The Neymar Debate

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Oh well, Neymar will just have go about playing Ligue Un football and have baguettes thrown at him whilst earning €500k pw. Also living in the hell hole that is Paris, my heart bleeds for him. Still should in theory walk the League there so he’ll have a good medal haul in the long run.



Hopefully Kane, Alli, et al are taking note of all this
 
I think wealth though is very important because of stress, you only have to known people in significant financial difficultly to see how much an emotional and sometimes physical toll it is on them.

Money gives you security and choice, that on its own doesn’t make happiness.

Yeah, and worst still for people who can't do anything about it. If you're healthy and able you can always just work harder to get more money to ensure you have enough, but some people with major disability or illness can't and so on top of their situation they often have a lot of stress about how to survive. Ironically these are the people who have the higher costs of living because of their needs, yet often have the lowest income, and when those needs aren't met and you don't have capacity to do anything about it, that's where money genuinely could buy happiness.

I think it's true though that if you can meet your basic needs, food, warmth, safety, medical care, you don't need much more. You need some kind of social interaction to stay happy as well, some kind of connection with the world. Most people can get that easily and don't even consider it, but again if your sick or disabled then you can't always get that and money can help enable that too.

I find it hard to listen to footballers complain about their privileged lives. I'd give anything just to be able to play football for free in the park. Or just to be able to go for a short walk. Even a garden I could sit in with some sunlight would massively improve my quality of life. Don't need no super yachts, mansions, sparkly earrings or any of that bullshit though. Nice to have I'm sure but you don't need that sort of stuff to make a person happy, you really only need basics.

Here endeth the lesson.
 
At £198m have we reached the level of unsustainable that Levy has been talking about, or is this juts simply the financial elite in the game becoming more and more apart from everyone else?
I believe it's something else entirely that few people seem to talk about.

It's unsustainable so long as such a club is expected to be self-supporting, absolutely. But Levy is increasingly the outlier; he sensibly believes that the business model should make sense in and of itself. There are only a couple of clubs whose internal revenue streams allow for such spending, and PSG is not one of them.

The petro-clubs and Chinese consortiums are playing a different game in my opinion. Russian and Arab owners probably aren't investing in clubs because they think it's a good and profitable business to get involved in, but because it serves several valuable and unique functions that aren't immediately apparent to Western businessmen.

Being a Russian, Middle Eastern, or even Chinese oligarch is a dangerous, high-stakes game, and these owners are perfectly aware of those stakes. Political purges and internal power struggles are common, and owning a football club seems to conveniently legitimize ill-gotten gains, and provides an enormous "rainy day" asset and safe-haven. They're investing abroad because their own countries are unstable and if it all falls apart they won't maintain any of the benefit of that investment anyways. To that effect, Chinese capital controls are very strict, and wealthy Chinese have to go to extreme lengths to funnel their money out of China, but conveniently buying businesses abroad is encouraged as a means of spreading influence and power.

If Roman Abramovich was purged by Putin tomorrow and his Russian assets confiscated then he would still have Chelsea, and the British Government would doubtlessly protect his interest. How much do you think he could fetch in selling Chelsea? The Forbes list currently values Chelsea at $1.85 billion.

If there was revolution in the U.A.E. and Sheikh Mansour found himself a Royal in exile, Forbes lists Man City as being worth $2 billion.

It's glorified money-washing, with millions of eager fans desperate to defend your ability to do so.

If I'm wrong, then all of this craters at some point and Tottenham Hotspur is left standing. If I'm right though, then we'll see spending continue to grow, because that's the whole point of it.
 
Fed up of seeing all the pseudo-poetic bullshit about this move from Neymar and other parts of the press.

This is purely about fucking money, not a "fresh challenge" or personal journey of discovery
 
Apparently was spoken to by the ref at the weekend for trying to get past a couple of defenders with a rainbow flick. Ref told him to stop showing off and when Neymar argued, he was booked.

Now I know Neymar can be a cunt, but the referee scolding him for being good? Fuck that.
 
...Football isn't sustaining such spending though.

I find it increasingly difficult to consider the likes of PSG and City as football clubs anymore.

