Am I talking crap or is there some sanity here???

I am copying my recent posts to the Have a Take area of TurkishSoccer.com.

As I say am I talking crap or is there some sanity here......

Erol I agree with some of your points about football being a business etc. because those are no brainers. And yes clubs have to try and achieve success partly by buying players to maximize revenue but I just dont see that happening in Turkey. GS won the UEFA cup and failed every other season as typically FB, BJK and others also get eliminated early in Europe. When you consider the money FB have spent and the players brought in where is the success you are talking about? Winning a dead match against Man Utd does not count. If any of the Turkish teams gets into the second round of the Chimps Lig this season I will be very surprized despite all the money being spent.

But I still have a problem with the foreigner issue. I find it difficult to agree with your argument on this. Wages in the EPL are much higher because all the clubs get a lot more money from the TV deals. The income inbalance in Turkey is such that only the "Big 4" get real income from TV as all their games are televised. So you have a limited income and as Cengiz points out lower GDP etc. which means the clubs have limited cash available. So you think the "smaller clubs" are going to develop cheap local players and then sell them on. Not if they want to survive in Superlig they won't. If you lift the foreigner limit all that will happen is that clubs will go out and buy in players from wherever because running acadamies and youth teams is expensive thereby limiting opportunities for Turkish players.

Again look at the EPL. Alot of the Premiership clubs are questioning the benefit of the money they spend on their acadamies that were set up to develop local talent. For clubs like Bolton and Wigan its cheaper to go out and look for Bosman players in Slovenia, Israel, Switzerland etc. than it is to try and use local players who are simply not good enough to make the grade. Even Man Utd which has probably had the most successful recent production of English talent is beginning to struggle and is buying other talent in these days. So where will the chances for local players be when clubs go and buy cheap players from elsewhere. This will limit opportunities for Turkish players.

The other problem as Oz Kanka has referred to is that the facilities are just not their for local youth leagues, no grass pitches, no real infrastructure. how many kids fall through the net. Again allow clubs to have as many foreigners as they want and where will their incentive be to provide any facilities or coaching?

I think I am right in that both Spain and Italy have limits on non-EU players and I believe UEFA or is it FIFA want to introduce a "homegrown" quota for all leagues so what on earth would be the benefit of scrapping the quota now.

In the USA there are youth soccer leagues and facilities everywhere. In NJ the Husband plays in an over 40's league. For the last 4 weeks he has played three games a week as the spring and summer leagues overlap, weekend matches have to be played at 8.30am as the pitches are booked solid for youth and school soccer for the rest of Saturday and Sunday. When we lived in Istanbul he played 7 a side once a week on a small court, no refs, no organization, no grass. In out small town of 20,000 we have 4 separate facilities with 2 floodlit pitches at each one and one all weather floodlit artificial full size pitch. Almost every township around here is the same. Of course income is higher people pay their taxes and towns can afford such facilities. Would it not be better for the TFF and the clubs to invest in facilities for locals rather than pay Roberto Carlos or Tobias Linderoth or whoever $50,000 per week which makes the agents rich and sucks the clubs dry. The college system takes the better players and then they are brought to the attention of the MLS or USL teams. MLS and USL teams are mostly comprised of home grown players because of this and there is an organised plan in place.

Post 2

Omar, According to the UEFA rankings which are used to determine the number of teams you get in UEFA competitions the ranking is as follows.
1 Spain 76.891
2 England 68.540
3 Italy 66.088
4 France 53.656
5 Germany 44.364
6 Portugal 42.749
7 Romania 40.165
8 Netherlands 39.379
9 Russia 36.125
10 Scotland 30.500
11 Ukraine 29.475
12 Belgium 29.075
13 Czech Rep. 26.825
14 Turkey 26.641
15 Greece 25.497
16 Bulgaria 24.582
17 Switzerland 23.850
18 Norway 19.725
19 Israel 19.208
20 Serbia 18.958
21 Denmark 18.575
22 Austria 18.500
23 Poland 17.000
24 Hungary 14.165
25 Slovakia ` 10.832

Now if you add in the Argentine League, Mexican and MLS, J League I think you will find that the Turkish League is not as strong as you think it is. It may be more watchable than some of the Leagues above it in the rankings but in terms of success it is very poor and when you consider that FB, GS and BJK have squads that are apparently worth a similar or slightly higher amount as Bolton who are ranked sixth in the EPL in terms of squad valuations (click on the league and team of your choice and it has the squad valuation and number of players as well as average player worth) you have to ask yourself why Turkish clubs are not successful in Europe and why the League is effectively in the third rank of Euro Leagues.