose from then? when it was being discussed on here I was under the impression you picked any player from the league, it's only college players they choose? Not a bad way to pick up the best young players.



I think that is the case, mate. Whether they would have a mjority rules on it I'm not too sure but I think all 20 teams would have to agree for it to be enforced. There's noway Chelsea or City would agree to that, United or Liverpool either. I think they'd all be against it. The problem with introducing something like this is the football world will have to be included too, I don't think FIFA and UEFA would allow England to take on a salary cap and not football in general, even if they did I'd imagine it'd leave clubs over here very disadvantaged too.

As far as I understand it, its the college players who have made the jump from college to pro, and anyone not in a contract (i.e free agents).

As good as the USA sports setup is, it would never get off the ground here. Rugby has managed it in a sense but both codes are minority sports, so its a bit different. Shame really as the major American sports leagues are hugely profitable and you never hear of an American franchise in massive debt.



Exactly, it'd need FIFA to implement it and there would be just too much objections, not just from the Premier League, but pretty much all the Champions League mainstays, and they'd have more of a say I'd imagine.

Plus it involves Sepptic Bladder moving with the times....

The other point about the US draft system is that the colleges have a monopoly of the best players until they are 21/22. That's why college football attracts crowds of up to 100,000. The players who then join the pro's are more mature than your typical PL debutant, less of a gamble. But could you imagine if Rooney, Wilshire, Walcott etc had been prevented from joining the top clubs until that age? The US system is chock full of the most incredibly restrictive practices but nobody rocks the boat.

And how would one rate this "achievment" status exactly?

Does a team receive points for each historical cup win and does this erode as the years pass?

Feel free to post the qualifying criteria so I can tell my 7 yr old son that he can one day feel "proud" of Manchester City in accordance with the [iRoofs Historical Achievment Rating .......[/i

The only reason that you hear about the debts of English clubs is because Man United fans don't like Glazer so they wet their knickers all the time about the debt they're in.

The Glazer's didn't get their Tampa Bay (?) franchise from monopoly money, they'd have done the same thing they did when they bought United. Dallas didn't save up the billion dollars it cost to build their stadium, they'll have gone into huge debt to build it.

But the yanks don't bleat about debt because they know it's the owners problem, not theirs. But Man United and Liverpool fans bitch about their clubs being in the same type of debt.

Manchester United and Liverpool have (despite spending a lot of money over the years which I am not doubting) brought through a lot of great young English players over the years, their success has been [iearned[/i over the years rather than just bought. They also have built up global fan bases.

Man City are completely false IMO. For years they came nowhere near been a top English club. They are simply trying to buy their way to success, which is why IMO however many trophies they manage to purchase this season or in coming years means absolutely nothing.

Dalian Atkinson?

No, just college players or players from overseas who have never played in (for example) the NBA before.

If your a free agent then it's open season again.



Yes you do, there are lots of NBA teams in particular bleeding money, hence the lockout at the minute (if your aware). The deal that decided what the salary cap was/is and how much of the leagues income was spent on players expired and the players union and the league (i.e. the owners) couldn't agree on a figure. There are only a few franchices actually making any sort of reasonable money.

But I agree, there isn't any realistic way of it being implemented over here. Trying to integrate it into an existing setup would just not work, the only one it might be worth trying with is Rugby Union as they already have quite strong ties to Universities.

I think people are underestimating owners here, do you not think the majority of owners would agree to a salary cap? Just think about it, a cap that prevents them spending more. If done correctly, players' wages would shrink/hit a wall, and their profits would shoot up if they were spending less on wages.

Just give it a think, I know you get some idiotic owners like the City owners, who are simply there to flex their financial muscle in the public eye, but I definitely believe that most club owners would agree to a salary cap. If anybody wouldn't agree to a salary cap, it's the players.

Paolo Di Canio he's crackers

Are club's finances in the spotlight as much in America as they are over here though? As we all know, we constantly it rammed down out throat how much money this club has spent and how much this club hasn't spent or how much money this player is on etc, do you get that as much in America with their sports?



It'd be a club decision wouldn't it, how the clubs would decide to go for it would be down to them but certain owners and chairmen would be for it whereas others would be against. I'm not sure the likes of Abramovich would be up for it now after the money he's ploughed into Chelsea. I'm sure Kenwright would be for it though

Another thing i hate, undisclosed fees.

Why?

Chris Waddle.

The only club in England that wouldn't is Citeh, but Citeh aren't in it for any other reason other than ego massaging. IMO of course.

Clubs would be for it if it was in their interests. They'd be against it if it was against their interests.

For me, if there's was going to be a salary cap in football then it should be a way of getting all 20 Premier League teams so they start off with the same resources. The teams at the bottom end of the league would be for that, teams at the top would walk away from the league before they agreed to that.

What would probably happen is that the salary cap would be brought in that stops us and Citeh from spending too much, but the Man Utd's and Arsenal's get to keep their advantages. That's pretty much the sole reason that FFP has been brought in. You can't really have financial fair play in the domestic leagues when the CL so distorts the revenues that the biggest clubs get.

Could it be done in a way that it covered the Premier League clubs? Surely it'd have to be in place throughout the football league too, it'd be strange if a team were promoted from the Championship being used to normal transfer system to find a salary cap imposed upon them. Plus would FIFA allow one league to bring a salary cap in without the rest of the footballing world, so to spoke, doing the same? I'd think it'd have to be a football cap not just a PL cap.

The German's have financial rules covering their league, so I don't think UEFA and FIFA would be opposed to it. Blatter and Platini would probably be happy if leagues did cap themselves, because it is pretty much impossible for impose a cap on every league.

BREAKING NEWS - Owen Hargreaves' move to Manchester City has broken down amid another injury scare. He fell out of the transfer window