Golden Goals

[Uncle Buck]

Taken from today's Guardian;

Goal Chase carrot for lower divisions

Stuart James
Thursday July 29, 2004
The Guardian

Coca-Cola launched a three-year sponsorship deal with the Football League yesterday, and immediately set about increasing entertainment value for supporters by offering clubs a £1m incentive to score more goals.
The 72 Football League clubs will receive a share of that sum, almost £14,000 each, if they can score 4,500 goals between them in the coming season.

"One of our aims is to make the game more enjoyable for the fans," said Steve Cumming, sponsorship manager of Coca-Cola Great Britain.

Coca-Cola has stipulated that the "Goal Chase" money should contribute to the salary of a younger player. "I didn't realise it was £1m shared," joked Gillingham's chairman Paul Scally. "I thought it was £1m each club and on the back of that I bought six strikers."

However, the money is certainly not guaranteed. The highest number of goals scored in a season since the Football League was reduced to three divisions in 1992 is 146 short of Coca-Cola's requirement.

Nevertheless, Peterborough's manager Barry Fry believes the prize fund could make a significant difference to lower-division clubs.

"I've got a 19-year-old young boy that Leicester let go last year who has been training with me for a month and I would love to take him," said Fry. "But he's going to cost me £200 a week and I haven't got £200 a week spare."

Coca-Cola, who have supplanted Nationwide as the Football League's main sponsor, declined to reveal the value of their commitment. However, Richard Masters of the Football League confirmed that "it's our biggest ever sponsorship deal".

 

[CHAPPERS]

Coca Cola can f*** off and leave our game alone. Do they not think that the fact we go every week makes it entertaining already?


Spastics.

 

[Marc]

"One of our aims is to make the game more enjoyable for the fans," said Steve Cumming, sponsorship manager of Coca-Cola Great Britain.

what an absolute cockjockey! The game IS enjoyable as it is, it does'nt need big money american idealist loosers like this coming in and ruining the game.....god dammit it makes me angry



I linked it to the yanks due to a few years ago they wanted the goals to be alot larger so get rid of the 0-0 draws, thankfully FIFA just sighed and told them wehere to go. Now we have the startings in coca-cola to try and change rules, these things start meaningful like cash prizes then further down the line they will jump out with a rule change or something crap to alter the game in someway to generate more money for themselves.....ARGH!

 

[Highfields Seagull]

How about all clubs agreeing that in the first 5 minutes of the game they will let each other score goals till its 5-5. Then start the game proper with 85 minutes to go.

 

[fatbadger]

Will Coca-Cola PLEASE f*** off and leave the game to those of us that understand it and appreciate it? Wankers.

 

[Easy 10]

I think clubs who are not "pulling their weight" in the goals tally should be punished by Coca-Cola with a points deduction. At the halfway stage of the season, any club which has not scored at least 25 goals from their opening 23 League matches should have a 5 point deduction. If by the end of the season they have not made up the tally to cover their deficit from the first half of the season, and scored at least 50 goals, then they should start the following season on -5 points AND incur a heavy fine.

THAT'LL soon teach those teams who don't like scoring goals and entertaining us, won't it.

 

[m20gull]

I have an idea for each game. Let's give more points to the team that scores more goals, say 3 points to the team that scores the most goals, and none to the team that scores the least. If they get the same number of goals then they get a point each. That should provide an incentive.

 

[pasty]

I have an idea for each game. Let's give more points to the team that scores more goals, say 3 points to the team that scores the most goals, and none to the team that scores the least. If they get the same number of goals then they get a point each. That should provide an incentive.

Great idea - and tell yer what, why not use the amount of goals scored, minus the amount of goals conceded, to separate teams who have the same number of points. Think we're on a winner here...

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

In a time were clubs are stuggling for money isnt it a good idea?
or is it just me that thinks that?

 

[pompeydel]

I have an idea for each game. Let's give more points to the team that scores more goals, say 3 points to the team that scores the most goals, and none to the team that scores the least. If they get the same number of goals then they get a point each. That should provide an incentive.

I can't see that working

 

[Gazwag]

They will also expect players to celebrate a goal by pouring coca cola all over them a la gazza in euro 96.

 

[fatbadger]

In a time were clubs are stuggling for money isnt it a good idea?
or is it just me that thinks that?

It would appear to be only you.

Let's be clear about this:
(a) it won't make any difference to how any teams play
(b) the target almost certainly won't be reached.

So, I think we can safely say that this just an attempt by Coca-Cola to get a few more column inches for free. They need to be told that such nonsense damages their reputation rather than improves it - that way they might stop trying to insult our intelligence and the good name of football.

Of course, if they DO care about struggling clubs, and want lots and lots of positive coverage, why don't they just give £14,000 to each club on the proviso it is spent on young players?