The (Insert City Name Here) Angels also have to pay the luxury tax this year.
In MLS not only are the revenues shared but there are fewer owners than there are teams. Some owners control more than one team.
Watch it!
On revenue: In the past the teams would share the gate revenue in all games, so the diddy teams did rather well. Now clubs keep all the revenue from league games but do share for the FA cup (the split is 40/40/20 (the 20 going to the FA).
Famously Man Utd make more on programme sales that West Brom do in admittance money.
TV money is evenly shared, but only the home side gets a TV fee for each game that is shown (it’s about £125,00 a game).
Wow, that’s a lot of information. A few more questions.
How many levels/leagues are there? (You named 3.) How much $$ is a player making in the lowest professional level?
Is the “smallest of clubs” still a professional team (i.e., paid players)? How many teams altogether will play in the FA Cup?
So, the Champions League is a knockout, tournament style competition. But they play it the next year, during the regular league season? It sounds like the American “playoffs” which always immediately follows the regular season, leading to the crowning of a league champion. Does each league also have a playoff, or are the final standings solely the result of all of the season’s games?
In terms of “level of play”, are the national teams better than the best league teams? Assuming you could clone Beckham (for example), so he could play both for Real Madrid and England, which team would win?
Thanks for all the great responses; this has been a very informative thread!
The Champions League isn’t just the top team from every National FA, it’s the top several from the better leagues. I think EPL places four (probably wrong, but close) in the Champions League. Chelsea, Arsenal, ManU and Liverpool all played in CL matches this week. MLS is the only league I know of that have a playoff, which is keeping with American sports. Everywhere else league play is over and the team with the most points win.
As for level of play of Nats vs Clubs, the Clubs would probably win that going away, on average. For one, they’re not limited to the talent of a particular country in how good they can get (Arsenal recently fielded a team with no English players, even on the bench, for a league match) and second, because they train and play together a lot more frequently. Part of playing well as a team in world football is knowing how your teammates will react and where they will be in a certain situation. Most National sides have playing in league games throughout the year, so they don’t have the luxury of a lot of time to get on the same page. Fatigue is also cited recently as another reason that international play is not to the level of club play.
There’s four professional leagues (Premier League, Championship, League 1, League 2), which makes something like 90 teams. I’ve no idea of the wages of the lower teams, but I doubt it’s more than a regular living wage in many cases.
Over 600. The ‘smallest of clubs’ are local amateur outfits.
There are really three different modes of teams competing: league, play, knock out cup competitions, and group stage cup competitions. As mentioned above, league play is essentially all teams playing each other home and away and the champion is the team with the most points at the end. There is no playoff in league play.
Then there is the knock out cup competitions, such as the FA and League cups (Copa del Rey is the Spanish example) are teams essentially in a win and advance, losa and go home style tournament.
Then there are the group stage style cup competions, of whcih i would include the Champions league , although it is called a league and not a Cup. This is the format used by the World Cup, the European Championship, the UEFA Cup (I think) and the Champions League. Teams are placed into groups of several teams and they play every team home and away and the highest points in each group (or the highest two in each group…it can get as complicated as you like) move on to the next stages which tend to be knock-out, but the Champions league uses a home and home variant of the knockout. The Champions League final however is a one game playoff in a pre-determined location (I think this year it is in Germany somewhere).
To expand on "b]Shibb0leth’s** point about Antional teams versus Club teams I would agree, although I would add that I think this is a fairly recent development. Back in the 80’s and earlier transfers were not nearly as common as they are now so the best club teams had a much higher makeup of national players. So the English national team would almost be an all-star team from the English first division. Someone else hopefully can give more information on this aspect of the game, transfers, the Bosman rule and all that.
I’ve just looked this up, here’s the full structure for who qualifies for the competition:
- The current title holder
- The top 4 teams from England, Spain and Italy (two straight into the group stage, and two into the final qualification stage)
- Top 3 from Germany, France and Greece (two into the groups and one in the qualification stage)
- Top 2 from Portugal, Netherlands and Scotland (one into groups, one into qualification)
- Turkey, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Switzerland, Ukraine and Israel each provide one for the final qualification stage, and one for the second qualification stage. Another 10 countries have their champion enter the second stage. Champions from other countries go into a third qualification stage (except for those of Liechtenstein, Andorra and San Marino who go into the Uefa cup.)
This gets changed each year, according to the current Uefa rankings of each country’s FA.
