EPL Question

[SunDancer]

Reading up the English Premier League, I was curious as how soccer/football fans are seeing the new player "Roman Abramovich", who seems to be like a funner version of George Steinbrenner, owner of Chelsa, if he has changed alot and how he is being seen in fans? I also was curious, how do "new" soccer clubs start (ie...expansion), and how do they reach the conference, division levels.

[Easy Mac]

I think they have to join the regional leagues before they can get to the conference. Generally there are only like one or two teams promoted into the conference. I think the regional league is sponsered by Doc Martens or something like that (just search Martens league on google). These regional teams somehow get into the conference or something.

I'm not fond of Chelsea, plus I haven't gotten to watch a lot of soccer this year. Is the EPL on anywhere here in the US (besides PPV)? They showed the 2nd half of a Chelsea game the other day on FoxSports.

[Sloan]

EPL games and FA cup games are on Fox Sports World. Unfortunately for me Comcast doesn't carry FSW in my area. :(

[finkenst]

fox sports world carries a ton of football matches. I know EPL is on every saturday and sunday. There are also games throughout the week.. Just go to www.foxsportsworld.com and get their schedule.

Arsenal played Man City tonight.

[McSweeny]

EPL games and FA cup games are on Fox Sports World. Unfortunately for me Comcast doesn't carry FSW in my area. :(

yep same here... it really sucks

[RPI-Fan]

Fox Sports (Regional) shows about 1 game per week, plus a highlight show every Tuesday (?) night at 10 or 11.

[Miller Time]

Living in Ottawa, Canada, we get a tonne of soccer games here. We get a lot of live games on FoxsportsWorld Canada, which include German, Dutch, Brazilian, Argentinian, French and of course the EPL. We also get on CTV Sportsnet EPL games every Saturday and one or two Spanish games a week (usually Real Madrid). There is also a channel that plays 4 Italian league games a week. So on the regualar digital cable we get more than enough soccer weekly. I usually stick to the EPL being a Liverpool man. But every now and then it's cool to watch the big matchups from the other countries.

I'm not a big Chelsea fan, they have a lot of top notch expensive players, but they are proving it takes more than spending a tonne of money to win. Although, I think next season they could be deadly.

G

[ice4277]

The Comcast by me carries FSW on digital, and it is a godsend; I usually watch 2 or 3 EPL matches each week, plus the preview and highlights shows and an episode or two of Sky Sports News. I also make sure to catch the UEFA Cup whenever there is a match, and sometimes if I am around when its on, I will watch a match from Germany. As for Chelsea, I imagine its like it is with a lot of other big teams that spend a lot of cash; a mixture of envy and dislike.

[Critch]

Reading up the English Premier League, I was curious as how soccer/football fans are seeing the new player "Roman Abramovich", who seems to be like a funner version of George Steinbrenner, owner of Chelsa, if he has changed alot and how he is being seen in fans? I also was curious, how do "new" soccer clubs start (ie...expansion), and how do they reach the conference, division levels.

Abramovich seems to be getting a fairly positive review so far, although there's the underlying feeling that there is something not quite legal about him and his money. There are rumors that he's bought Chelsea (or Chelski) to get his money out of Russia before the Russian legal searches into their oil industry freezes all his assets. Chelsea fans love him, funnily enough.

There's nothing really like expansion, and up until recently there wasn't anything like franchises moving from city to city. The English league system is built up on a pyramid system, the 4 league divisions plus the conference sit at the top. Three divisions, the Doc Martens, the Unibond and the Ryman (they had proper names til sponsorship took over) feed into the conference, in turn more league feed into these three. And so it goes all the way down to lower regional divisions which can be about 15 to 20 levels down. In theory any team from the low regional leagues could eventually be promoted all the way up the pyramid to the premiership, though it could take winning promotion every year for the better part of 20 years.

Here's (http://www.thepyramid.info/pyramid/Pyramid2.htm) a website that shows a layout of the pyramid.

[Mac Howard]

The reaction to Abramovic is mixed, usually depending on which club you support. On the one hand he's brought some interesting players into the league and Chelsea have become a team that are entertaining to watch. On the other hand many people don't like the idea that you can make your way to the top simply by trading for better players - Chelsea have spent something like $200 on players in the last 12 months in a market in which $15 gets you a top level player. Not only is this seen as "cheating" but it's also inflating the transfer market prices and forcing other clubs out - the recent transfer of Saha to Man Utd was seen to be corrupted by some when Fulham "offered" Saha to Chelsea in the hope of inflating the price Man utd had to pay.

Their match results have also been mixed. They are up there in the top three with Arsenal and Man Utd yet their supreme players regularly show that they don't have the stomach for some of the more physical, and less spectacular, teams in the EPL. So, while they match the other two in skillful head-to-head games, they fail to take the points from lesser clubs with an appetite for a fight.

The question for many is just how long Abramovic retains interest in Chelsea. I did see that he was negotiating for a Formula One motor racing team (don't know if he got it) which does suggest that this all about Big Boys' Toys and that if Chelsea continue to trail Arsenal and Man Utd he'll lose interest and leave Chelsea in the lurch with an enormous wage bill and no ability to pay it.

There will be both a great sadness and a great joy from different sections of the English soccer world if/when that occurs.

[mattwakeman]

Abramovic has merely ensured that the Premier league has become a three horse race. In one sense he has revitalised a moribund transfer market, not only because he has injected huge amounts of cash into it, but also because Chelsea have been paying all of the transfer fees up front in one go (and trust me, this is svery unusual in football finances).

Whether he is good for the game is a different issue. Football is standing on the razor's edge at the moment in terms of money. If current TV deals expire then many, many clubs would suddenly have to go into administration and the premier league as we see it at the moment would change at the drop of a hat. Every football fan wants to have a rich owner (I support Birmingham City and the three guys that own us are all in the top 200 richest people in the UK) but there is a feeling that Roman is a real outsider to the game and is using it as a personal hobby. Nothing wrong with that of course but if he decides to walk then you will be able to count the time in seconds for how long Chelsea could survive with their enormous wage bill.

[Vinatieri for Prez]

I am a M.U. fan but anything that makes it more than a two horse race which it has been for few years now is good.