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Hope Powell Interview



Postman Pat

Well-known member
Jul 24, 2007
6,971
Coldean
I know Women's football isn't everyone's cup of tea, but this is an interesting interview with Hope Powell

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...owell-brighton-england-mark-sampson-mo-marley

You know what is nice about Brighton? It is a community club, and that is really important; you can feel that in the building. I like that. It has a nice feel to it. It’s honest, you recognise where you are in the order of things.” And it seems she’s being given the space to build and grow as she did with England: “Everybody feels like they are on the same page. Everybody wants to do well but there’s no pressure. You don’t feel like today you’re here but tomorrow you could be gone. That makes it a nice environment to work in. It just feels right.”
 

Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,647
Location Location
What will be interesting is if the womens team are promoted to the WSL1, where players have to be professionals (its semi-pro at WSL2 and lower). I guess it depends what line of work they're already in, but according to that article, one of our players is a WPC for Kent Police. Bin your career off to chase your dream of being a professional footballer for a few years ? Not an easy choice to make. Then if you get relegated....
 

Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,647
Location Location
Would be an easy choice if they got paid what men did. One top flight season would have you set up for life.

Of course, but that's never gonna happen is it, for the reasons discussed on that Lewes thread. There's nowhere near enough interest in the womens game to make it even remotely viable.
 

Springal

Well-known member
Feb 12, 2005
23,682
GOSBTS
Would be an easy choice if they got paid what men did. One top flight season would have you set up for life.

You think Solly March and co. would be set up for life after 1 season in the Prem? Absolute rubbish.
 

Springal

Well-known member
Feb 12, 2005
23,682
GOSBTS
If they are on 20k a week they get what an avergae person gets in 52 years...a week. Yes, of course they bloody are!

He could live off £1M for 50-odd years?
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,647
Location Location
And men's wages are!? You can probably count the number clubs that are in profit on one hand!

Not sure what you're driving at. Sky/BT poured £5.5bn into the PL coffers, along with all the other worldwide commercial sponsorship deals that come flooding in on top of that. PL clubs are wallowing in unprecedented levels of cash, which makes the crazy wages sustainable. We've all been saying the bubble is going to burst for years, but it still hasn't.

The womens game can never and will never generate revenues on that scale, so professional women will only ever be on a tiny fraction of their male counterparts, whether their club is making a profit or not.
 

Springal

Well-known member
Feb 12, 2005
23,682
GOSBTS
They pour all that money in and yet clubs still make losses. That does not seem viable to me.

Have any Womens teams made money? Just out of interest.

Can't imagine a few hundred watching the women at £8 each + a bit of sponsorship is covering the costs.
 


Guy Fawkes

The voice of treason
Sep 29, 2007
8,186
He could live off £1M for 50-odd years?

That is 20k a year.

How much will £20k a year buy you in 10, 20 or even 50 years time. It will be worth less and buy less as every year passes

£20k a year is less than the national average wage now and the way prices for things like cigarettes and booze are going, you probably wouldn't be able to afford a pint and a smoke on that 50 years from now let alone anything else
 

Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,647
Location Location
They pour all that money in and yet clubs still make losses. That does not seem viable to me.

As long as owners are prepared to cover those losses, the merry-go-round keeps on spinning. When was the last time BHA made a profit ? I don't see us going under any time soon - we've been flourishing, whilst keeping those losses under control.

The trouble starts when an owner suddenly pulls the plug...
 

Springal

Well-known member
Feb 12, 2005
23,682
GOSBTS
So women's football is viable then. It is just a case of owners not wanting to put their money into it like they do to cover the losses in men's football.

But we do cover their losses?
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,647
Location Location
So women's football is viable then. It is just a case of owners not wanting to put their money into it like they do to cover the losses in men's football.

Womens FOOTBALL is viable. But its not viable to pay women the same as men, because it simply doesn't generate the revenues. TB is already subsidising the BHA Womens team. If he stopped doing that, then they'd fold (as per what happened to Notts County when they decided they could no longer afford to run a womens team). The money isn't in the womens game, so you need a level of benevolence from football clubs and their owners to fund and nurture it. But there's only so much money in the pot.

In what kind of parallel universe would a woman footballer playing in front of three men and a dog, get paid the same as a male footballer playing in the Premier League ? Whats your argument ?
 

Springal

Well-known member
Feb 12, 2005
23,682
GOSBTS
I think men get paid way way way too much. There is money around to reduce ticket prices and invest in the women's game, but instead, we choose to pay men stupid wages.

So you want to increase mens game losses, to subsidise a loss making womens game?
 

The Large One

Who's Next?
Jul 7, 2003
52,343
97.2FM
So you want to increase mens game losses, to subsidise a loss making womens game?

You're seeking to presume one is a direct influence on the other.

The club has made a commitment to women's football, from a young age through to the senior team. They have an infrastructure within the club to run it - including a director, a football technical person, manager, assistant manager, coaches etc., plus coaches for the reserve and younger teams. Sponsorship, in whatever form, always helps, as does people through the turnstiles. Tony Bloom, Paul Barber, Michelle Walder et al will have set a budget which the women will have to operate to.

