None of this is about normal fans/supporters/spectators who go through the turnstiles every week. It's about maths and money. Say your stadium holds 50000, it's full every week, and everyone inside pays £50 a ticket. Over 19 league games this brings in £47,500,000. Seems a lot, but if you have just 3 players on £300,000 a week, that eats up the whole of the gate money (well, you'd have £700,000 left). This isn't a real example, but the reality is probably worse. You then have to find the cash to pay everyone else, from the other players to the poor sods on minimum wage cleaning the stands and bogs, AND the cash required to just run the club. The only way this can be sustained is to find a global audience who will pay, through TV rights and global tacky stuff, for what the fans in the stands can't - nearly everything.
Therefore those of us who go through the turnstiles every week don't really matter very much. We like to be there, and we like a crowd, and we think it's crap that we can have neither now. Those who run "elite " football now, don't care. Sky, BT etc are still filling their coffers and thinking of creative ways to hang onto, or create, a more global market who aren't bothered about a crowd so long as there's plastic noise and expensive "names". They haven't a clue where Manchester or Liverpool are, let alone Wolverhampton or Watford, and they don't care either.
I think what I'm getting at is that millions of people globally attach themselves to a few elite clubs, and their collective soulless billions matter far more to the people running those clubs (who, like Mr Parry, can at the same time also be the people running the game!), than the few who actually populate the grounds.
Most people like us think of football as an emotional experience because it represents (or did originally) our town, people like us, who understand it's not just about winning or being "the best " or, God forbid, "the richest ". We stand, we sing, we laugh, we cry, for us we make football what it is. The "global fans" know nothing of this, but through paying for TV and buying millions of Manure's 4th choice designer kits, they contribute far more financially than us poor saps standing or sitting in the cold and wind on a Tuesday night in February playing Huddersfield Town or Fulham. They therefore matter more.
I really enjoyed the promotion season, and I enjoyed last season till it got derailed. But I can't stand the grubbiness of the PL, where literally the only thing that seems to matter is money and power, and how those who have it just want more. I suppose it reflects society and government, but I like football to escape from that.
Sorry to ramble on (not even been drinking!), and to take such a long time to say that this is a shite idea, solely about making the obscenely rich even richer, and then expecting everyone to applaud when they chuck a few crumbs to the poor.
. Or maybe like what rugby league is to rugby union... completely separate.
