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ENGLAND - FIFA World Cup 2018 / 2022 bid

292K views 2K replies 236 participants last post by  venki04ss 
#1 ·
England to bid for 2018 World Cup

FA considers 2018 World Cup bid

England last hosted the World Cup in 1966

Football Association chief executive Brian Barwick says that England may bid to host the 2018 World Cup after the success of the 2012 Olympics campaign.
He said: "It's right and proper for the London Olympics bid to take precedence but why wouldn't we go for it?

"I think we would bid further down the line. The next time that it should come to Europe is probably 2018 and we have got enough time to get organised."

The FA, who missed out in the 2006 bid, have yet to make any firm decisions.

Next summer's World Cup will be staged in Germany and is not expected to return to Europe for another 12 years.

England hosted the World Cup in 1966 - when the home nation won the tournament - and also staged Euro 96.

But their efforts to host the 2006 World Cup ended in failure, with the English FA accused of breaking an agreement to support Germany after they backed England's Euro 96 campaign.

I considered London 2012 a blow to those hopes but then remembered Germany and America hosting both within a few years of each other

Barwick, meanwhile, is hopeful that England will win next summer's World Cup.

"I see 2006 as a big year for the Football Association. Hopefully we will qualify for the World Cup and give it a real go," he said.

"If and when we qualify, we would go into the World Cup as one of the teams that can win it. It's in the right climate and the right time-zone.

"We have a very good team and are making impressions on European club football too.

"I think we've made progress as an international footballing nation and can be expected to do well. This country will come to a halt if we do."
 
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#365 ·
Some people here obviously believe it's a very simple thing to expand a stadium with a few thousand extra seats. As if that is cheap and easy, just a minor little thing to do, which can easily be achieved and generally just costs a few million €.
But in reality that is not the case at all. Some stadia in fact just can't be expanded at all, and in many cases it's a very expensive thing to do and costs several dozen millions of euros instead of just a few and in quite a number of cases it's simply cheaper to build a completely new stadium than expanding an existing one. Just as a little reminder here, because some people here argue that it would basically just need a few little expansions of some stadia. But in fact that is in most cases not as simple as it seems. And quite often it doesn't really pay off very well, financially either. Especially if it's not an older, outdated stadium that's being expanded and renewed, but still a rather modern one instead.
 
#366 ·
But you're acting like these are things the bid organizers for every country aren't aware of! The logistics for possible stadium development and expansion are the same in other nations as they are in Germany, the only differences being the resources available. And as of right now I'd feel safe in saying the likes of England, Spain and elsewhere can match the level of investment seen in Germany.

No one is delusional in thinking venues like Leeds' Elland Road can be improved for just 20M Euros and a case of chocolate, but these events are seen as investments by the communities and the clubs/stadium owners and they will calculate the amount of investment they can afford based on expected levels of return. Germany has seen tremendous benefits from their investment in new and upgraded stadiums for their WC, through increased attendance at league matches and stadium events, through slight upticks in tourism and tax revenues. Likely the same will come about for whoever holds 2018 provided they don't build meager facilities like Italy did in 1990.

Feel free to speculate in a conservative fashion, but there's nothing wrong with everyone else feeling a little more optimistic. Cheers. :cheers:
 
#367 · (Edited)
Elland road needs knocking down - its a million years from hosting a World Cup.

At the moment:

Wembley
Arsenal Emirates
Villa Park
Old trafford
St James Park
Stadium of light
Coms

With the minimum of effort these will be able to host WC games, but we need geographical spread which rules out Emirates and Stadium of light and coms basically. Possibly keeping Emirates if needed.

Liverpool
Everton
Spurs
Forest

4 new stadiums which would be large enough, however spurs wouldnt be used being in london.

So with current plans thats about 6/7 stadiums likely to to big enough and ready for 2018.

We need 2 or more stadiums (up to) to be build from scratch in addition to those already planned, and there are not many teams who it makes financial sense for them to build a brand new 45k seater stadium around. Most teams have sufficient capacity now. Stadiums in leeds, sheffield, bristol, portsmouth cannot sustain a 45k plus stadium/and/or they dont need one in the case of sheffield with one average stadium that united have and one ancient death haunted third world stadium that is hillsboro ...

not to mention transport to many of these grounds is piss poor.
 
