sheblue wrote:carl_feedthegoat wrote:AntMcfc wrote:It disgusts me how little our fans care about the CL. When I was a kid all I wanted from life was to see City in the CL. The day we beat Spurs and secured qualification for the first time I nearly shed a tear, it was one of my favourite ever moments in football and whatever has followed in the competition I've been entirely grateful just to have witnessed it. I couldn't really care less if we lose to Roma, lose to Barca, lose to Plzen etc, I'm not a spoilt brat of a fan, I'm just enjoying the ride.
I understand your sentiments but you also have to look at the way we have been dealt with by the CL cunts....and its not a case of these things ironing themselves out over time, we have been fucked since day one of our takeover and continue to be fucked over and over again...that's not me looking through blue tinted specs...its bang on the nail.
This is why lots of fans think the way they do right now - the only gripe I will ever have with any of our fans are to the fuckign cunts who leave games early...like 10 bastard minutes early...that's fucking disgusting, more so than the attitude that some have for the CL.
Yes we have been treated very badly, can’t argue with that. But still it is no reason to lie down belly up for them. I would much prefer if disenchantment was turned to anger on the field. The apathy we have now will do no good for the club in the long term.
We have the players. If this team goes on underperforming in this competition it will be a tragic waste.
this is where i am a bit confused as well.
uefa is trying to hurt the club, and effectively its fans, by treating the club unfairly. seems like a reasonable conclusion to reach, yes.
yet, why might this be occurring? isn't it to deter other clubs from following the same model? isn't getting fans to backlash against the competition going to help them get what they want? also, was it not this model that helped make the premier league at least less dominated by the usual top clubs, and also one that has made life more difficult for the other long term top clubs in europe to maintain their dominance with us and similar run clubs in the competition?
i am of the belief that some of the top clubs also wanted the seeding structure to change because bayern and real madrid do not want to have to play us in and similar clubs the group phases vs. arsenal, zenit, or basel.
again, i'm not suggesting our fans are not justified to be angry at uefa over their treatment of us, but by fans not supporting the team via boycotting the competition, what outcome do we expect to come from it?
by not going to the games, or not putting our energy into supporting the players on the pitch/in the competition in general will have what outcome that is desired from those that boycott?
in other words, who are we really hurting? if we don't go to the games why should uefa care? to them it might seem that they have created the perfect punishment. why?
the money made from the competition goes to the owners, no?
this is professional sport so yes, money is very powerful in terms of how competitions function, and increasingly so as one moves up the ladder of leagues in quality. so, since the sport is a global entity worth billions it seems unsurprising that this would be a dominate theme to the game as a business.
as a result, in other professional sports around the world sport executives make similar decisions to increase revenues. this can come via expansion (adding new clubs to leagues), or as in american sport with the creation of "playoffs," and then later an expansion of teams added to the "playoffs" compared to the past where less teams were in it (i.e. similarly with uefa to the changing from the champions only competition to one that includes not only champions), as well as more games (i.e. changing from a one match elimination system to groups and then 2 leg competitions). each of these are obviously about adding more interest from more fans and more revenues to all involved who stand to make a profit.
i do feel sorry for the smaller clubs and their fans who cannot compete in/experience such competitions, and in a perfect world there would be ways to resolve this better. it's ironic that americans are perhaps the most concerned of anyone with "fairness" in sport with the use of socialist ideals to help this, even being a country that is fairly conservative politically. as i'm sure everyone here knows of, these "socialist" systems are in place to protect smaller clubs in major american sport to give them a better chance to compete and better create parity (salary caps being the most obvious example, annual "drafts" of young players that allow the worst performing teams to be granted the rights to the best young talent, as well as constant use of "instant replay" to make sure referees make correct decisions in games).
regardless, the point is big money is going to be a part of the game because it's there. that we will probably have to play by their rules stinks, but it is difficult to say any other way of getting around it as just focusing on the english competitions will surely not attract, nor keep the best players needed to win those competitions regularly. if this is an incorrect statement then i am hoping someone can show me another point of view. i will also say i am obviously biased since i would get great joy from seeing us succeed further in the cl, despite also feeling we have been treated unfairly by uefa.
