[overkill]

Yes, it's winter time approaching, and right on cue, that old chestnut is being tossed on the fire again.

Wait a minute, you haven't heard this before!? Where have you been? Mars?

Well, here comes that bandwagon. The 'players play too many games and need a winter break' bandwagon.

Personally I agree. I mean yes, they play less football now than at any time since the 1920's, they should be able to go out and spend an entire week or three going on a bender, rather than the every Sunday - Monday, they are paid more than our chief scientists, doctors, and the people that run the country (I'm referring to the senior civil servants), but why shouldn't the poor over-worked, underpaid, little darlings get some winter break time to get p...... I mean, relax.

I mean after all, when someone does 180 minutes (max) of work a week, and not every week mind thanks to squad rotation, 'injury', 'burn-out', heavy shopping trip with the WAG, etc, does very little training nowadays and gets paid in excess of £50,000 a week to do it, hell they deserve that little bit extra!

Not to mention, (please don't) that in all the leauges that do have a winter break we hear the words "they are still a bit rusty after the winter break" and (that's in March!), but why bring up trifling points like that when all they are asking is that we put up with them playing even worse football than the norm for a month to get match fit again, and then playing into the summer when, gosh, they are 'burned out' after a long season!

I say, yes! It's time to give in to their demands for a winter break and less games. It's time to pay them even more for doing not a lot.

Then, when they still fail to win anything at international level, it's time to say - no more!

Your last excuse has gone.................

[JohnG]

I sometimes wonder if it's just the media bringing this one back time and time again every year when they've got no other big stories to lie about !
It always makes me laugh when they claim they play too many games with all the squad rotation that goes on now, in the good old days when Forest were taking on and beating the best in Europe there was no such thing as rotation and every player played every game if he was fit (and sometimes when they weren't fit).
The other stupid thing about the proposed winter break is that they are proposing it at the wrong time. These days it's normally colder around February time, so imagine them having a winter break before that, then having to cram more games in because of that, only to find that a lot of games could be called off due to the bad weather

[tk421]

If there was to be a winter break, the FA should just remove one set of weekend and any midweek domestic cup fixtures in late january therefore giving the clubs two weeks off. This wouldn't cause too much of a problem as you could fit the fixtures in earlier in the season. Or perhaps the FA could reduce the premiership to 18 teams therefore giving the players four less games to play a season and the clubs a bigger share of sponsorship and prize money! This way everyones a winner!

[JohnG]

But then they would be coming out with an excuse that they aren't up to speed because of the winter break

[DJT75]

I love the press (sorry for bringing a Liverpool tint to my post Overkill, but I can't help it). Just love the way Gerrard is the one singled out today by the same people that slag off the rotation system the other 364 days a year.


How come Tennis players can travel the world playing 2-4 hour matches everyday for 10-15 years, matches where you're on your own so need 100% concentration & never suffer from burn out??

[overkill]

Originally Posted by DJT75

I love the press (sorry for bringing a Liverpool tint to my post Overkill, but I can't help it). Just love the way Gerrard is the one singled out today by the same people that slag off the rotation system the other 364 days a year.


How come Tennis players can travel the world playing 2-4 hour matches everyday for 10-15 years, matches where you're on your own so need 100% concentration & never suffer from burn out??

Exactly. I hold up the tennis players as an example every time this BS starts. They play pretty much all year round, they have to be really fit (how many even slightly chubby tennis layers are there?), are never caught burning the candle at both ends, and, if we are going to include pressure, the top players earn phenomenal amounts of money, but all of that earning power rides on playing as many games as possible. Yet do they whine all the time like footballers? Nope.

Have a bit of dignity you bunch of over paid, self absorbed, WAG touting whiners................

I quite agree TK41. However, they wouldn't do that in a million years. I've been advocating playing the LC (as they used to do in Scotland) before the season starts, thus getting players fit through competitive games rather than meaningless friendlies. However, that might get in the way of all those prestige tournaments they love to get involved in. Oh, could those be the same prestige tournaments that the Continentals also play during the winter break!

Ah, I spy an ulterior motive here!

[addyb]

I know its pathetic all this burnout garbage that comes out all the time. As already mentioned most teams get rotated these days so i cant really see how they get burnt out. If i was on 100K a week id gladly play every day of the week regardless of this burnout crap.

Spot on about the tennis players. They often play really long matches in a tournament and then then 1 day off before there back on it!

Nadal in this years wimbledon played i think 3 days solid in some 2-3 hour matches every day and he didnt moan!