#374 ·
We need 2 or more stadiums (up to) to be build from scratch in addition to those already planned, and there are not many teams who it makes financial sense for them to build a brand new 45k seater stadium around. Most teams have sufficient capacity now. Stadiums in leeds, sheffield, bristol, portsmouth cannot sustain a 45k plus stadium/and/or they dont need one in the case of sheffield with one average stadium that united have and one ancient death haunted third world stadium that is hillsboro ...
not to mention transport to many of these grounds is piss poor.
Excuse me?

Third World? Haunted by a disaster what could have happened anywhere else in the country at the time?

Oh, and the reason why Transport links are poor to all stadiums is down to rubbish governments rejecting the cities. Hillsborough has the supertram, what has had many bids to be extended only for the government not to fund it.
 
#368 ·
I reckon that you should host the wold cup in just London and the north west. That way you save on travelling costs, concentrate the benefits and still put on a great show. :cheers::). Even with existing venues just beeing tweeked you could do it, and if the new ones are built than that would be great ;)

London
Wembley- 90 000
Twickenham- 82 000
emirates- 60 000
NWHL- 60 000
Stamford bridge-42 000
Upton park- 35 000

North west
Old trafford- 76 000
City of Manchester- 48 000
New Anfield-60 000
Everton- 50 000
 
#370 ·
^^ maybe if one day we announce our independence, then we can take half the england team and our hefty GDP with us... ;)

Anyway, what about Reading as the second stadium in the south east, britains "largest" town, fast growing and excellently positioned, has some of the best rail links in the country and has a stadium which is ready to be expanded to 40,000 and would've been if they weren't relegated

or Brighton, Falmer would be half way there and hopefully expandable, and if we had to show the world a city/town on the south coast of england i'd rather it be brighton than portsmouth, plymouth or southampton.... and brighton has the links, the size and the culture to welcome the world

just a thought
 
#375 ·
That's rubbish, brighton only look small now because they play in a small stadium and haven't had a sniff of top flight football in the premiership era.

if brighton had beaten notts county in the division 2 play off in 1991 they would've made the top flight, rather than sinking like a stone and selling their ground etc, 1 season of survival and they would've been founder premier league members, and who knows where they could be now.

For me

Brighton are probably the 2nd biggest south-eastern club outside of London. Personally in terms of potential to sustain a premier league club and build a large stadium it goes

1. Portsmouth
2. Brighton
=3. Reading/Southampton
4. Gillingham (don't laugh they took 35,000 to wembley in against man city, and took 45,000 the year after against wigan for third teir play off finals, medway is a large conurbation etc)
5. MK dons

For me all these clubs are bigger potentially and currently than northern dross like blackburn, bolton, wigan and middlesbrough!

although i do realise it was a comparison against Leeds, i just had to get my dig in ;)
 
#389 ·
Okay. You made me look it up! But I'm afraid to say that the figures don't live up to your estimation.

As carlspannoosh said, Brighton's biggest ever average attendance - 25,264 - was in 1977-78. And for four consecutive years around that time, they managed to average just over the 20,000 mark.

Other than that, though, attendances have been considerably lower. Pre WWII, Brighton's attendances were generally under 10,000. Post war, and before the Goldstone Ground was sold, attendances were generally in the 10-18K range.

I don't doubt that Brighton would sell out a 30K stadium if they made it to the Premiership but, at the moment at least, there is no evidence to support the case for a 40K stadium - and certainly not unless and until they are an established Premiership club.
 
#386 · (Edited)
Just a quick look at a Brighton fan site says this...(the club attracted up to 30,000 in the 1970s) which was when they were promoted to the top division and at their historical peak. Record attendance is 36,747 v Fulham Division Two December 27th 1958. Largest Average Crowd was 25,264 in 77-78 which as far as I can remember was the year before promotion. When they were promoted to the top division it was 24,795 79/80.
I think 40K would be much too big for Brighton.
 
#391 ·
^^Sorry. Not convinced by that argument at all. Brightons average attendance figures crept up over the 20k mark for 4 seasons or so 30 years ago in a stadium that had a capacity of 32k.
When they got to the top their attendances did not continue to rise and when they went down so did their attendances. As Jim B says, if Brighton ever came back to the top division then a 30k stadium might be up for argument but 40k is way too big for the forseeable future.
 
