Zomp said:
One thing I'll mention which seemed really hard for me to grasp when I first started really getting into the sport, is contracts basically mean nothing. At first it was hard for me to grasp because as an example you'd get headlines like "Suarez earns new 5 year contract". But really its just a pay raise from him, as if he plays well enough one of two things will happen. Some team will try to buy him, or he'll "earn" another 5 year contract the next year at a higher pay. When a player transfers to a new club, they write up a new contract and pay rate.
I don't think it works that much differently from most American sports. The thing that's different that that players are automatically extended when they switch teams (and hence, strictly speaking, always have a virtual no-trade clause that they have to waive to get sold). In other respects, there's a lot of similarity, right down to the fact that players pretty much automatically become available for the right price when they're a year away from being a free agent.
The one thing that really is different from American sports is the stuff that happens with players (most commonly South American if I understand correctly) where their rights are partly owned by agencies.
Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
The other factor that sometimes doesn't really get enough consideration in terms of player acquisition and competitive balance is the wage bill (essentially, salary commitments) of various teams. People tend to focus on the transfer numbers in thinking about how finances work, but the wages are just as important. As you might expect, there is huge variation among clubs in their wage bills. The latest available (2012-13) numbers from the Guardian looked like this (in millions of pounds):
City - £233
United - £181
Chelsea - £179
Arsenal - £154
Liverpool - £132
Spurs - £96
QPR - £78
Villa - £72
Fulham - £67
Everton - £63
Newcastle - £62
Everybody else - £44-60
-Spending money is not always a great shield against relegation for a small club - QPR finished last in 2012-13 despite all their spending.
One thing that you see happen a little bit here, most notably with both al-Citeh and QPR, is that a club looking to make a splash will significantly overpay players to get them to accept a move to a club that otherwise might not have the cachet that they're looking for. If, as with al-Citeh, they more or less get over the hump, you might see them come back to the pack a bit on wage bill as they no longer have to overpay to get the players they want.
Drocca said:
Ok, so here's some more dumb questions that I will rattle off stream of consciousness style. So, obviously only the richest clubs get the best players in their prime (or, I'm assuming, a bit after their prime if the Club makes bad decisions). Does this make it difficult to root for individual players?
I think this goes to the relationship of fans with their clubs. It doesn't really work like with American pro teams, it works a lot more like with college teams. So in general, I would expect fans to root for the laundry even moreso than they do here.
