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I'd assume the reasons are as follows:

1. Chelsea being owned by a billionairre, and essentially having limitless money to spend on players and wages, means most people expect Chelsea to win the league at least, and possibly a cup or 2.

2. People are waking up to the fact that they have to slave away for 40 hours a week and get paid a fraction of what they actually earn, to buy tickets to watch footballers who earn a very tiny fraction of what they're actually paid, and that ?110,000 for less than 10 hours of performing a recreational activity, regardless of whether the player actually plays in a competitive match, or is any good, just for turning up for training, and they get bonuses on top of that when they actually do their job, is in fact taking the piss.

3. Too many foreign players in the english league (Arsenal fielding a team with no english players at all springs to mind).

4. Teams having no real link to the areas they supposedly represent other than their stadium being there (How many Arsenal first team players grew up near Highbury?).

5. Players having no loyalty to their clubs and being in it purely for the money (Wayne Rooney demanding ?50,000 per week from Everton after Euro 2004, then demanding to be transfer listed when they told him they couldn't afford it. And no matter how many times I hear Thierry Henry go on about how much he loves football, you just know he's told Arsenal that he's "not going to touch that fucking ball for less than ?100,000 per week" or similar).

6. Horrendously bad refereeing. I can't even remember the last time I watched a match and it wasn't decided by the referees bad decisions. On the first day of the season Newcastle got screwed, then the next week Newcastle got lucky over their opposition in the same way.


And how I'd solve the problems:

1, 2 and 5. Cap players wages at a level that's affordable to every club and not blatantly obscene like it is currently. ?1,000 per week is more than generous for less than 10 hours dicking about.

3 and 4. limit the number of foreign players allowed on the pitch for each team at one time. 5 maybe a good number. This would encourage teams to invest more in their youth team, and to actually have some local players playing for the local team.

6. Introduce video replays and give the 4th official the power to overturn a referees decision if it was blatantly a bad one (pretty much the whole England Vs Portugal match at Euro 2004 to give an example of some really bad refereeing that would have been overturned)

slamdaddy said:

'Teams having no real link to the areas they supposedly represent other than their stadium being there (How many Arsenal first team players grew up near Highbury?).'


Well, Cole and Campbell are both Londoners...Cole even had the audacity to come through Arsenal's youth system.

Look at it this way...if the EU turned around and said you could only eat locally grown food, you'd be up in arms (no bananas, no seafood if you don't live on the coast, etc.), so why should it be any different for footballers?

jimmy068 wrote:

SNIP ...has anyone ever thought it might be down to the times games kick off these days... SNIP

=====================================================

There was an article to that effect in The Guardian a couple of weeks ago.

I don't think the EPL is any more or less boring than it has been for the last 6/7 years. On the whole attendances rose steadily for the first ten years and have been in minor decline over the last 3/4 years; the decline this year being in line with last season.

Ticket prices are a problem. Everyone talks about Chelsea supporters having to fork out a fortune, but actually Spurs have the most expensive seats. Certainly compared to Italy or Germany, ticket prices here are on average anything between 75 and 125 percent higher.

The attendance problems have been caused by a combination of all the factors already mentioned. I think ticket prices have been a huge factor, more than TV coverage. As far as the TV is concerned, I actually think the new Sky "Football First" highlights programme, guaranteeing 50 minutes of every team, has had a bigger effect on attendances than live coverage of rival teams' matches. Combining that with last season's return of Match of the Day now means that fans can get a good fill of their own club without going to the game.
I agree that the kickoff times are a huge pain, speaking as someone who does a 400 mile round-trip to every home game, but I don't actually think that is the biggest problem. The simple problem is the way that clubs treat their own fans complacently and even with contempt. For example, the Man City v Everton game was actually switched to Sunday morning by the clubs and not by Sky. It had to be switched from Saturday to Sunday because Everton got knocked out of the Champions League and ended up playing the UEFA Cup on Thursdays. It had been scheduled to be on Sky on Saturday, so Sky told the clubs that they were prepared to remove the match from their schedules and allow the clubs to play Sunday afternoon, as they already had 2 matches scheduled to be shown on Sunday afternoon. It was the clubs who said no and insisted on a morning kickoff, in order to get the money from Sky.

The world oil price would be causing rises in the price of almost everything

Football though its a passion for many is afterall just a leisure activity

So if the budget is stretched your more likely to watch a match on TV than venture to the game IMHO

Just wait till Oil hits USD100-00 a barrel

Listen to the match on the radio

cheers
B....OZ

Yes I had heard Everton had wanted the game moving because of the Thursday UEFA cup match. Typical City to go along with it. They're never that much awake at the best of times let alone Sunday morning! I just hope Mr Pearce has given them an almighty kick up the arse after last week's performances.

DanG said:

"Well, Cole and Campbell are both Londoners...Cole even had the audacity to come through Arsenal's youth system.

Look at it this way...if the EU turned around and said you could only eat locally grown food, you'd be up in arms (no bananas, no seafood if you don't live on the coast, etc.), so why should it be any different for footballers?"

For a start, food is a necessity, football is just a game played by people who are vastly overpaid, that's how it's different.

Ashley Cole is 1 player out of a squad of how many? As for Sol Campbell, I believed he moved to Arsenal after his contract at Spurs (the 2 clubs are loval rivals might I add) purely because Arsenal offered him more money.

If you limit the number of foreign players in a team then you make the game more competitive as outside players will only be able to supplement whatever talent is already there, and you won't have the bigger clubs with the larger incomes dominating purely because they can afford to pay lots of foreign players more than ?10,000 per hour for playing football.
As it is currently, money and very bad refereeing (a suspicious person might believe there was some link there perhaps) are the 2 main deciding factors in football right now.