According to the and many others British airways is not able to fly the England football team to Brazil for the World Cup.
OK, I get it that the airline itself doesn't get much more than a PR opportunity and that in turn bites into profits and therefore, most likely, all our pensions. I also understand that the FA say's it can't reimburse BA for all it's costs. Business is business and a stalemate has been reached.
One suggestion could be that the Government helps out, but unlike the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly England doesn't have it's own dedicated Parliament/government. Ours is the UK government and I can also understand why the Scots, Welsh and Irish would not want to pay for the English team to go to the World Cup.
So we are at a bit of an impasse
However I have a solution, let's get the boys in blue on the job, and I don't mean the Police. Stuff British Airways, let's send the England team to the World cup on a Royal Air Force Voyager aircraft, perhaps we could flank it with a couple of Typhoon fighter just to show we mean business?
The RAF helped to beat the Italians before; Maybe it's time to use our service men and women in a role that will endear them to our populace and allow them to show their immense pride and support for our country?
Well said Herts :thumbup:
I particularly like the idea of using Ryanair. They operate 737's mainly and would run out of fuel well before reaching Brazil. I hope the English players can all swim....
An average return flight from London to Brazil is around £10,000 return (business class) according to a quick check I just did.
Add to that the hotel bills and other expenses each individual will incur during what we hope is going to be a long competition for England, then there are the internal flights when in Brazil as some of the Stadiums are over 200 miles apart.
Yes the players could probably afford it, how would you feel though if you were asked to represent your Country in a sport, please go and do your best for us, it will cost you about 50 grand but hey you can afford that.
What about the other staff, the coach, the kit manager, the security staff, the physio and a whole host of others who will accompany the team, can they afford upto 50 grand ?
I would not like to see the RAF bear the cost, they have enough to spend money on in order to keep RAF and military personnel safe by having the best equipment they can afford.
The Government paid, what was it £15 billion to host the Olympics ?
I don't know a lot about who pays what when it comes to international sports, who paid for the recent Rugby and Cricket tours ?
I thought a the FA would foot the whole bill and recover the money and more from the licensing and sales of England World Cup memorabilia, a marketing opportunity worth millions.
I will not get into sportatics arguments but I really don't see why the whole bill or our participation in the competition cannot be paid for by whoever holds the marketing rights, the FA I believe, every company with a product is going to want to put the England logo on it, every company that can make a t shirt, mug, flag, teddy bear, bottle opener, inflatable something and a million other products that will be on sale will pay a premium figure for the right to use the official logo just as they did for the Olympics and euro football.
The marketing revenue is immense and the % paid for the right to use the logo is equally immense.
During the Olympics the organisers were so protective of the logo they even prevented one of the breakfast TV programmes showing kids how to make doughnuts in the shape and colours of the Olympic rings.
It is a shame that the government cannot sell the marketing rights to the highest bidder like they sell phone contracts it would be a nice boost for the treasury even after taking out the cost of getting our team there.
the premier league could afford to fly the england team to and around brazil for the world cup but they arent interested in the national team only how much money they can make out of the game.
in other countries that have qualified for the world cup the leagues have made sure the club matches finish earlier than normal so the national side can get together and at least be prepared to win the tournament.
but again the premier league have no interest because it doesnt make them money so do not care.
will i be watching the world cup? no because like its already been said i cannot stand most of the football players and its got nothing to do with the money they earn.
football is an entertainment business and being honest i would say only 2 or possibly 3 players in the world right now deserve every penny they earn because they are exciting to watch and are heads and shoulders above the rest.
Cristiano ronaldo.
lionel messi.
both these players are currently the very best on the park and off the park they know how to promote themselves in a good light.
in every sport one or two will always stand out from the rest because they want everything and let nothing stand in their way. Vettel at red bull has killed F1 for the same reasons, he wants to be the better than schumacher was and is determined to succeed no matter what.