The next thing for the team's upward trajectory to continue is for people to appreciate that it isn't the same as the men's game, and that there's a Brighton & Hove Albion team that needs people's support. If those fans of the club could do that, who knows what the possibilities for the women's team are - even if just for ONE MATCH to see what it's all about...?

FWIW - the Albion women's team does play some pretty decent football. The club has made a commitment. Can some of us at least consider buying into it?
 


Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,647
Location Location
I think men get paid way way way too much. There is money around to reduce ticket prices and invest in the women's game, but instead, we choose to pay men stupid wages.

Mens salaries are obscene when you compare them to "normal" jobs. But being a PL player is not a normal job - they're in an entertainment industry that is now awash with money. They are the elite, the tiny fraction of footballers who get to earn a living at the very very top level of the game. And the money is IN the game to pay them those wages. Its just market forces.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol made $700,000,000 profit worldwide. Tom Cruise got paid $12,000,000 for playing the lead role in that movie. Now whether you like the movie or not, is that obscene ? When the proceeds are that great, then the guy who starred in it and made that movie a success is entitled to a generous chunk of the proceeds.

I'm not entirely disagreeing with you btw, as wages have reached mindboggling levels. But if Tony one day decided to slash Chris's wage budget for the 1st team in half (say), so that we could pay the women more, and reduce ticket prices by ten or twenty quid, then what do you think would happen ? What division do you think we'd be playing in ? Because it certainly wouldn't be the one we currently occupy, I can guarantee you that.

And the binfest on here would melt the internet.
 

hans kraay fan club

The voice of reason.
Helpful Moderator
Mar 16, 2005
60,981
Chandlers Ford
What will be interesting is if the womens team are promoted to the WSL1, where players have to be professionals (its semi-pro at WSL2 and lower). I guess it depends what line of work they're already in, but according to that article, one of our players is a WPC for Kent Police. Bin your career off to chase your dream of being a professional footballer for a few years ? Not an easy choice to make. Then if you get relegated....

It is exactly the same dilemma that faced Conference level men's players a few years back.

All time Eastleigh legend Andy Forbes was 30 years old when the club reached the Conference Prem and decided to go full-time.

He was forced to leave, as a year, maybe two, on whatever they were able to offer him was not worth him quitting his job as store manager of Currys in Andover. I think the Albion were also interested at one point, too, but again, two years of League One, Withdean era wages, were probably a drop in wages.
 

Easy 10

Brain dead MUG SHEEP
Jul 5, 2003
61,647
Location Location
The difference in your example is the film made a profit, not a loss like most football clubs.
And, yes, if we were to do what I said we would drop like a stone. What it would take is ALL the clubs to do it. Yes, yes...fanciful and womt happen. We shouldnt just accept it as ok though.

But you're arguing for women footballers to have parity in wages to men footballers. Its a noble concept in theory, but its utter bobbins, because by comparison very, very few people pay to go and watch it. TV companies don't pay billions to televise it because the audiences numbers simply aren't there to justify it. There's not as much public interest in it = less money in it = lower salaries for the players. Its as simple as that.

Do you think someone who plays Crown Green Bowls for a living should be trousering £2m a year ?
 

Hamilton

Well-known member
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 7, 2003
12,364
Brighton
Well, at least this is a nice argument to be witnessing on NSC. We’ve moved on a tiny bit.


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Guy Fawkes

The voice of treason
Sep 29, 2007
8,186
I think men get paid way way way too much. There is money around to reduce ticket prices and invest in the women's game, but instead, we choose to pay men stupid wages.

It's down to market forces, If the roles were reversed and it was the women's game had the massive revenue & crowds, and the men's game was watched by a much smaller audience and with far less revenue generating abilities, i wouldn't have an issue with the men getting only a tiny fraction of what the women were earning, in fact i would expect it to be the case

To compare the women's game where it is now to the Premier League and it's riches isn't the way to go, at the moment the WSL, etc are more at the equivalent of a much lower men's league and you wouldn't expect that lower men's league team to pay the same as a premier league men's side does in wages due to the income generation being so vastly apart.

The women's game has to pursue ways of generating interest and bigger and bigger income from TV and sponsorship as the only realistic way to close the pay gap between the very top of the game

I believe Lewes FC do pay both the men's and women's team the same wage, but the women's team play at a higher level than the men's team. It would be interesting to know how different the incomes are to the club for both teams and which generates more for the club in terms of gate receipts, sponsorship, etc....
 

Guinness Boy

Tofu eating wokerati
Helpful Moderator
NSC Licker Extraordinaire
Jul 23, 2003
33,686
Up and Coming Sunny Portslade
The difference in your example is the film made a profit, not a loss like most football clubs.
And, yes, if we were to do what I said we would drop like a stone. What it would take is ALL the clubs to do it. Yes, yes...fanciful and womt happen. We shouldnt just accept it as ok though.

It's perfectly viable for Premier League teams to make a profit. Arsenal made one of 27 million (hence the 27th minute planned walkout!). El Pres has done a few articles & threads on how the new TV deal can make clubs profitable.

Championship? Not so much. Smaller grounds, less TV money, more desperation to go up & stay up. And that's one rung down. Financially women's football is probably on a par with the Ryman League, and quality wise it's worse.


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