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Chinese Takeaway - satellite team in German D4

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    Chinese Takeaway - satellite team in German D4

    According to kicker, the 19 teams in Germany's south-west regional division 4 (one of five divisions that feeds into Bundesliga 3) is seriously discussing the idea of a Chinese 'guest team' joining the league next season. The benefits - each team would get €15,000, and two extra home games, as the guest team would obviously not have a stadium.

    "I see great marketing opportunities in a game against a Chinese team," says Christopher Fiori, marketing director at the once mighty Kickers Offenbach.

    That's the great thing about modern football - it never runs short on shockingly shite ideas.

    #2
    Having an odd number of teams is awkward though as it means one team misses playing every weekend. And Germany isn't a huge nation with lots of urban centres to site a new team in.

    Waaaaaaaasasiiiiiiiitt...

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      #3
      The Canadian Women's Hockey League (which only began paying players last season) announced that it will be welcoming a Chinese club this season.

      Though that team is expected to actually play in China (and to repay the other clubs' travel costs).

      In 2005, a team called the Japan Samurai Bears played in an "independent" minor league baseball league in California and Arizona.

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        #4
        Last week just after we recorded we had a question for the podcast outlining why one of our listeners thinks that to increase the Argentine league's visibility and sponsorship income, it should move River v Boca and Boca v River to the United States of America - for the actual competitive league games between the two clubs, not a friendly.

        You'll never guess which country he's from.

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          #5
          You can PM me his location should you think (as I do) that some boys need to give I'm a terrace lesson.

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            #6
            I've settled for just not replying so far, since I've not really been on the HOP Twitter anyway, but if you feel like seeking him out you'll find it in the mentions of that account.

            He sends some truly bizarre stuff sometimes.

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              #7
              .

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                #8
                If there's one thing I think we're guaranteed to see over the next five years or so, it's more of this increasingly desperate shilling for Chinese money. Football across Europe (at the very least) is totally enmeshed with television, which is slowly becoming a dying medium. The sensible thing to do would be to reframe the financials of the game in line within realistic projections of a downturn which has to come in the fullness of time, but football, not being sensible, would much rather sell its soul down the river in order to keep chucking huge amounts of money about.

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                  #9
                  TV as a medium is dying, but the desire for consumption of Sport in general and Football in particular is not. There isn't any particular reason why the money should stop flowing to Football, even if it's source changes. The best example of this would be BT Sport in the UK. Their TV channel is going to be a brief thing, called into existence solely to bridge the gap until Sports broadcasting is essentially only online.

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                    #10
                    Formula One's new owners are busy chasing Chinese money as well; they've identified there and the USA as big untapped markets. There's been stories doing the rounds this week of a new Chinese team as an entity called "China Racing F1 Ltd" has been registered at Companies House. Word is that barriers to entry would be lowered if such a team attempted to join - which would probably not be until 2019. The fact that the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai gets pitiful attendances is by the by.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                      The Canadian Women's Hockey League (which only began paying players last season) announced that it will be welcoming a Chinese club this season.

                      Though that team is expected to actually play in China (and to repay the other clubs' travel costs).

                      In 2005, a team called the Japan Samurai Bears played in an "independent" minor league baseball league in California and Arizona.
                      Toronto Wolfpack joined the third tier of English (and a bit of Welsh and French) Rugby League this season, and pay the expenses of teams to travel to Canada, as well as funding their own training base in the UK.

                      There was a semi-serious bid to have a team from Wellington (New Zealand, not Somerset) playing in the Super League - though the main purpose of this was to launch a bid for the bigger prize of getting in the NRL.

                      Having an English team (as a newly created franchise rather than an existing club) playing in the NRL in the next ten years or so wouldn't be completely out of the question.

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                        #12
                        The Malaysian under 22 team spent eight months in Slovakia preparing for the South East Asian Games about five years ago. I think they only played friendlies, but followed this up by entering the state league in Queensland.