#396 ·
^^Sorry. Not convinced by that argument at all. Brightons average attendance figures crept up over the 20k mark for 4 seasons or so 30 years ago in a stadium that had a capacity of 32k.
did you not read my post??

You quote the 20,000 figure like it has always been the barometer for a well supported team…

As I mentioned, you look to actual attendances, and compare them to now. Whereas I look and see a clubs position in the attendance charts and relate it to now. As I mentioned Brighton tend to finish above certain clubs when ever they are in the same division as them and many times when they are not, not below, and the reason for the small crowds of late is down to the restriction of their stadiums.

Let me explain why you can't directly compare attendances of different eras

There is a table that says Tottenham are the third best supported club of all time. (http://www.nufc.com/html/attendance-all-time.html). I found this staggering, and had to investigate myself. Basically the table takes average attendances from when a club joined the league and averages them out over a leagues history. That sounds a fair way to adjust, no? However a few things make it not so.

Different eras have different averages, basically, the chart showed Tottenham had an higher all time average than Arsenal which, although statistically correct, was statistically misleading, as Arsenals sample was taken from 10 more league seasons than Tottenham’s and those extra ten seasons were from an era when the game was growing and thus attendances were always going to be Lower than the statistical average. If you take it from the point when Tottenham joined the league Arsenal were higher. However this can still be considered incorrect as different eras produce different average highs. Meaning a team that was successful in a fallow attendance period would likely have similar attendances to a team that was average in a remarkable attendance period. And it doesn’t take into account what division you were in. Thus the best way to rank is to average your position in the attendance charts, and for that, Arsenal in the 20th century were the countries best supported,

Top 10 in order
Arsenal, Liverpool, Man U, Everton, Spurs, Newcastle, Man City, Chelsea, Villa, Sunderland.

However even that is a flawed average as it doesn’t take into account different divisions. So the best way to do it, is to have every clubs average national rank based on the division they were in then you can compare. It would take an age to do that. Brighton’s top flight average position is 17th although to see where that would rank them against others I’d have to do a massive comparison and I can’t be bothered!

Basically this amounts to the fact that you can’t compare a clubs average in the 1940s or 1960s to that of the 1980s because different factors made it so that attendances during both eras were wildly different. If I take a random sample of seasons, lets say as we are in the 2008/09, lets take 20 years ago and 60 years ago, for comparisons sake.

1948/49

The champions were Portsmouth who averaged 37,082. That was however below the league average of 38,792 (League record). Two clubs averaged above 50,000 that season Newcastle and Arsenal, Tottenham in the second division averaged above 48,000. The lowest in the top flight was from Huddersfield who averaged 22,100. The Lowest in the league was Accrington Stanley who averaged around 6,000. Those are the key stats.

1988/89

The champions were the mighty Arsenal. The gunners averaged a “paltry” 35,595. However that was the third highest. Not one club averaged above 39,000. The highest average was 38,574 by Liverpool. The second division high was 23,500 from Manchester city. And the top flight low was 7.800 from Wimbledon. The top flight average was 20,561 (the 4th highest in the 80s and the highest since 81/82). The league low was 1,947 from Halifax Town.

The highest attendance in 1948/49 was 78,299 in the Merseyside derby @ Goodison (coincidentally their record high). The highest in 1988/89 was 46,377 from the Man U/QPR game.

Basically all this proves is that you can’t compare eras. So to say that Brighton have only broke 20,000 5 times makes them small. Means nothing, because in the seasons they broke those figures, it put them in the top supported clubs in the country, which should be the main factor!!

When they got to the top their attendances did not continue to rise and when they went down so did their attendances. As Jim B says, if Brighton ever came back to the top division then a 30k stadium might be up for argument but 40k is way too big for the forseeable future.
They did not continue to rise because they couldn’t. Most clubs attendances go down when they do. Whether it be Leeds or Leicester. Their crowds have still gone down, no matter how remarkable they are for their division.

I also explained why 24-25,000 in a 32,000 capacity stadium was a near sell out!! 32,000 represented the maximum the stadium could hold if everyone was bundled in a filled space effectively. Thats why if you look through the record books most clubs highest 10 or so crowds are at fluctuating levels, rather than around a constant number!