That said, seeing Barca squirm is pure 'poetry'.
I don't agree. Barca are were they are for a reason.
Look at Man City. They have bought every decent woman player, now the best women's team in the UK. That will become profitable.
They buy whoever they want, despite having zilch fan base in Manchester to fill a stadium.
It will soon be clubs like them and PSG who are the top dogs. Clubs who haven't earned the right to be where they are like Man U, Barca or Real. Hate them ,yes, but Barca were always winning titles long before TV money.
PSG never won a title for 19 years. Two in their history. 86 & 93
The year after Qatar buys them they won 4 titles on the trot until stopped last year.
St Ettiene shit all over PSG for titles won.
It stinks.
Especially as Qatar and Abu Dhabi have completely different views on the very things we in football are trying to stop. Like gays & women rights.
Whilst claiming to support kick out homphobia and women's football over here meanwhile in AbU Dhabi they impison and flog homosexuals , women don't have the same rights and Qatar has told gays attending WC not to be seen in public showing any kind of love.
Fuck them.
 
The sooner we are tootling along in electric cars with renewable energy replacing gas fired power stations the better.
Doing my bit Paddy:adethumbup:
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On most measures of happiness, once you are free of the threat of starvation or war, there is very little correlation between money and how happy you are. Suicide rates are as high among the rich as the poor - yet modern society keeps trying to push the idea that material wealth = success at life.

I can tell you now that I’d be a hell of a lot happier if I had the option to quit my job at any time and do whatever the fuck I wanted!

Nothing to do with the material goods I could buy, just the security and freedom that would give would be immense.
 
I absolutely despise this cunt and think he is disgustingly overated

Never scored more than 20 league goals in a season for PSG, taking all their penalties and playing against farmers

He’s a joke
 
I think we'd all like him in our squad if he was within our budget and available but to me he isn't anywhere near the great Brazilian players of the past like Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Ronaldinho, Careca, Romero. He is slightly above Robinho level.
 
3 games in to the league season and this crazy fucker has 5 goals 6 assists.

One of the best players of his generation, easily...
Statistics in a league where his team’s revenue, reflected in their squad makeup, is greater than the other nineteen teams combined, is utterly meaningless.
What would Bernardo Silva’s stats look like if City played in the Swedish League?
 
...Football itself isn't sustaining such spending though.

I find it increasingly difficult to consider the likes of PSG and City as football clubs anymore.

That said, seeing Barca squirm is pure 'poetry'.
 
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I believe it's something else entirely that few people seem to talk about.

It's unsustainable so long as such a club is expected to be self-supporting, absolutely. But Levy is increasingly the outlier; he sensibly believes that the business model should make sense in and of itself. There are only a couple of clubs whose internal revenue streams allow for such spending, and PSG is not one of them.

The petro-clubs and Chinese consortiums are playing a different game in my opinion. Russian and Arab owners probably aren't investing in clubs because they think it's a good and profitable business to get involved in, but because it serves several valuable and unique functions that aren't immediately apparent to Western businessmen.

Being a Russian, Middle Eastern, or even Chinese oligarch is a dangerous, high-stakes game, and these owners are perfectly aware of those stakes. Political purges and internal power struggles are common, and owning a football club seems to conveniently legitimize ill-gotten gains, and provides an enormous "rainy day" asset and safe-haven. They're investing abroad because their own countries are unstable and if it all falls apart they won't maintain any of the benefit of that investment anyways. To that effect, Chinese capital controls are very strict, and wealthy Chinese have to go to extreme lengths to funnel their money out of China, but conveniently buying businesses abroad is encouraged as a means of spreading influence and power.

If Roman Abramovich was purged by Putin tomorrow and his Russian assets confiscated then he would still have Chelsea, and the British Government would doubtlessly protect his interest. How much do you think he could fetch in selling Chelsea? The Forbes list currently values Chelsea at $1.85 billion.

If there was revolution in the U.A.E. and Sheikh Mansour found himself a Royal in exile, Forbes lists Man City as being worth $2 billion.

It's glorified money-washing, with millions of eager fans desperate to defend your ability to do so.

If I'm wrong, then all of this craters at some point and Tottenham Hotspur is left standing. If I'm right though, then we'll see spending continue to grow, because that's the whole point of it.

Any reason to bring this bit on Sky Sports News by Matthew Syed
 
If any governing body properly kicked the tyres of Barca and Real, like the Taxman seems to have done recently, they would find obscene levels of creative accounting and financial crime that is for certain
 
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