How come European football leagues never have lockouts/strikes?
 

It just occurred to me that I never hear of the big soccer leagues in Europe cancelling games and seasons like the bullshit us North American fans have to put up with from NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB. Why? What's different in those leagues than over here?

so sick of it.

Everybody gets paid what they want. I myself have never heard of a game being canceled due to strikes. There are rumors from time to time on upcoming strikes but they always seem to resolve before they are set into action.

MLB has gone on strike... NBA?

baseball did in 94-95 season

basketball is locked out right now

NFL locked out now too i believe

Because their fans would call them wankers and then proceed to burn down the stadiums and turn over all the cars in parking lots for a 2 mile radius.

because rich clubs get money, all other are there looking for luck and making more money based on that, then they probably fix lot of results and they make more money, etc. Europe is full of shit, big money going on and its not in their interest all to stop, they are not crazy, million and billion of cash circulate in football, imagine all stops, that would be suicide...

You know that's funny because europe seems to have more strikes than in the US for general industry.

I think one factor may be because there is so much talent available worldwide and so much competition (league wise). Premier league locks out fly an hour south and play in spain. Spain locks out another hour to Italy. Lots of options.

NHL locks out you have to move 8 to 12 hours away to Europe where it's a different game and smaller market. If Canada had it's own hockey league and US had it's own hockey league I bet there would have never been a lock out.

The Italian league had a lock out a couple of years ago for about a month or two. It wasn't over pay demands or any of that BS tho, it was because rules state that ever team entering the new season has to be debt free and quite a few teams weren't. I don't remember the exact specifics but it did happen.

But yeah, the lockouts and shit in North American sports is a disaster, you don't see this BS in Europe too often, if a player isn't happy about how much he is paid, he simply moves clubs.

very good point - that gives the players major leverage.

i know all European soccer players are free agents at the end of a contract and players are bought and sold from league to league, not sure how that affects things.

there are also a few things we dont have here that seem to cause trouble - like minimum and maximum wages and pay limits for the whole team. teams employ who they can afford - or go bancrupt.

not so sure about the short distances - no one is suddenly going to watch a game in spain cause his club in france is on strike. people are loyal to their teams.

and players cannot simply go play elsewhere while they are under contract.

but you're right about the players being free agents when contracts end - they go where they get the best offer and many good players play in 3-4 different countries over their career.

They can transfer from club to club, within the same league if they want. Each player is on a personal contract so if they don't like the conditions they only have themselves to blame -and a one person strike doesnt work too well.