The sub popped up in my feed a few months ago and all I really see here is people complaining (mainly about City, Newcastle, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and refs) and posting about conspiracies and conspiracy theories.
There’s very little in the way of moderate football discussion, and it feels like a circlejerk at times.
Has it always been this way? R/soccer has had its own challenges for a long time, but even there the proportion of interesting content tends to be higher.
I enjoy participating in subs like r/championship and r/theother14
Yes, and they seem to be primarily Arsenal fans with the complaining conspiracies.
Yeah it’s pretty dire here, if you come here looking for intelligent football discussion you’re pretty far away from finding it
I mainly just use it to have a laugh so it has its uses
What’s that, you haven’t won a UCL? How dare you weigh in to a discussion that involves x player not performing for my (rival) club.
There are no Reddit subs available for intelligent football conversation between rival fans.
The only thing that exists is a dog-pile competitions, and club specific subs where you can talk to fellow supporters. If anything, the dog-piling was not as bad here than r/soccer, but these days it’s barely distinguishable.
Occasionally there is a pocket of decent conversation within a thread, but its rare, and one fan base or another will take issue with it and start derailing it with prejudice.
I also got banned from r/soccer for a nothing comment.
Echo Chambers
Tbf even the big media organizations dedicated to talking about football for entertainment are equally bad.
I miss the days of talkSport where Peterborough and Northampton Town fans would call in moaning or talking up their side or moaning about how bad their lower league footy was that day. Since moving to the states I get way better epl coverage but also miss the soccer Saturday where I’d see updates from “rubbish” teams bc they still mattered.
But overall, idk the last time I heard anyone have an intelligent convo about footy. Sometimes there’s good analysis, but it’s something objective.
And reading words v discussion in person is very hard to pick up on certain queues
Sure, but that wouldn’t account for the level of tribalism on Reddit.
It’s just full of cunts, and the content of someone’s message is way, way, way down the list of reasons people will engage and “vote” on it.
At this point it’s almost worthless having an NUFC flair, or even using this account to post on r/soccer or r/premierleague. Typically doesn’t matter what I say, it almost immediately it gets pummels with downvotes within seconds.
This is one of the rare occations that I’ve somehow slipped through (for now). I would say the totally scientific ratio is 1/10 posts that happens.
Exactly my sentiments, I have my mates that I see once a week or once a fortnight or so and there’s never any animosity in our discussions and I genuinely learn things from considering other angles
On here I don’t know what it is but people seem different online it’s very strange
I will say there was a point this sub was more bearable but it isn’t any more for anything other than having a laugh, although that’s getting harder to do, people are so sensitive
I got down voted over 500 times for stating the obvious and saying this sub gags for man city
Lol.
First day on the internet?
Genuinely, what is there to like more over at “the other 14”?
It was supposed to be a sub that highlights news from clubs ignored by the media, but all it actually is a cesspit of people moaning about the existence of “the media 6” and “overdramatic” fan reactions quoted from this PL thread. The only difference is that it is dominated by the next biggest club’s fanbases instead.
Not like Arsenal have been overdramatic lately… 🤔🤣
That’s kinda my point though. Overdramatic Arsenal fans (or other big 6 clubs) shouldn’t be a point of discussion for “the other 14”. The whole point that sub exists is to avoid talking about clubs like mine. But all it ends up being, more often than not, is an opportunity for people to slag off big clubs, their players, or their fans with very little opposition, and then thinking they’re definitely right because everyone else in the sub shares the same bias? It’s literally become a circlejerk.
People are generally better informed about football there in fairness
People in here are informed, but the conversation just resorts to nonsense tribalism after maybe 3 comments, and that’s not an issue only caused by “big 6” fans.
I love going there and defending a top 6 club from obvious bitter hypocrisy
It’s funny going in there and talking as a neutral because as soon as someone is sad enough to dig in to your post history and reveals you’re a “big 6 intruder”, suddenly your knowledge of football is minimal and you couldn’t possibly understand how smaller clubs are ran.
