Championship - 2022/23

Their policy of scrimping to promotion and banking the cash works so far, until you lose Buendía and are left with a bunch of largely mediocre players, although they'll still challenge, and of course they are more likely to be able to reinvent themselves in the event of not going up than us

 

If anyone is going to run away with it, it’ll be Burnley. They seem to possess far more quality than everyone else in the league.

After that Sheff U, QPR, Swansea (and Norwich/Ourselves) seem to be the chasing pack. Not much between those teams.

 

Except, in our case, several other teams

 

So it's Burnley +1 for the top 2.

 

https://www.lecho.be/entreprises/sp...lions-d-euros-au-football-belge/10422050.html

More on our friend Mr Mogi. The article says that as part of a Judicial enquiry into money laundering and fraud 57 people have already appeared before a judge as part of 'Operation zero'. It also mentions another 200 people who are being investigated for tax evasion. Of all the people under investigation, only 2 are actually mentioned by name, one of them being Mogi Bayat.

The article also refers to illegal commissions, tax evasion and 'questionable fiscal constructions'. in relation to Belgian football clubs.

One thing that really caught my eye was the bit that says that the FISC (I assume that's the Belgian Inland Revenue) have long suspected that contract terms do not correspond with the reality:

 

MONEY LAUNDERING EXAMPLE: How fake contract terms and money laundering can work together;

EXAMPLE: A well known organisation in Country A have 10 million euros of dirty money they want to clean. A player from Country B signs a 5 year contract for £50k/week in Country C. His salary is transferred to a bank account somewhere in the world. From that payment the player receives £25k/week and the other £25k goes through several transactions until it ends up in a bank account in Country D. By the end of the 5 year contract the bank account in country D contains £6.5 million.

The organisation in country A pays 10 million euros (including commission) in dirty money in Country A and receives £6.5m in clean money in an overseas account. The person who facilitated this transaction gets 10 million euros of dirty money in country A with minimal effort.

This is just an example of what could happen. I'm not claiming this is what is actually happening. It's just a theoretical example.

I've given this example because the Belgian authorities suspect fake contracts are being used in Belgian football and are also investigating money laundering in Belgian football.

 

Little reminder they spent £50m last time they got promoted into the Prem. They splashed the Buendia cash and still went down in flames.

 

Still a small net spend, if any

 

They certainly didn't bank the cash and try to stay up with the same squad.

The main problem seemed to be they spent badly.

 

While the majority of League 1 teams haven’t played in the PL (16 of them, and only one of them, Oxford, has played in the top flight at all) there’s still, probably more than ever, a sizeable glut of big clubs trying to get back into the Championship (and in some cases like Ipswich and Charlton failing dismally). And when you get surprise packages like Plymouth and Ipswich and Pompey finally getting their act together it shows how difficult it is to get out - Sheffield Wednesday already falling some way behind despite a really good start after dropping two points in a very winnable home game tonight.

 

You can broadly split the English league into 3 categories: Top 7 (inc Newcastle), The rest of the PL plus Championship (minus minnows like Luton and Rotherham) plus Bolton, Charlton, Ipswich, Sheff Wed, Pompey and Derby and then the rest. Mega clubs, medium sized clubs and small clubs. It's difficult to fit that split into an optimal league format.

 

European Super League for the big 7(?), Premier Leagues 1 & 2 for the medium sizers, Football Leagues 1 & 2 for the minnows?

 

The trouble is that as a promoted club with cash burning a hole in your pocket, there are only a limited pool of quality players who are prepared to come to a club likely to be fighting relegation. We've seen in the past QPR, C Palace, AV and now NF spend wildly after promotion, and just end up with a squad of "ok" players but a disjointed team.

 

Norwich sold Buendia for £41m then spent about £50m IIRC. Buendia was the best championship player the season before, so a net spend of £9m was never going to elevate them much above a 20 point PL team, it is what it is and just highlights the gulf between 20th and 21st place.

 

Still 2 points outside the play-offs, but we now have a game in hand on Norwich who are in 5th, even though they won for the first time in a while today

 

A draw would have been nice, but I am wondering, are we beyond caring about Burnley? They are looking very good now, they looked pretty good against us early in the season, but now they're more attuned to one another

 

West Brom looked really good when we played them, dangerous down both wings and tore us a new one.

 

It's an issue they've had for a long while now, Ismael suffered from it, and so did Bruce. They clearly won't go up, but surely they won't go down

 

Ah! The old “too good to go down” fallacy.

 

Leicester, Leeds, Wolves, Sunderland, Southampton, Sheffield United...

Incidentally all but one bounced back to the PL shortly after.

 

It was a penalty but Ince Maximus is still a contemptible, malodorous twerp!

 

Good news to report. The poisonous Merthyr dwarf from up the M1 chose to spend a significant part of his post-match reaction interview from the Sunderland draw continuing to moan about last Sunday and how unfair it all is to allow better players to turn out for the Hornets and upset his Bedforshire triers. Boo hoo! After the 4-0 it was "context". This week's word is "perspective". The game needled him so much you can tell that there's a voice in his head telling him that it doesn't really bother him, that he's over it, no need to look back, it was a one-off, we'll recover. Yeah right.

 

Could you please print a warning,in large friendly letters if a picture of this creature appears in future?!

Thank you.

Ps I've just watched it and this man needs help,not just from a psychiatrist but from a Key Stage 1 arithmetics module.

 

In his head rent free.

Absolutely obsessed, bless him.

 

Hahaha what a ****. It's Halloween every day at the kennel.

 

Coventry in a mess <Coventry City under transfer embargo until money repaid to HMRC - BBC Sport>

To be fair having 4 of their first 5 home matches postponed due to dodgy pitch and the Queen's death hasn't helped. But overall ever since they left Highfield Road it's been one problem after another and with the aid of a crystal ball they would have stayed there.