And then under that there is the Conference, and then Conference North / South. I believe under that is the Isthmian Conferences. Those are amateur teams but still subject to promotion and relegation (ie, the lowest of League 2 are relegated to Conference, and the highest of Conference are promoted to League 2).
Yeah, it is during the next regular league season, but it isn’t like American playoffs. The winner of the tournament wins the Tournament Trophy and that’s IT! There is no knockout competition to win leagues. The league winner is the team that has the most points at the end of the year.
To analogize: Take the NFL. Imagine the NFL playoffs were seperate from the regular season and held during the season and every team was allowed to compete in it. Of course every NFL team doesn’t play every other NFL team, like the soccer leagues have it, but work with me for a second. Pittsburgh, having a 15-1 record would be the NFL Champion. Then, say New England wins the playoffs, they would be the Super Bowl Champion, which would be entirely seperate from the NFL Championship. So, say, Pittsburgh lost in the first round of the playoffs (to, say, Miami), they would STILL be NFL Champions, just not SuperBowl Champions
Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, back when he was just an all around rich guy and owner of the Milan squad, suggested that the World Cup be a competition among the best players in each nation’s club teams. I.e., the Serie A All Stars vs The Premier League All Stars.
This idea didn’t seem to get anywhere fortunately. Probably because nobody would want to watch that set up. But at the time, Serie A was probably the top league in the world.
Nothing like taking the world’s most watched sporting event, the World Cup and turning into a version of the NFL Pro Bowl.
So, if you are an English football fan, and your team is ManU, what is your biggest, most important game of the year?
My guesses –
#1 would be the championship game of the Champions League.
#2 would be championship game of the FA Cup? Or would some of the lower level Champions League games be more important/prestigious?
#3 would be the game against your arch-rival, which clinches the EPL Championship?
#4 would be the championship game of the League Cup?
And, by the way, how do you blokes keep this all straight!? 
And, on preview:
So, does that ever actually happen? That an amature team plays a season in a professional league, or vice-versa? Would it be technically possible, over a number of years, for one of the Conference North amature teams to advance to the EPL?
As an American, here’s my understanding:
Their are four levels in the English League - Premier (has 20 teams), Championship (has 24 teams), League 1 (24 teams), and League 2 (24 teams).
All teams are professional (that is, all the players/coaches play football on a full-time basis)
Below League Two is the Conference National (22 teams, I think). Some teams are professional; other are semi-professional.
Below the Conference National is the Conference North and Conference South (22 teams each, I think). I’m fairly certain that all of these teams are semi-professional.
Below this are other divisions as well. I assume that many of these are amateur clubs, but their may be a few semi-professional as well.
Depends - see above. I’m fairly certain that the top 4 “divisions” (Premeir, Championship, League 1, and League 2) are all professional. Starting with the Conference National you’ll begin to find teams that are semi-professional.
How many teams will play for the FA cup? That’s a question I would like to now as well! But my guess is that it includes ALL teams that are registered with the FA (and hence come under FA regulations and guidelines). So it would include all the teams in the leagues/divisions listed above plus numerous others (to include amateur teams registered with the FA).
Note: keep in mind that the FA is the governing body that supports/regulates/adminsters football in England. Also keep in mind that it is but one arm (or tenticle) in the much larger governing body of UEFA (which governs football in Europe) and the even larger governing body of FIFA (which governs football worldwide). The top four leagues/divisions listed above covers only the “professional” part of English football.
An analagy would be to think of American Football overseen by one entity that included both professional, sem-professional, and amatuer (i.e. college) football. An FA cup equivalent would have all the professional teams, all the college teams, and all of the sem-professional teams competing for a trophy.
Each (English) league does not have a playoff in the sense of determining the winner of a particular league (or, for that matter, any other league around the world save for MLS). The winner is based on whoever has the best record at the end of the year.
Now, for some of the lower disivions (like the Championship which is the league below the Premiership), some teams that did not win the league outright DO have a play-off to determine who gets “promoted” to the higher league for next season.
Example: Last season, Norwich (in the EPL this season) won the Championship. So they were automatically promoted. West Bromwich Albion came in second and were also automatically promoted to the EPL. The third team promoted to the EPL for this season was Crystal Palace. They were promoted based on their defeating other teams in the Championship in a play-off format.