The problem with players who represent England is they believe that they are the very best.
from a young age they earn stupid amounts of money and the brain just goes crazy. money becomes the thing to have, fast cars, homes etc so the desire to push on stops as all around them are saying your brilliant, good ,the best, when in truth they are not.
they can do it at club level because the more hungrier foreign player provides the skill factor in the teams but because the league is english the media concentrate on the rooneys and gerrards.
if england players were world class gerrard would of been dominating midfields, rooney ripping up defenses, and terry stopping any strikers.
these are not and have never been world class or have wanted to win at the international level and i wouldnt be surprised if they see the world cup as ruining a holiday instead of trying to win for your country of birth.
i cringe when i see kids with the name terry, cole or suarez on their backs. these are not role models but the very worst people to look up centred and only interested in personal gain at any cost.
i could mention other players which have lorded it up in front of us and now are nothing, and why do people go on about gazza like he is some sort of hero.
He slapped his wife about at a hotel, constantly drunk in public and turned up with a dinner for raul moat who had just murdered people! we should just let this sort of person crawl off somewhere and die.
George best was another drunk who failed, we celebrate failures in this country.
if your sick and fed up of seeing germany beat us its because they put national pride before everything and damn failures. we do not have that mentality because we are happy to settle for second best.
salaries need to be capped and players banned from playing for clubs for 3 matches if they pull out from the international side with wages fined.
then you may see a change in attitude from clubs and players and more hunger in playing for England.
but this wont happen because the premier league is in charge. and they want big tv contracts. not the world cup.
send the england team over with aeroflot. with a bit of luck they will crash into a mountain side.
English Players have very little to do with the English Premier League.
At the weekend only 7 English players were selected to in the English Premier League for the top six clubs, some of them were on the subs bench.
Hardly surprising that when they do all get together to play as a team they cannot gel together very quickly, it is not easy when they all play for different clubs but when they don't even play in our league it makes things even more difficult.
As for their private lives and salaries, not interested unless they are criminals they are no better and no worse than other celebrities who earn even more than they do, they may not earn their wages in labour to salary ratio but they do earn it in what income they bring to their respective clubs and as long as they do that they will command a high salary.
That is no different to how much a movie star makes for a film, Vin Diesel a great actor, but others could do an equally good job, but others would not guarantee the box offices numbers having him in the credits achieves.
It is like that in many businesses, a top stylist in a hairdressers, a top chef with Michelin stars in a restaurant etc.
As you said football is a business and paying top wages to secure top income is just good business sense.
I hear people saying they should get more wages for what they do, I never here anyone saying "hey no your paying me too much already" footballers are human and have a very short "high earning life span", get it while you can is sensible.
I googled it and that was the 2013 figures for all the clubs I quoted taken from a list of the Premier league, I was quite surprised myself, the Man City fans, hate em as I do have always been loyal to the club even when they dropped out of the top flight so it's not as though they have to be bribed to go to the matches.
I was against BA footing the bill remember
But any person at the top of his profession and being asked by his nation to represent them abroad SHOULD expect decent travel and accommodation no matter what people think of their personal salaries, MP's get it, wanna be celebrities get it, many of the film, TV and other celebrities who "give their time for free" to support children in need demand 5* accommodation, first class travel by air or limo to do the charity shows.
When I have worked away from home for companies in the past, even as a humble salesman they put me in quality accommodation and provided quality travel arrangements.
BA isn't footing the bill, and never was.
A BA source is quoted in the articles as saying 'It would cost up to £10million to take a plane out of service, dedicate it to England, tear up the timetable and dedicate crews for the duration of the tournament,'
BA have said it would cost them up to £10 million to cater for the England team for the whole of the tournament. This would include direct costs i.e the flights and staff, as well as indirect costs, such as rescheduling of other activities. They simply don't have an aircraft available to sit idle for a large part of the tournament at the expense of profit making elsewhere. Obviously they want to pass their costs on to the consumer, in this case the FA.
Understandably the FA only wants to pay for the costs that are directly linked to the aircraft, ie the rent of the plane, staff wages/accom, fuel, landing fees etc which would be far less than the £10 million, especially as England aren't likely to be there all the way to the end of the Finals.
they'll only be out there a couple of weeks anyway
