B League in England

[LincolnshireHib]

Hi there,

I used to live in Edinburgh as a student and was a Hibs season ticket holder at the time. I am, by trade, a Grimsby Town fan and have recently been reading about the now confirmed proposals for a B team league from Championship and Premier League clubs someone between League 2 (a division above Grimsby's current beleaguered position in the Conference) and the Premier League.

This is a tragic shame for most fans from the bottom half of the Championship - i.e clubs like Yeovil, Barnesley who probably wouldn't be able to reach the Premiership or fund a B-team - who will be a further promotion away from a better league. It undermines the ardent support found at the lower echelons of the Football League and non-league too. Grimsby, to give a good example, recently lost their Conference play-off semi final to Gateshead. The 1st leg in Grimsby say a crowd of over 5,000, with 328 travelling from the North East. The second leg saw a crowd of 8,111 and 1547 Grimsby fans travelling from Lincolnshire. This is not an isolated example of phenomenal support at League 1,2, Conference or even lower in recent years.

There is already a loan system in place that Premier League clubs could use better. They aren't obliged to hoard you talent. Not eveyrbody follows a Premier League team and they've already held the Football League to ransom on the Elite Player Performance Plan. As fellow followers of Hibernian FC and general football fans, I implore to sign this petition and put your support behind fans across England who follow their local team, in the say way people from Leith and Edinburgh follow Hibs.

Cheers,

Tom

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petition...-b-teams#share

[Nutmegged]

Germany are fasing out B teams just ad Englan devcode its a good idea

[Pretty Boy]

Signed.

[Michael]

People always talk about how only about 1/3 of players in the Premiership are eligible to play for England and that this harms the national team. As a result measures like this have been proposed.

However, when you look at the performance of the English national team in major finals they don't perform any worse (on average) then before this change in English top flight demographics.

But yeah, the B team idea is a very poor one. The English lower leagues have excellent support.

[jacomo]

The loan system needs reformed. As it is, the wealthy clubs are starving the rest of income and depriving fans of smaller clubs from the joys of bringing a young player through and seeing them develop before moving on to bigger things.

Giving the wealthy clubs another platform with which to grab even more of the pie is not the answer. **** modern football.

[LincolnshireHib]

Cheers to all who have signed so far. If you are on twitter, please use the #SaynotoLeague3

[Haymaker]

Don't see why they cant do as we have done and put a team in a semi-pro/decent amateur league.

The reasons given that there is a "gap" between 18-21 for players is easily solved - Play them at competitive level.

Creating another league is crazy. By all means have "B" teams but put them low down.


Also signed.

[Gatecrasher]

England has one if the best attended and exiting lower leagues in the world why on earth would they mess with that?

[Keith_M]

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England has one if the best attended and exiting lower leagues in the world why on earth would they mess with that?

Money?

[Saorsa]

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The loan system needs reformed. As it is, the wealthy clubs are starving the rest of income and depriving fans of smaller clubs from the joys of bringing a young player through and seeing them develop before moving on to bigger things.

Giving the wealthy clubs another platform with which to grab even more of the pie is not the answer. **** modern football.

This and signed.

[Islington Hibs]

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Hi there,

I used to live in Edinburgh as a student and was a Hibs season ticket holder at the time. I am, by trade, a Grimsby Town fan and have recently been reading about the now confirmed proposals for a B team league from Championship and Premier League clubs someone between League 2 (a division above Grimsby's current beleaguered position in the Conference) and the Premier League.

This is a tragic shame for most fans from the bottom half of the Championship - i.e clubs like Yeovil, Barnesley who probably wouldn't be able to reach the Premiership or fund a B-team - who will be a further promotion away from a better league. It undermines the ardent support found at the lower echelons of the Football League and non-league too. Grimsby, to give a good example, recently lost their Conference play-off semi final to Gateshead. The 1st leg in Grimsby say a crowd of over 5,000, with 328 travelling from the North East. The second leg saw a crowd of 8,111 and 1547 Grimsby fans travelling from Lincolnshire. This is not an isolated example of phenomenal support at League 1,2, Conference or even lower in recent years.

There is already a loan system in place that Premier League clubs could use better. They aren't obliged to hoard you talent. Not eveyrbody follows a Premier League team and they've already held the Football League to ransom on the Elite Player Performance Plan. As fellow followers of Hibernian FC and general football fans, I implore to sign this petition and put your support behind fans across England who follow their local team, in the say way people from Leith and Edinburgh follow Hibs.

Cheers,

Tom

http://www.change.org/en-GB/petition...-b-teams#share

I agree with you- just increases the gulf even more between the haves and the have nots.

[Jonnyboy]

Signed

[eastterrace]

when i heard this earlier i thought might be a good idea but when you look into it the b team can get promotion up to div 1 , i thought it was just a league between them , so now i think its the biggest load of tosh ive heard so signed .

[heretoday]

The usual thing of men in suits justifying their inflated salaries. One of them was Howard Wilkinson for god's sake! He must be about 80.

I would remind them England hasn't won the WC since 1966. So they have been non-winners even when most clubs had a huge majority of English players.

Club football is what matters in England and it's well supported up and down the leagues. So don't muck about with it.

No one is that bothered about international football any more but it would help if the press got off the team's back. It's almost as though they don't want England to do well because that doesn't make such a good story.

Surely that can't be true!

[HibeeHendo]

Arsene Wenger's interview regarding this was spot on:

http://www.teamtalk.com/premier-leag...not-make-sense.

I'm not sure how to make links clickable.