In 1987/88 Arsenal’s given capacity was around 57,000. In that season Arsenal got the league’s highest attendance. 54,703. I obviously wasn’t there that day being barely 2 years young. But by all accounts talking to older friends/relatives who went it was rammo despite Arsenal apparently having space for 2,000 more people!!

bigbossman - I don't think that anyone would dispute that a 30K capacity stadium would serve Brighton well if and when they get to the Premiership.

But, as things stand, a 40K stadium would be too much. There is no evidence or history to support the argument that such a stadium would be required. Sure, if Brighton were to get to the Premiership and if they were to consolidate their top flight status over a number of years, then it might be worth looking at 40K. But not now. And not on the never-never.
Firstly the debate shouldn’t really take into account Brighton’s current division as a 40K stadium would be for the world cup. The case would be then could Brighton ever sustain a 40,000 seater and imho they definitely could!

Let me put it this way, when Southampton were getting 32,000 every week, there was definitely a mandate for them to add an extra 5-8,000 seats. For the simple reason they weren't getting the maximum value. I.e. most games could've got higher crowds, and the really big games, would've got even higher. Same with Brighton, and the same with a lot of clubs.

Sell outs are all well and good but anyone can sell out a stadium that is too small for them. Manchester united, Arsenal, Tottenham etc. and even if you are not it doesn't mean you couldn't get bigger crowds Chelsea, Liverpool, Aston villa etc season tickets being the main reason

You mention the likes of Southampton, Portsmouth, Leicester and Derby. You say that Brighton would need a bigger stadium than any of these. I fail to see why. Brighton is comfortably the smallest city among them, with a population in the region of 150,000. By contrast, Leicester has a population of about 330,000; Southampton, 300,000; Derby, 230,000; and Portsmouth, 190,000. And I cannot imagine that Brighton is more of a hotbed of football than the others. If anything, I would incline towards the opposite.
I didn't actually mention Brighton being bigger than Southampton, Portsmouth or Leicester, however. Let's do a quick comparison.

Brighton is not comfortably the smallest city, it is actually comfortably the biggest, the football club is called Brighton and hove Albion and represent the twin city of Brighton and Hove. Which has a population of 253,000.

According to the ONS (official) figures on urban areas out of the cities you mentioned it goes like this:

(City proper)urban area
Brighton (253,000) 461,000
Portsmouth (198,000)442,000
Leicester urban area (285,000) 441,000
Southampton (228,600) 304,000
Derby (222,000) 229,000

Brighton is the 12th largest urban area in the country

The teams I actually said Brighton were bigger than are your derby’s, Middlesbrough’s and Blackburn’s, and I see you didn’t try and compare them to Brighton!

One thing you guys don’t take into account is catchment area, Brighton’s nearest league clubs are Gillingham, Portsmouth and Crystal Palace, if you take in the approximate population between, lets say only Sussex (for arguments sake)with a population of 1.5 million, and one league club. You can see why Brighton might be so big. Even if Crawley or Eastbourne borough made the league the catchment area is still large enough to sustain two to three well supported clubs. After all Crawley is on the borders of league-less Surrey which has a population of over a million, and Eastbourne catchment area moves into Kent with over 1.8 million people.

The reason for me is simple we have more people in the south than the north. Wigan are comparatively big in Greater Manchester as Fulham are in London the obvious difference being Fulham take their fan base from a greater population. Thus Fulham can get bigger crowds!
 
#392 ·
I currently live in Darlington and have lived in Dartford for a number of years I think I can comment on this. You are probably right there was a northern bias in the football league. This was down to the voting on teams for election into the league. All the clubs are businesses so they are going to vote for teams that create more local derbies, bigger crowds and have lower transport costs to get there. As the football league was founded in Lancashire of course you are going to get a northern bias. Just as you get a southern bias in Rugby Union, which still exists, look at the treatment of Rotherham and Leeds.

With regards to Dartford Ok they were up for election to the league, but Wattling street was never up to hosting league football. When Maidstone played there they had to spend a fortune bringing it up to basic standards and it was still terrible. Also I doubt Dartford could ever have enough support to sustain a professional team. OK Darlington and Dartford are of a similar size, but Dartford is now really just a suburb of Greater London and most people support the London clubs, mainly Chelsea and Charlton. Darlington don't get big crowds but people come from a wide area to watch them. This wouldn't happen in Dartford, people would not come form outside Dartford to watch them. From living there why anybody from outside Dartford would ever go there is beyond me!!
 
