EPL Talk » Football Association

England: New Three Lions Crest Revealed

The Gaffer — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:37:14 +0000

The Football Association has unveiled a new Three Lions Crest for the FA and England teams, which will be worn for the first time when England wears their new Umbro shirts for the March 28th friendly against Slovakia at Wembley.

Pictured above is the new FA crest (left) and the new England one (right). The new designs take its inspiration from the 1948-49 crest, and the new England crest features a lighter blue, and more authentic tudor roses.

According to the FA “The single-lion emblem was first adopted by Henry II when he became King of England in 1154. It was added to by Richard I (The Lion-heart) who added a second, and then third lion by the end of his reign in 1199. However it was not until 1872, nine years after The FA was established, that the Crest featured in an England game, adorning the players’ shirts in the world’s first international match, between England and Scotland in Glasgow.”

What do you think about the new England crest? Click the comments link below and let us know.

Premier League And FA Threaten To Sue Justin.tv

The Gaffer — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 14:21:09 +0000

The Premier League and Football Association have finally caught up to Justin.tv and are threatening legal action to prevent soccer fans from around the world watching live streaming games, according to the News Of The World newspaper.

However as of this morning, the streams are still available for today’s Bolton against Manchester City derby and record numbers of fans may visit the site for the first time because of the publicity created by the News Of The World article (see screenshot above, taken from Justin.tv this morning).

EPL Talk wrote about Justin.tv in September and reviewed how easy it was to watch the England against Croatia game. Plus we detailed how many channels were available and how many users were viewing the match. The News Of The World conveniently copy and pasted my research and included it in today’s story without attributing the source.

According to the News Of The World, recent stats from Justin.tv include 167,138 hits for the Man United versus West Ham game and 148,063 viewers for the Arsenal against Spurs derby.

In May 2007, the Premier League filed a lawsuit against YouTube because of the game highlights available on that website. But what the YouTube lawsuit and threatened legal action against Justin.tv expose is another issue entirely. There is obviously a huge demand for soccer fans to watch their favorite team online, but instead of creating a solution that generates revenue for the clubs and the league, the league is focusing on persecuting the companies that are illegally streaming the games.

Sure, what Justin.tv and YouTube (and hundreds of other sites) are doing is illegal, but the Premier League is in a continuous cat and mouse game that it’ll never win. Even with NetResult policing the Internet to limit the amount of goal highlights shown on YouTube and other sites, it’s impossible for that organization to win.

The lawsuit against YouTube and the threats of legal action against Justin.tv are merely a drop in the bucket. All the legal action is doing is showing that the Premier League wants to protect the companies who have paid large amounts of money for the Internet rights to the league.

The Premier League and its clubs are missing out on a huge opportunity to provide legal streaming of matches as well as goal highlights in a package that would be available online to football fans around the world. It’s ridiculous to think that in the year 2008 with all of the technology that’s available that soccer fans should be prevented from legally watching their favorite team play week-in, week-out.

By providing a legal alternative to watch any or all of the games, it’ll put most of the illegal streamers out of business. We, as human beings, are accelerating toward a world where most of our movie and TV watching are being done online. The concern at the Premier League is probably that providing all of the games by the Internet will reduce the amount of money that networks will pay for the TV rights, but I don’t believe this would happen. TV, as we know it, will continue to be around for several years. Until TVs become obsolete, the Premier League has a massive opportunity to generate massive amounts of revenue from both TV and Internet rights.

The Beginning Of The End For Debt Ridden Clubs?

Josh Allen — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:39:23 +0000

With the prediction by Lord Triesman, head of the Football Association, that the current global economic crisis could spell a ‘terrible danger’ to clubs with spiralling debt, meaning could we actually see a Premier League club go to the wall? According to Triesman the Premier League is currently in £3bn worth of debt so the possibility is looming ever larger.Triesman’s prediction comes on the same day when West Ham’s chairman and major shareholder, Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, saw his Icelandic bank Lanksbanki nationalised and he was sacked from the board.

Despite reassurances that Gudmundsson’s assets are spread out and that this won’t effect West Ham you do have to start to wonder whether even the foreign investor can save the over spending Premier League club. Lord Triesman’s predicts that Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea account for nearly a third of the £3bn worth of debt so are even the big clubs safe from financial ruin?

Well you would have to say Chelsea and Manchester United will be fine what ever the global economy throws at football but Liverpool seem to be being hit hard. Liverpool Chief Executive Rick Parry has tried to play down claims that the credit crunch has meant the Reds won’t be able to build their new stadium on Stanley Park for perhaps a year.

The club are riddled with debt after the takeover by George Gillett and Tom Hicks but they are not the only ones. A while back there was a story that Michele Platini only wanted clubs who were debt free to compete in the Champions League and Uefa Cup. It turned out that only three clubs, under Platini’s rule, would have been eligible to compete. According to one report those clubs were Stoke City, Newcastle and West Ham, although I feel that may have changed now with the Toon’s ownership dilemma and the Hammers looking like they might have to fork out up to £50million in compensation to Sheffield United.

So could we be on the verge of seeing a Premier League club go to the wall? Well it’s rare to see a club go out of business in any level of football so you would have to think not but perhaps it might be the end of large transfers. That is apart from Manchester City, whose owners have more money than sense and if things carry on as they are in the economic world City could be a good bet to win the Premier League a few years down the line. However looking at the story of West Ham’s foreign owner in financial trouble you even have to wonder if outside investors have enough to save the Premier League.

There is a real possibility that we will have big clubs like Leeds United be financial ruined by over spending and end up being stuck in the lower tiers of English football. This is a very pessimistic outlook but things are very worrying for everyone and it looks as though football will not escape unscathed.

The Premier League can not continue in the same way it has been going on for the last few years and the effects of the credit crunch can already be seen in the stands where there are a growing numbers of empty seats. The Premier League’s bubble is going to burst, it just seems like most club are not ready for it and it will have disastrous consequences for owners and fans alike.