About Last Night
November 5, 2009 by Magnakai Haaskivi
What you missed while the full scale of the giant jellyfish insurgence – like the fact that a school of them can be hundreds of miles long – was coming to light…
- First, the result for the game you probably forgot about: West Ham 2 – 1 Aston Villa. Zavon Hines scored deep in stoppage time to give the Hammers all three points.
- Your Champions League wrap: Rubin Kazan 0 – 0 Barcelona, Arsenal 4 – 1 AZ Alkmaar, Fiorentina 5 – 2 Debrecini, Lyon 1 – 1 Liverpool, Dynamo Kiev 1 – 2 Inter Milan, Unirea Urziceni 1 – 1 Rangers, Sevilla 1 – 1 Stuttgart, Standard Liege 2 – 0 Olympiakos.
- After purchasing 200 more shares yesterday, Stan Kroenke’s only .09% away from having to announce a formal takeover bid. The fact that the new owner’s buying the club on a “Ten Easy Payments!” plan should really unnerve Gunner fans, I think.
- Jack Warner’s whining about a purse (probably because it wasn’t full of money when given to his wife).
- Jose Bosingwa may need an operation to correct damage to his knee; he’s been out since October 17th.
- Now that Spain’s “Beckham Law” – in which footballers from other countries pay half the tax rate that regular citizens pay – is really the “Pennant Law”, they’re looking at repealing it.
- Columbus plays Real Salt Lake tonight in the second leg of the MLS playoffs; // // 0 && typeof(nflDefaultLeague)!= “undefined”) {
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for(var i=0; i Guillermo Barros Schelotto is expected to play this time, which could be helpful.
- Check out the alliteration in this ESPN headline: Beckenbauer blasts Bayern after Bordeaux beating
- Rangers are expected to complain to UEFA over crowd trouble in their Champions League match last night. In possibly related news, Rangers fans were sprayed with CS gas after ripping up seats and fighting with police.
- Blackburn striker Benni McCarthy has been recalled by the South African national team for friendlies against Japan and Jamaica.
Posted in About Last Night | Tagged MLS, Barcelona, Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea, Aston Villa, West Ham, Blackburn, Internazionale, Rangers, Columbus Crew, La Liga, AZ Alkmaar, Vfb Stuttgart, Olympiakos, Olympique Lyonnais, Sevilla, Jamaican National Team, Jose Bosingwa, South African National Team, Standard Liege, Fiorentina, KILLER JELLYFISH!, Fan Violence, Debrecini VSC, FC Unirea Urziceni, Rubin Kazan, Guillermo Barros Schelotto, Stan Kroenke, Dynamo Kiev, Benni McCarthy, Zavon Hines, Jack Warner, Beckham Law, Real Salt Late, Japanese National Team | 7 Comments
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There’s a real “fiddling while Rome burns” feel to this trickling takeover by Kroenke. Every day there seems to be some new assurance that he’s not interested in a takeover and every day he buys more shares.
If Spain repeals the Beckham Law, it doesn’t seem like it would “kill the league” like some officials are crying. Actually, I think it would put it back on par with England and slow the exodus from the EPL (suck it, Barclays) a bit.
I’m not sure there’s been this huge exodus from England to Spain, really; there’ve been high profile moves, sure, but you’re not really seeing places like Betis and Tenerife picking up players from the Prem like England picks up players from Spain.
I’m pretty sure that under the Beckham law the club picks up the other half of the player’s tax (i.e., the tax rate’s 46%; the player pays 23%, the club pays 23%); since it’s not really a tax break, and the clubs seem to like it, I’m not sure why anyone actually cares. Spain also has much more restrictive rules on foreign players (I think you can only register 3 non-Europeans), so they’re a lot less likely to lose their national identity than England.
Quit using logic to poke holes in my slap-dash assumptions.
If what you say is true, it looks like the potential repeal of the Beckham Law is either a) Populism at it’s finest or b) An actual attempt by the Spanish government to levy taxes on all wages and compensation earned by an individual. If an employer is paying taxes for one of it’s employees, that’s a tax benefit (IE: the employee is making money by not having to pay his taxes).
By the way, I need serious help. I don’t mind talking about the impact of taxation on corporations and individuals, and that’s just not healthy.
I think that the tax benefit to the player is the allure; Spain’s not got some of the perks the EPL has, but this tax thing is huge. Jermaine Pennant’s a good example; he makes less money on a per-week basis than he did at Portsmouth, but he’s taking home more because of the tax breaks. He probably would’ve stayed in England otherwise, so the tax break was doing it’s job: bringing a worker in.
I’d imagine, though, that you’re right: Pennant’s paying less taxes than a Spanish player would, which potentially displaces Spanish players. But in Spain, there’s so much nationalism that I don’t think you run into the issue of clubs importing players anywhere nearly as often as you do in England.
Of course, I don’t know shit about taxes, this is just guessing. But I do work near a Holiday Inn Express…
I posted a response to the message board defence of Liverpool’s transfer spending that was posted after I went to bed last night. It was just something quick and not based on research, more examining the methodology/assumptions of the author than anything else.
http://www.plainsoccer.com/2009/11/defence-of-benitezs-transfer-activities.html
What the fuck – can people from the UK go any sporting event in the world and not become violent? (just read the BBC article on Rangers)
I suppose that’s like asking if Spaniards won’t show racist signs or gestures.