As for the Champions League, you are correct. The Champion’s League tournament is played during the regular season. So those games are scheduled around the other European league schedules (EPL. Bundeliga, LA Liga, Ligue 1, Seria A, etc).
One thing to remember is that football is played virtually year-round in Europe. Man Utd., for example, can start the year by playing games in July or August and end the year by playing games well into May (or possibly even June). This, of course, doesn’t factor in friendlies (exibition games) that are often played in the 1 or 1/2 month time frame when no games are scheduled. Man Utd. will play 1) games against other Premeirship teams; 2) games for the FA cup; 3) games for the League Cup; 4) games for the Champion’s League (If they qualify - which they have for a long time).
Depends, but I would guess that the very best league teams would beat many (if not most) national teams. It depends becaue some national teams (like Brazil) are so good compared to other national teams.
However, the very best league teams would probably beat many of the national teams because they have the best players from around the world. Also, they play more games together as a unit than the national teams. So I would guess that a Real Madrid team of Beckhams would beat an all-England team of Beckhams.
Oh, and another question: what event was it that Greece won last year, in a surprising upset? Not the World Cup, I’m sure, but some other sort of national team competition?
As a Newcastle fan, I’d say… ALL OF 'EM ;). There really isn’t the biggest, most important, with all those Cups. Though any game against Middlesborough is pretty important, especially when we beat 'em ;).
FA Cup is the most prestigious English Cup challenge. The Carling Cup isn’t nearly as big.
Well they’d have to be semi-professional rather than totally amatur (perhaps I was unclear). Totally amatur teams couldn’t travel and practice all the time those teams do and still be able to keep other full time jobs ;).
Greece won the European championships. It’s a national competition, but just for European teams obviously.
Some people consider it to be more prestigious to win that than the World Cup. Such people are usually not from South America.
Depends - but my guess that the most important are 1) winning the EPL and 2) winning the FA Cup. Winning either one assures the team of another year playing in the Champion’s League (translation - big $$$). Winning both is difficult (the “Double”); winning those two plus the Champion’s League trophy is almost impossible (the “Treble”) - although Man U. did it in '99 or 2000. Winning the “Quadruple” (EPL, FA Cup, League Cup, Champion’s League) has never been done, although Chelsea this year had a shot at it (until they were undone by Newcastle in the FA Cup).
Theoretically, it’s possible, based on how the promotion/relegation system is set up. However, the way in which things actually work is that it would be unlikely. Unless, of course, some extremely wealthy owner bought a team and poored in lots of money (buying/paying for good players, paying for travel expenses, upgrading stadium facilities, etc). It would take a long-term committment with the potential for the wealthy owner to lose lots of cash - not a committment that many would undertake.
Note: For those that know, what teams has made it from the lowest ranks to the highest? I know it’s more commonly known of the teams that have dropped than vice versa (York, for example).
Watford are the obvious ones that spring to mind, in five years going from the depths of the old Fourth Division to a Uefa Cup place. But of course, they didn’t do it from a non-professional starting point. I wonder what is the ‘youngest’ professional team? (No, the MK Dons don’t count…)
That involving your child’s school’s team against Posh School First Eleven, probably (because Man U supporters are all supposed to be well-off southerners/foreigners rather than people actually from Manchester, who all support Manchester City, so the stereotype goes.)
You’re not far off. The FA Cup Final remains a Big Game, but the FA Cup competition is less prestigious than it once was (and it was very prestigious - the country would almost grind to a halt on Cup Final day). I would say that these days non-final games in the FA Cup rank below the equivalent games in the Champions League. To non-English people, the Champions League games are of course more significant.
Your number #3 (big league game) is about as important as a quarter-final in the FA or European Cups.
Number #4, the League Cup (known this year as the Carling Cup, but it changes all the time) is an apparently pointless duplicate of the FA Cup, and as such not very prestigious. But it’s been running for donkey’s years, and winning it does now earn a team a place in the UEFA Cup, so it does have some value. The big teams use it as an excuse to try out their lesser players, but they take it more seriously if they get to the semi-finals.
Wolverhampton also have gone from the old Fourth Division in the 80s to the Premier League, but they were only in the Premier League for a year.
Sorry, in hindsight #3, “the game against your arch-rival, which clinches the EPL Championship”, would be very important, somewhere between #1 and #2. I missed the bit about “clinching the EPL Championship”. That is worth more than any FA Cup.
Why does Arsenal have O2 on their jerseys??