The pure meltdown is hilarious you get downvoted for the most sane comments.
I had a recent example of that when discussing the pointlessness of Xg with someone. A Villa fan essentially came in afterwards and made exactly the same point. I got downvoted in to oblivion and the Villa fan ended up on like +10. The tribalism is just silly at times.
Well this is going to be a new hobby, people on here take football too seriously
Everyone takes football too seriously.
Welcome to Reddit
It’s because the many arsenal and Liverpool fans who’s the biggest victims in football.
I’m not a conspiracy theory guy but some conspiracies relating to the PGMOL seem to be more believable then them just being brain dead morons.
Think it’s fair for the fans and clubs to worry about these refs going to these countries that own clubs in England and reffing games. You’re telling me we shouldn’t at all be worried with refs reffing games in the UAE when the UAE owns City and has 115 charges hanging over them for financial cheating, that’s not at all concerning to anyone? I personally don’t think their bribing officials like some people think, but the issue is that it’s creating a narrative that’s being pushed.
Think many would agree the standard of reffing wasn’t great to begin with, but they bring in var to clean up the “clear and obvious” errors but somehow make it worse. At this point I’ve started to consider maybe it’s best to just get rid of var and going back to before. I can live with the ref on the field being wrong, my issue is when it goes to var and there’s half a dozen people in an office miles and miles away from the game and they have all the views and tech needed but still can’t get the call right.
Having a conspiracy theory be slightly more believable than the more batshit crazy ones doesn’t make it any more likely to be true or give it any substance. A complete and utter lack of any supporting evidence for any of the conspiracies thrown around gives them all zero credibility.
Mostly true.
But they did mention officials doing games in the UAE. There is evidence for that. It should be a conflict of interest (most industries have rules against much lesser potential conflicts than that)
Not denying they’ve reffed in the UAE, The fa and premier league have sanctioned it and declared it fine. There’s absolutely nothing out there for anybody to believe it isn’t yet we get mental suggests suggesting otherwise. Literal definition of a conspiracy theory.
Surely the conspiracy theory is from the bodies saying it’s fine when logically it shouldn’t be? There are match officials with money in their account from the same source as the owners of Man City.
Or do you think the FA and Premier League are like the Pope and infallible?
So presume foul play despite nothing to support it? Another apt description of a conspiracy theory.
I didn’t say there was foul play.
That’s not how conflict of interest works. Most industries have regulations to remove instances where there could even be the hint of suggestion of a conflict of interest. Even small shit. My last job used to get free gifts like slow cookers and bottles of wine from clients. Had to raffle em off to avoid any perceived conflict of interest.
Conflict of interest rules shouldn’t have to wait for foul play. They should intervene in these situations so it can’t even be suggested to be happening.
Supporting evidence? You can see the PGMOL officials in Saudi or in the UAE reffing games. There’s evidence of that. While the UAE own City there shouldn’t any PGMOL refs reffing games there. It’s not about concrete evidence it’s about removing any level of doubt that something fishy can be going on
There is no doubt to be had, there’s literally nothing in reality to suggest any problem, it’s purely fuelled by wild conspiracies.
You don’t see the conflict of interest whatsoever about the refs reffing in a country where the state owns a team in the league that these regularly ref in? Wish I had as much confidence in the world as you do
if something is broke, why not fix it? if something is obviously one sided why not call it out?
This sub is just an echo chamber full of tribalism. You’d be lucky to find a rival fan with a sensible take about another club and you just read the same things over and over again
Pretty much yeah. It’s infested with “fans” from a certain few clubs that have almost certainly been cast out other places so they all congregate here en-masse to express those shit opinions that put them here in the first place and back each other up for a sense of acknowledgement.
It’s fucking weird, but if you recognise it’s no place for normal opinions it can be a fascinating place to read the levels of delusions some go to.
Every other post is a clickbait article about United
‘Lol Spurs don’t win anything haha’
‘Emptihad lol’
It’s weird that people want to discuss the shit that’s destroying the league.
And here we are, the sub plagued again with it today. This sub is a just a big echo chamber