David Moynes speaks out over football club ownership rules

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David Moyes opines that it is the ownership rule that forbids outside investors from holding more than 49 percent of the clubs stakes which is the reason Bundesliga has been having such healthy competition. The other factors which he attributes to the better performance of Bundesliga over the Premier League are the ticket pricing and the development system in force for the youth. David Moyes is the current manager of Everton.

He has been rumoured to be moving off to Germany at the end of this season when his contract expires. He has been a constant spectator at the Bundesliga matches and has held high regards for the teams that form the Bundesliga league. It is more for the passion that he feels would be satisfied in Germany rather than pure monetary gains which have helped his decision to move to Germany when his contract ends here.

That the league has its positive aspects is proven by the fact of Germany being the European Champions for under 17, 19 and 21 levels. He also points at the large number of home grown experts that the Bundesliga is helping to create.

Amongst all the European major leagues, the Bundesliga charges the least for their tickets and there is maximum attendance at their matches. To cite an example the seating capacity of the “Yellow Hall” in Borussia Dortmund is 26,000 where ticket is priced at €15.

He states that his experience at the games he witnessed in Germany were out of the world. The stadiums were chock-a-bloc with tickets sold out well in advance. The work that goes on behind the scenes is also accomplished with clockwork precision and therefore the stadium experience is just wonderful.

He mentioned that clubs in Germany have come a long way since their 2006 World Cup event by way of infrastructure that has been built with the people who would come to watch the event kept in mind. This has been incorporated by every club that is presently running in Germany.

Chelsea WAG accused in Belgian magazine of having an affair with another player

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Chelsea has been stricken by a host of rumours that one of their players WAG’s was guilty of an affair with another squad member. Belgian magazine ‘Story’ broke the story that Kevin De Bruyne dumped girlfriend Caroline because she was caught having an affair with Thibaut Courtois the goalkeeper. Both of the men are Chelsea players; which explains how it could have happened, but at the moment they are both out on loan.

De Bruyne the 21 year old received £7m for signing in January of 2012, but is playing at the moment with Weder Bremen the Bundesliga side. Courtois on the other hand was signed out to play for Athletico Madrid.

The two men are Belgian national team team-mates and both used to play at Genk. According to the magazine while De Bruyne was training in Turkey at a Bremen training camp Caroline drove to Madrid and visited Courtois. It went on to explain that De Bruyne heard about the affair and Caroline was then told she had to move out.

It is believed that the two days off that De Bruyne received from training at the beginning of March were likely to be as a result of the affair. He reacted by deleting all photos of Caroline from his Twitter. A source reportedly told the magazine that she cheated on Kevin in the house in Madrid, but Kevin did not know anything about the affair so when it came to light he was thoroughly shocked.

Bild, the German newspaper, stated that he attempted to contact De Bruyne but they were told that he did not want to make a comment. The scandal is very similar to the 2010 scandal that emerged when it was discovered that John Terry had an affair with Wayne Bridge’s girlfriend and also the mother of his child.

 

Lower division clubs ask FA for fairer payouts

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Football League clubs are asking the FA to increase the amount of money that it hands out to other divisions. This past Tuesday it was announced that sides from the top flight would be paid as much as £60m over the next four years starting at the 2014 season. However, clubs are asking that the sides do not receive any additional funds.

The 72 Football League clubs met on Wednesday to talk about how payments should be distributed over the next three years. The clubs did not however reach an agreement about how payments should be disbursed and will meet again in May to talk about the matter in more depth.

The Premier League sold the broadcast rights for the next three years to BT and Sky for £3bn which is a very large increase over the past £1.25bn. Overseas rights to air the matches will put that total up to about £5bn. Out of that, parachute payments; which are money that is given to the different sides from top flight and cash that was given to clubs that did not receive parachute money consists about 15% of that total deal.

The Press Association Sport stated that clubs that are a part of the Championship that do not already get parachute payments will given £2.3m each which is more than they would get if they made their own TV deal.

League One Clubs will be given £360,000 and League Two will be given £240,000 which is a 5% to 6% increase. Parachute payments were originally created to help clubs that lost a large amount of revenue when they dropped out of the top division of England.

Even though there has been a lot of debate about solidarity payments and parachute payments the Premier League continues to insist that it does not prevent clubs from eventually being promoted into the Premier League.

Ashley Young forced out of rest of season with injury

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Ashley Young will not be playing for the last five Premier League games of the Manchester United season as an ankle injury has taken the Winger out of the game. Sir Alex Ferguson confirmed this week that Young will have to sit out the rest of the Premier League campaign in order to recuperate.

Young suffered an ankle injury during the Manchester City derby defeat just a fortnight ago. When the injury first occurred Ferguson stated that the winger would have to sit out for a fortnight but further tests have showed that the damage is actually a lot more extensive and will take longer to recover from.

It is not yet known yet if Young will be able to recover before the post season friendlies start between England and Brazil and the Republic of Ireland. However, at the time that these matches occur Young will have had already sat out two months and may be feeling up to playing again.

Ferguson stated that this is a very bad blow to the team as they have already been dealt quite a few blows due to the absence of two significant players. He went on to explain that they thought that Young would be back in just a few weeks but after a meeting with a specialist this past Wednesday in London they found out that the prognosis is not so pleasant.

Instead, Manchester United will have to make do without him for remaining games of their season. The outlook is not great for the team that has lost several of its key players due to injuries over eth long football season that has not been going in their favour.

Scotland teams to vote on the reconstruction of their football league

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When the ballot involving top-flight clubs in Scotland comes up in the following week, St Mirren has threatened to vote against the reconstruction of the league. The proposal will be put in front of a 12 Scottish premier league clubs, and is designed to merge the Scottish football league, and introduce a 12-12-18 structure.

The Paisley Club has stated that after studying the Articles of association, structure and shareholders agreement, The St Mirren Board Members have declined to support the motion set up in the proposal, which will be tabled on Monday.

The joining of the Senior Football League, and the Scottish League, into a single organisation is supported by the Saints Chiefs. Despite their perceived support for this proposal, they have expressed disdain at some of the terms which the SPL leaders want to put into place before the start of the next season.

A case in point is the proposal to split up the two divisions at the top of the league into 3 groups, with eight teams. These concerns are not just shared by the Saints Chiefs, but also by fans and coaching staff, who were included in the deliberations.

Although they support the proposal to have a new league structure, a single governing body, and a new model of distribution is one that is well thought out. But the way that the proposal is presented will not have the desired effect of promoting Scottish football.

The proposal outlays plans to have teams play 22 games before splitting into 3 groups of 8 teams. However, the middle 8 will lose all the points that they had won in the first round, and this will serve to demoralise players, and affect the game. The system has been tried in other countries and rejected for this reason. The fans would also have to get rid of their season tickets, a fact that will not go down well with them.