#399 ·
I currently live in Darlington and have lived in Dartford for a number of years I think I can comment on this. You are probably right there was a northern bias in the football league. This was down to the voting on teams for election into the league. All the clubs are businesses so they are going to vote for teams that create more local derbies, bigger crowds and have lower transport costs to get there. As the football league was founded in Lancashire of course you are going to get a northern bias. Just as you get a southern bias in Rugby Union, which still exists, look at the treatment of Rotherham and Leeds.
Agree with you totally, the southern FAs shot themselves in the foot by trying to outlaw professionalism, if it wasn’t for the tenacity of Arsenal and Millwall maybe football would’ve split along the lines of Rugby. An amateur south vs. a professional north.

Personally I think the election system in many ways was a good idea in so far as it kept out the absolute tosh. For example Histon can make the league this year. And for me they should definitely not be allowed, they come from a village of 4,000 people and are bankrolled, that’s hardly fair imho. What should’ve happened was that if you were repeatedly up for vote you get automatically relegated etc etc


With regards to Dartford Ok they were up for election to the league, but Wattling street was never up to hosting league football. When Maidstone played there they had to spend a fortune bringing it up to basic standards and it was still terrible.
That really means nothing, If Dartford ever made the league so would they and Maidstone’s liquidation resulted in Dartford’s.

Also I doubt Dartford could ever have enough support to sustain a professional team. OK Darlington and Dartford are of a similar size, but Dartford is now really just a suburb of Greater London and most people support the London clubs, mainly Chelsea and Charlton.
Chelsea??? Dartford is a Charlton/millwall area first. With a large smattering of Tottenham and Arsenal. And a smudge of man u/Liverpool.

But to say Dartford couldn’t sustain a professional team is bull.

Dartford are currently the 4th best supported team in the 7th tier of the football pyramid. Averaging 1,048 at a level where the average crowd is 389. Only FC united of Manchester, Boston United and Dover Athletic average more at this level. And they are averaging 600 more than the aforementioned Maidstone united.

Only three teams in the level higher, (conference North/south) average better, Chelmsford, Wimbledon and Telford

Pretty good , no?

http://www.european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn/current/aveengnl.htm

Dartford has a similar population to Darlington in terms of the town proper, but Dartford is part of a larger urban area, a continuos massive of built up land from the centre of London all the way to Gravesend. Their catchment area is far large. You also fail to take into account, local ties.

Lets take local rivals Gravesend and Northfleet (Ebbsfleet united) for instance took 30,000 to the football trophy final, more than former league Torquay. Yes many will say that most of them were their “owners”. However this is not the case, although I have no figures I have a lot of friends from the Gravesend area who support teams like Arsenal, West ham or Millwall, who went to Wembley because Gravesend were there, it caught the towns imagination, and there is a genuine feeling that if they ever made the league these people would turn up there. The same happened when Charlton got to the prem, a lot of man united fans became Charlton fans oddly!

Darlington don't get big crowds but people come from a wide area to watch them. This wouldn't happen in Dartford, people would not come form outside Dartford to watch them. From living there why anybody from outside Dartford would ever go there is beyond me!!
Come on Zens is a legendary night club!! Anyway that’s your opinion and I totally disagree with it. County durham has less than a third of the population of Kent, and just over half the population density. Dartford has a far wider amount of people to choose from. Hence why Dartford has more potential than Darlo will ever have! You can say who will support Dartford, but Reading never got an average above 16,000 before they won the championship, and then all of a sudden Reading pride lead to sell outs every week and talk of expansion to 38,000!!!

Never underestimate the power of a big catchment area, and before you say what about Wimbledon, yes they had terrible crowds when they just entered the league but by the time they were an established club they were getting decent-ish crowds.
 
#393 ·
bigbossman - I don't think that anyone would dispute that a 30K capacity stadium would serve Brighton well if and when they get to the Premiership.

But, as things stand, a 40K stadium would be too much. There is no evidence or history to support the argument that such a stadium would be required. Sure, if Brighton were to get to the Premiership and if they were to consolidate their top flight status over a number of years, then it might be worth looking at 40K. But not now. And not on the never-never.

