Lulu must be

[MdmeX]

Keep your chin up Lulu!

[Paul Marin]

That is one of the smartest things the MLS ever did. Appropriate geographic positioning of most of the club teams. Jamaica would do well to replicate.

The Scottish FA and some of those lower English leagues might need to ask MLS and SUM to give them some advice on how to manage and market a league in an era where financing is tight.

Financially, relegation is a beatch...no question. However, it made sense in the early days of football when clubs were strongly linked to local communities (most recruited primarily from their local pool of players) and where you had more teams than one could imagine all claiming to be the best in the land. Another thing that made relegation make sense is that teams lived and died by match day gate receipts, so keeping the fan base happy was an imperative that could only happen with solid on field performances. The bigger the fan base, the better the receipts, the better the player compensation etc.

The old ways represented a pure system - there was no outside infusion (not in the proportions of today anyway) of capital to buoy a club like we see at Chelski or Man City. Relegation was a sensible way to separate success from failure and to manage the great number of clubs wanting to compete. By making the system a closed system - as it is in the MLS - there is a far more measured approach but unfortunately, success is dictated by financials just as much as it is dictated by popular support.

Call me a purist, but I wish for the pre-tv olden days when a relegated club could pop back up the next year and challenge for the title the year after that not because some rich Arab bought them, but because they had equitable finances, great players and great management. Those days - thanks to an inequitable financial skew - are over. Now, *external* money talks. There is a certain elegance and beauty that has been lost since the dawn of the big money tv era. I really long for those olden days.

[Lulu]

I agree with you. Pre-tv football was the "real" game. So many fans are sick of their matches being rescheduled to early kick-offs and Monday nights or whatever to suit tv. These times do not suit supporters and do not take into consideration the distances "real" fans travel to get to the match. A noon kick-off means getting up in the dark on your day off to drive for hours up to God-knows-where.
Equally, it grates my nerves when folk say "Oh I support so and so," yet they've never stepped inside that club's stadium. They're not football supporters, just people who watch tv.

[Karl]

Lulu that was hit over my head!
I have never been to the Arsenal's grounds...