With crowd attendances falling can you put this down to too much soccer being played. Half of the games I believe are meaningless.

There can never be too much football. In the immortal words of Bill Shankley "Football is not a matter of life and death. It's far more important than that!" http://www.soccergaming.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Did you see the game Lazio vs Venezia,only 535 people showed up to see that game today.

I think part of the blame for this problem has to be put on the so-called "Champions League"... don't get me wrong, I love seeing the best European teams competing against each other, but this is not a Champion's League anymore with all these second- and third-place teams in it as well... they should go back to the old format!

Becks is right.

Who gives a sh*t what Bill Shankley said, that's ancient history.
535 people is just pathetic for match featuring 2 Serie A teams.
I think apart from first division teams who play in Europe who are having a chance to win a treble, the domestic Cup is just stupid, extra mileage for nothing.
1) As if a 2nd division team is going to win it in any of the big leagues.
2) Should a lower division win, it would look pathetic if that team competed in the UEFA Cup.

Look at the League Cup for instance, big English teams send their reserves out, if they get knocked-out, who cares. If the FA Cup didn't have such a vast tradition, top Premier League teams would do the same.

Too much football being played? No!! but maybe there's to much football on television.

For instance, in the UK, 24hours a day you hear about Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea etc. all the kids hear and know more about Man Utd than they do about Joe Local Bloggs playing in the second division, this then means that they develop a stronger bond with Man Utd and so support them despite the fact that they will never travel to Old Trafford and J.Bloggs are playing infront of half full stadiums.

Also, many people are unwilling to travel hundreds of miles and pay out double what they used too for entry to a game that they can sit back and watch on t.v for free.

I personally like a lot of footie on t.v. and it doesnt stop me from going to matches but it does stop many people and for this reason I think that more money should filter down to the smaller clubs when the t.v. money is handed out.

I will take the opposite view: a team like Joe Local Bloggs or any team in 3 division down down should be strictly on amateur basis. There is a FIFA commision in session right now which will address this issue(too many professional teams and players) and what can be done about it. They are also considering a proposal for a unified schedual for the whole world, which would have season from February to November and a 30 day break for vacation.

Maybe there should not be so much football on television in european countries and south american, and more in new zealand and australia, to make the game more popular.
When the world cup was shown free to-air everyone was talking about and playing soccer, for instance at school during breaks, but when the world cup had finished it was back to rugby again. So matches european countries find to be a match televised too far, such as, a mid-table clash between an english or spanish teams, i'd be happy to watch, so long as there is more footie on tv here.

There's more money in football than ever and you want to make lower league's strictly amateur? whats the point of football organisations if there only going to do well by the bigger teams and screw the little guys?

I'm not just talking about third division down anyway, look at Scotland and their attendances.

Wouldn't it be better if every country played their league season at the same calender time of the year. With the winners of each national league playing the WINNERS of the other national leagues in the Fifa zone division. So we would have a European, Asia, N America, S America, Africa ,Oceiana League Cup. The WINNERS of these six cups would play every year in the World Club Cup. (No other Club Cup games would be allowed)
This format would mean less meaningless soccer would be played and since they are played at the same calender time across the whole world we would have no more of this crap of players being available for National Team selection.

What do you think?