You mention the likes of Southampton, Portsmouth, Leicester and Derby. You say that Brighton would need a bigger stadium than any of these. I fail to see why. Brighton is comfortably the smallest city among them, with a population in the region of 150,000. By contrast, Leicester has a population of about 330,000; Southampton, 300,000; Derby, 230,000; and Portsmouth, 190,000. And I cannot imagine that Brighton is more of a hotbed of football than the others. If anything, I would incline towards the opposite.
 
#395 · (Edited)
I know there's one white elephant in Germany as a result of the 2006 finals, but I really don't like the idea of 40k seater stadiums being built anywhere and then left half-empty (or worse) for the next 20 years... Bradford, Plymouth, Brighton, etc., all cities that are never going to sell 40k tickets for football - the locals simply aren't interested enough.

To contradict myself, the only other thing I would add to the debate over which city/club needs a bigger stadium would be this...

In 1996 when Sunderland were building the Stadium of Light, many of our supporters (including myself) questioned the logic of building a 40k seater stadium for a club which hadn't managed to regularly sell-out Roker Park in the top division (capacity 20k at the time). A year after the 40k Stadium of Light opened an extra 2k seats were crammed in due to demand (and this was in the 2nd division), 2 or 3 years on and we were adding another 6k seats.

In short, even those of us who think we know everything, don't.
 
#397 · (Edited)
I know there's one white elephant in Germany as a result of the 2006 finals, but I really don't like the idea of 40k seater stadiums being built anywhere and then left half-empty (or worse) for the next 20 years... Bradford, Plymouth, Brighton, etc., all cities that are never going to sell 40k tickets for football - the locals simply aren't interested enough.
...
I fully agree with you there. Here in germany a few clubs suffer from too large stadia. And that is one of the worst szenarios that can happen to a club.
1860 München for example, currently 2nd Bundesliga, is almost about to go bankrupt, mostly because of the horrendous rent for the, in their case completely oversized, Allianzarena. Hertha BSC Berlin is for several years allready still looking for optional possibillities to leave the famous and beautiful Olympic Stadium in Berlin. And there are other examples where an oversized stadium creates a lot of problems because of the great costs.
And sadly it also causes a poor stadiumatmosphere which in turn makes it rather unattractive for people to visit the matches again. Stadium sizes should allways much rather be calculated according to the clubs average attendancies with a reasonable plus and not to meet the maximum possible attendancies for one or two matches during the season. And the reason why many German stadia even though several of them are still rather large are so crowded, allmost to the max, is that their sizes have been well calculated to match those numbers anot only because the popularity of soccer or the secific club increased so much. It's much rather a mix of a reasonable capacity, good marketing, good ticketing and the usual factors licke success. But even large teams like Cologne or Gladbach had well attended matches in their stay in the second Bundesliga, because of those other aspects like: not oversized stadia, reasonable ticketprices and a still fairly popular second Bundesliga.
It really doesn't make all that much sense to expand or build a stadium that is way too big for the local team. The local club will most certainly not profit in any way then. And that is why some stadia for the European cup in Switzerland and Austria were just temporarily expanded and downsized again after the cup. An oversized infrastructure is most certainly not beneficial at all for most clubs or cities.
So I suggest it would be much better to focus on the reasonable local demand and then either expand a stadium temporarily just for the Worldcup or just consider the clubs and cities that reasonably can get a 40k stadium filled, that would be much more beneficial for all parties than having oversized stadia here and there after a Worldcup.
 
#408 ·
On hertha, they got 70,000+ against bayern at the weekend, you may say it was against bayern, but i remember they had 70,000+ against chelsea in the champions league. They have a big fan base. They are in a big city, and with success they should definately fill their ground every week. If they maintain thier level attop the table, there is no reason why they can't pull 70,000+ crowds for the rest of the season. Obviously they are no Dortmund, so getting these crowds relies on massive success, but a smaller stadium would deny the maximum amount of fans the chance to see their team crowned champions. It's a fine balance!

Why is it Hertha seem to have so many empty seats compared to other German Clubs? (Bayern game aside). Berlin is the largest city in Germany with the only competion for support coming from Union Berlin. The Rhine-Rhur conurbation is far larger but is a conglomeration of cities and it contains at least 5 Bundesliga clubs.
 
#409 ·
I think the city seize isn't that important as it sometimes might look like.