[lostinspace]

I almost admired the government minister who describedfootball wages as obscene. They surely are. But then he started squirming saying his comments had to be taken in context.
I agree with most of the other posts. Footballers do not deserve a winter break. What would the clubs do with it anyway? They'd go off on a foreign tour to promote shirt sales.
Footballers get much more, for much less, than any other workers. They do not guarantee results, as proved by the number of average players on those obscene wages. And once their playing career is over,they can live like gods for the last 50 years of their lives on their undeserved ill-gotten gains.
I know lower leagues don't get the same as premiership players, but even then, there are thousands (millions?) who would gladly swop places with them. Short hours, pampered, doing something they love, and getting paid for it!
No to the winter break. Pay them £500 a week, and 50k for winning something. Still decent money compared to many. If they want superman's wages, they have to be supermen.

[overkill]

Originally Posted by lostinspace

I almost admired the government minister who describedfootball wages as obscene. They surely are. But then he started squirming saying his comments had to be taken in context.
I agree with most of the other posts. Footballers do not deserve a winter break. What would the clubs do with it anyway? They'd go off on a foreign tour to promote shirt sales.
Footballers get much more, for much less, than any other workers. They do not guarantee results, as proved by the number of average players on those obscene wages. And once their playing career is over,they can live like gods for the last 50 years of their lives on their undeserved ill-gotten gains.
I know lower leagues don't get the same as premiership players, but even then, there are thousands (millions?) who would gladly swop places with them. Short hours, pampered, doing something they love, and getting paid for it!
No to the winter break. Pay them £500 a week, and 50k for winning something. Still decent money compared to many. If they want superman's wages, they have to be supermen.

It's sad isn't it, that govt (and the last one ended up squirming as much as this one does) ministers make what is a valid point, then as soon as the rich and shameless stamp their feet in indignation, they back off. Not to mention the press gearing up to support the worthless ones in the face of 'nasty' New Labour attacks.

The last point is exactly it. If you get paid a ludicrous, and the wages are now ludicrous, amount of money then you should bloody well earn it. Frankly, week in week out, I don't see too many players doing that. Unless of course watching an average midfield/defender hump a ball 40 yards to an equally average six foot two forward, who promptly loses possession to another equally big an useless player, can be said to bejustification for such reward.

On the winter break, we all know there won't be one even if they introduce it. The Spanish, Germans and Italians all use their 'winter breaks' to play money spinning, 'prestige', round robin tournaments to keep the players on their toes, so I doubt very much any of our top players will actually stop playing during that time. Funny how a fat cheque can persuade an 'exhausted' player to get off his overpaid *** to play games that are utterly meaningless. Yet the same players are 'too tired' to play competitive games..............

It kills me the amount of naive people on 606 that have been sucked in by this BS.

[metropolis]

i think the winter break is a great idea.all those ponsey overpaid moaning ***** should have 2 weeks off from football and go and do a normal ****** badly paid job like everyone else.perhaps then they would see just how lucky they all are.

[Goooner]

Rather than a winter break, they should do away with a few pointless international friendlies.

If there was to be a winter break, wouldn't some of the clubs just jet off somewhere for a lucrative friendly match, on the other side of the world?

[UKflames]

It never fails to amaze me how pampered our footballers are, they should try looking at the NHL in the states.

They play an 82 game regular season, usually three games a week, sometimes 4 and they beat the crap out of each other but they don't ask for a winter break.

[johnscarlet]

Originally Posted by UKflames

It never fails to amaze me how pampered our footballers are, they should try looking at the NHL in the states.

They play an 82 game regular season, usually three games a week, sometimes 4 and they beat the crap out of each other but they don't ask for a winter break.

You can say crap , please don't circumnavigate the swear filter

[Scholes18]

Originally Posted by UKflames

It never fails to amaze me how pampered our footballers are, they should try looking at the NHL in the states.

They play an 82 game regular season, usually three games a week, sometimes 4 and they beat the crap out of each other but they don't ask for a winter break.

or MLB , admittedly the game is a little more static than the NHL but they still play over 160 games in the regular season and also do 4 or so games in a row.

Footballers over here have it much much easier in comparison

[Spacecat]

Originally Posted by DJT75

How come Tennis players can travel the world playing 2-4 hour matches everyday for 10-15 years, matches where you're on your own so need 100% concentration & never suffer from burn out??

tennis players sit down and have a fag and a brew every 2 games.

some of the women can be a bit chubby!


Football is played at a super high pace hence the increased risk of injury , apart from the kicking etc.

pay or no pay the human body can only take so much

[overkill]

Originally Posted by Spacecat

tennis players sit down and have a fag and a brew every 2 games.

some of the women can be a bit chubby!