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                          #13
                          The Pro12 (currently Welsh, Scottish, Irish and Italian) in rugby union schills themselves to whoever they think might take a sniff. They're apparently invited one of the teams due to get cut from the southern hemisphere's Super Rugby, while there's long been talk of North American teams joining.

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                            #14
                            Waldhof Mannheim have already announced that they will refuse to play the Chinese U-20 team. Instead, they plan to arrange a friendly against Pirmasens, who were relegated from the Regionalliga after finishing in 14th place, as six teams went down... Pirmasens had suggested that the regulations for calculating the number of relegated teams might need to be looked at, as relegating six from 20 while the champions are not automatically promoted seems to suggest that something is a little awry with the league set-up. Also, the first team's relegation means that the seconds also get pushed down out of the Oberliga, to maintain at least a one-division gap between two teams from the same club. However, the DFB refused and effectively sold their position to the Chinese FA.

                            Meanwhile, the president of Rot-Weiss Oberhausen from the Regionalliga West has also made his feelings abundantly clear:
                            "This is carnival stuff, it's a piss-take. Why should we bloody bother trying to compete? The German FA views the Regionalliga as a sideshow."

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                              #15
                              There has been a slight precedent for this in the German lower leagues although in aid of a quite opposite
                              venture. https://www.theguardian.com/football...sstory.sport17

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                In 2005, a team called the Japan Samurai Bears played in an "independent" minor league baseball league in California and Arizona.
                                Japan took part in the finals of the Copa America in 1999. They were invited to participate again in 2011, but ended up not doing so as it was just a few months after the tsunami.

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by Walt Flanagans Dog View Post
                                  Having an English team (as a newly created franchise rather than an existing club) playing in the NRL in the next ten years or so wouldn't be completely out of the question.
                                  Let's not forget those rumours of London NFL and NBA franchises aren't going away any time soon.

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                                    #18
                                    The Australian NBL had an ill fated basketball team the Singapore Slingers for a couple of seasons about decade ago. I'm pretty sure their nickname derives from the cocktail and although I'm probably wrong, I can't imagine another sporting entity Semi-Professional or above being nicknamed (sponsorship aside) after a mixed alcoholic beverage.

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                                      #19
                                      I'd imagine our Old Firm boardrooms up this neck of the woods are getting highly excitable about this.

                                      I'd almost be willing to see it happen should it result in them fucking off.

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                                        #20
                                        Uurgh, looks like the SA teams are joining the Pro12, which will make a further mockery of that competition.

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                                          #21
                                          They can't get people to watch Kiwi SuperRugby sides.

                                          Who is going to show up for Benetton Treviso?

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                                            #22
                                            Apparently they plan to play some "home" matches in the U.K. - with Saracens' ground being a mooted venue.

                                            It all sounds pretty mental.

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                                              #23
                                              Went to my first match of the new season yesterday, a fairly low-key 5-0 win for Kaiserslautern in Worms.

                                              Wormatia play in the Regionalliga S-W as well and there was little positive feedback to this ridiculous idea there.

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                                                #24
                                                It's a done deal now - there was a meeting of board members of the Regionalliga clubs this week and this 'cooperation' is now official.

                                                The Chinese team will join the Regionalliga Südwest out of competition, playing each club in the 19-team league on their free weekend. They won't play the whole season, instead joining the party for the second half of the season. The league management and the German FA have softened their stance a little and confirmed that participation remains voluntary and that no club will be punished for deciding not to play against them (having issued vague warnings of legal action in Mannheim's direction after their recent announcement to this effect). Waldhof, Stuttgarter Kickers and Koblenz have all confirmed that they want no part of this nonsense, while Saarbrücken are still considering their position. The other clubs all voted in favour and will each receive €15k for their troubles, which is an amount most clubs at this level (which requires high expenditure for little reward) can ill afford to turn down.

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                                                  #25
                                                  The schedule of games featuring the Chinese team has now been published (details in German on the Kicker website).

                                                  Their first match is this Saturday, against league newcomers Schott Mainz. I'm at a bit of a loose end on December 9th and might head to Worms to see what kind of reception they get there.

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