In the Netherlands the city of Heereveen has about 29.000 inhabitants in a municipal of 43.313. At this moment they have a stadium of 28.500 (virtually every match full) and would like to expand to 40.000. An advantage is that Heereveen has the only succesful club in the area. They are however in one of the least dense area's of the Netherlands.

The city of the Hague has 482.212 inhabitants and has it own (and only) footballclub for years, just like Amsterdam with Ajax and Rotterdam with Feyenoord. However they have never been able to fill their new 15.000 seater. The local club has not been succesfull the last decades (they are switching a lot between the highest division and the first division a lot). But it is the only local club in the area.
 
#411 ·
bigbossman said:
On 1860 they averaged 40,000+ in 2. Bundesliga, in there first season in the allianz, there is no reason why they couldn't fill that stadium every week in the bundesliga. If they were getting those sort of crowds in the second tier.

On hertha, they got 70,000+ against bayern at the weekend, you may say it was against bayern, but i remember they had 70,000+ against chelsea in the champions league. They have a big fan base. They are in a big city, and with success they should definately fill their ground every week. If they maintain thier level attop the table, there is no reason why they can't pull 70,000+ crowds for the rest of the season. Obviously they are no Dortmund, so getting these crowds relies on massive success, but a smaller stadium would deny the maximum amount of fans the chance to see their team crowned champions. It's a fine balance!

On your final point i agree, but then doesn't selling out your ground prove that you can have a bigger one??
On 1860:
They're actually making a minus of about 3 mio € per year. And they're selling their best players each season to keep the debt down. The 1860 fans mostly hate the Allianzarena... and so on. The Alianzarena in fact is not a very good stadium at all, not even for Bayern München. The Bayernfans also complained about the poor stadiumatmosphere. The Allianzarena is overly expensive not al that reat compromise to meet the demands of both Clubs in Munich, which didn't work out all that well, even thought the stadium is a beauty. Bayern Munich would rather have the Allianzarena for themselves and 1860 might most likely not be able to afford playing there much longer. And they're not really close to going back up into the first Bundesliga soon, no surprise when you consider that in the last years they needed to sell their best players again and again.

Hertha BSC is very suzccessfull this season, but in all the last years they were pretty much average in the first Bundesliga. The Olympic Stadium in Berlin is one of the biggest stadia and in the last years they did have plenty of empty seats except for a few highlights like Bayern München. when bayern plays any club gets their stadium crowded. because they're a very attractive opponent and because they have Fans all over Germany and the world that come to see their stars. Hertha would theoretically have a huge fanbase, but in reality they don't have all that many fans. Berlin has several small soccerteams also. And Hertha isn't very trendy or all that popular in Germany eventhough they're succesfull at the moment.

Now back to this aspect:
On your final point i agree, but then doesn't selling out your ground prove that you can have a bigger one??
actually yes it does... BUT in most of all cases you don't really want a bigger stadium as long as the capacity is still somewhat big enough. There are several reasons. First of all the maintenance and other cost for running a stadium. The bigger the stadium the higher the cost If you don't get your stadium rather full you pay extra money you could save otherwise. And the money a club makes alone with the standard ticketprices isn't all that much. Now if you maintain an extra capacity all season only to sell extra tickets for two or three matches you don't make more money. Usually the opposute is the case, you make less money. The reverse argument shows the problem better: Oversized stadium -> too many empty seats -> poor stadium atmosphere -> fewer fans -> Less money -> ...
The biggest problem is that an oversized stadium "dooms" a club to have success whatever the cost for that, to be able to finance the oversized stadium. So those clubs in many cases don't really have a very solid financial basis. When they're successfull everything works well, they get their stadium filled and make some extra money by selling more tickets (the extra income through the ticketing is actually coparably rather low to other sources like sponsoring and TV contracts, etc...) As long a sthey're sucessfull everything is allright, but as soon as they aren't an oversized and expensive stadium soon "eats up" everything. Oh and for whatever reason, here in germany usually those oversized stadia are in most cases also rather expensively built ones also by the way which worsenes the whole financial situation for the clubs, or the communities that run the stadiums to support their localclub, like Kaiserslautern for example. The city or state just decided to reduce the stadiumrent by 50%. Now suddenly the club is "successfull" again and wastes all the money they don't have on investing into new, rather expensive players.
But in reality it's just a generous financial support from the politicians and taxpayers in the end. The teams with oversized stadia are allmost all not very successfull... Hertha and Kaiserslautern are the only ones I can think of right now, but kaiserslautern still isn't sucessfully financially. And even if they should go up into the first league, as soon as they drop back out their financial crisis will most likely just start all over again. I don't know any club that did profit from an oversized stadium, besides those few small ones where the local community runs the stadium and let's the club play there for a very low rent. And that financial model is way too popular in Germany, not just with oversized stadia, also with several smaller well proportioned ones.
And it's not a very good solution to the dilemma, having taxpayers jump in whenever the clubs financial situation isn't all too good.
 