Football is played at a super high pace hence the increased risk of injury , apart from the kicking etc.

pay or no pay the human body can only take so much

Football, if you've ever actually played it, is full of breaks. It is not played at the pace we are led (by the media) to believe it is, nor is it 'non stop'. The games only last 90 minutes, and physical contact, one of the reasons why the ball moves forward quicker, not that it's got 'faster', is all but eliminated. The primary reason for footballers injuries these days is not the clobbering tackles of old, but the poor footwear, and the fact that they don't want to play, not that they can't. It's miraculous how some players are 'injured' for internationals and cup matches, but then 'bounce back' for prestige CL and PL matches.

There are many games far more demanding that football on the human body, and the fact that cricketers are also moaning (Christ, are they kidding!?), another sport that is failing to deliver the international goods, and rugby Union players, a sport being riven by (money related) player problems in recent years, makes me even more suspicious of the players motives.

On tennis, I would rather play 180 minutes of football, do the odd bit of training as and when I feel like it, and be paid a kings ransom (x10) any day than play 3-4 hours of tennis every other day, every week, for a whole year. Get real.

But then I expected that response from certain people.

[city fan]

Ok, just for a bit of balance in the issue- two articles from pretty respected sports journalist in the Times- The first by Martin Samual, the second by Simon Barnes. (The comparason with that actress is quite apt.)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle2806312.ece

Simon Barnes-

Rainy days rare for all entertainers
A seasoned-up hyena could not have been more obscener than John Terry’s wages, according to Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister and a man clearly out to prove himself as the Billericay Dickie of politics. If you want to suck up to the public – any public – then having a go at footballers’ wages is a great place to start. Use the word “obscene” and don’t forget to mention nurses.
I have never really understood why the money paid to footballers is so fascinating, why it has always been – ever since the end of the maximum wage – a subject for appalled horror. Sport, so far as revenue is concerned, is an entertainment, so let us turn to the arts pages for a comparison.
And do we read about how much this opera star gets for singing Carmen? Do we read about the advances paid to Booker Prize authors? Do we get told how much Henry Moore got for this or that bit of sculpture? No, we ask instead, is it good?
To move into more populist entertainments, how often do we worry about the amount of money a pop band got paid for a record or a stadium-filling gig? How deeply do we care about how many millions Angelina Jolie got paid for her latest film? No, instead we ask, how gorgeous?
But as a tongue returns to a bad tooth, so our thoughts return again and again to the wages of footballers. A logical and thought-through approach to money in football would show more concern about the way the structure of the game is weighted towards money rather than excellence, with the direct result that the past two World Cups have been dire.
Instead, it is the wages of footballers that extort the stock response of revulsion. It is some deep-seated Puritanism in our culture: you mean they actually get paid money for playing a game? Our minds are stuck in the days of amateurism

[overkill]

Originally Posted by city fan

Ok, just for a bit of balance in the issue- two articles from pretty respected sports journalist in the Times- The first by Martin Samual, the second by Simon Barnes. (The comparason with that actress is quite apt.)

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/spo...cle2806312.ece

Simon Barnes-

Rainy days rare for all entertainers
A seasoned-up hyena could not have been more obscener than John Terry’s wages, according to Gerry Sutcliffe, the Sports Minister and a man clearly out to prove himself as the Billericay Dickie of politics. If you want to suck up to the public – any public – then having a go at footballers’ wages is a great place to start. Use the word “obscene” and don’t forget to mention nurses.
I have never really understood why the money paid to footballers is so fascinating, why it has always been – ever since the end of the maximum wage – a subject for appalled horror. Sport, so far as revenue is concerned, is an entertainment, so let us turn to the arts pages for a comparison.
And do we read about how much this opera star gets for singing Carmen? Do we read about the advances paid to Booker Prize authors? Do we get told how much Henry Moore got for this or that bit of sculpture? No, we ask instead, is it good?
To move into more populist entertainments, how often do we worry about the amount of money a pop band got paid for a record or a stadium-filling gig? How deeply do we care about how many millions Angelina Jolie got paid for her latest film? No, instead we ask, how gorgeous?
But as a tongue returns to a bad tooth, so our thoughts return again and again to the wages of footballers. A logical and thought-through approach to money in football would show more concern about the way the structure of the game is weighted towards money rather than excellence, with the direct result that the past two World Cups have been dire.
Instead, it is the wages of footballers that extort the stock response of revulsion. It is some deep-seated Puritanism in our culture: you mean they actually get paid money for playing a game? Our minds are stuck in the days of amateurism

Erm, the threads concerned about footballers whining about being 'overworked' not the obscene wages they are paid.

On that issue, and this gets trotted out every time by the 'leave the poor dears wages out of it' merchants, we do get naffed off by the stupid amount of money pop stars, movie stars etc get paid!

That's called a 'lame' excuse lads....................

[UKflames]

Originally Posted by johnscarlet

You can say crap , please don't circumnavigate the swear filter

Apologies for my language