#413 ·
Regarding Hull v Bristol City play off match, we must remember that Bristol is much nearer to Wembley than Hull is. It should be appreciated that for these one off games cost / distance will go out the window but there comes a point of thinning out where x amount of supporters will travel regardless of match importance, cost and distance. We could suggest that both Bristol City and Hull could take say 40k each to Wembley of hard core money / distance no object supporters, after that we have the supporters where these factors influence their decision. For Bristol City fans these factors are less detrimental allowing more will they won't they fans to make the trip. Personally I would say the clubs are of very similar size and stature though you would have to say on current league position Hull are the "bigger" club. Hull get relegated, Bristol promoted and the balance shifts.
 
#415 · (Edited by Moderator)
2018 will go to england. if it boils down to america vs england, england would win easily. their stadiums are newer and refurbished, they actually care about the sport whereas the stupid yanks see it as a profit opportunity, and we havent hosted the damn thing for over 40 years, whereas america hosted it in 94 and look how boring that tourny turned out to be. furthermore, english passion for football crushes anything the americans are capable of. plus the.....at football - they even have the.....to label it 'soccer' not 'football'!!

"Inappropriate Language"
 
#417 ·
2018 will go to england. if it boils down to america vs england, england would win easily. their stadiums are newer and refurbished, they actually care about the sport whereas the stupid yanks see it as a profit opportunity, and we havent hosted the damn thing for over 40 years, whereas america hosted it in 94 and look how boring that tourny turned out to be. furthermore, english passion for football crushes anything the americans are capable of. plus the yanks are shit at football - they even have the fucking gall to label it 'soccer' not 'football'!!
If that's going to be your level of debate could you not bother? :eek:hno:

Incidentally, the best American stadiums are far more modern than what we've got. Let's ignore these two posts people as they're not indicative of what the English really think of America. Correcting this troll would be a waste of your energy.
 
#416 · (Edited by Moderator)
2022 should go to australia. i think the football in oz is very underappreciated. plus their players are alot better than the yanks. for example, harry kewell, a champions league winner - far more successful than any (name one who has a champions league medal). and again, it shouldnt go to america. their stadiums are old and , they think just because its bigger that means itll be better when this is clearly not the case; the world dont has such 5-yr old style of thinking. plus i think oz is capable of an upset. and they've never hosted it before, which will be refreshing for once. and it sounds quite exotic too, i love to see sydney host the final, sounds wicked.

"Inappropriate Language"
 
#431 ·
Jizzy. You appear to have a rather large chip on your shoulder about our American cousins.

For your own sake, get over it. Not least because you make yourself look pretty ridiculous when you slag off US stadiums. They have more 60K+ stadia that require no or minimal work than all of Europe combined.
 
#418 ·
I agree Rob I don’t like that sort of attitude. If England are to win the rights to host the 2018 World Cup I want it to be because the bid is quality not because it's been to long or we have a passion for game. Hopefully the FA and the government use this opportunity to put some money into stadiums and infrastructure after all this could give a much needed boost to the economy. And none of us should be drawn into bashing other nations it’s childish.
 
#433 ·
I agree Rob I don’t like that sort of attitude. If England are to win the rights to host the 2018 World Cup I want it to be because the bid is quality not because it's been to long or we have a passion for game. Hopefully the FA and the government use this opportunity to put some money into stadiums and infrastructure after all this could give a much needed boost to the economy. And none of us should be drawn into bashing other nations it’s childish.
Are you one of those money grabbing freak who care more about corporate boxes and sight lines rather than large terraces and a cracking atmosphere? I want England to host the World Cup solely because the English are passionate about football.
 
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