At 14:56 7-11-01 -0600, Steve Sloan wrote: ><SNIP> > > > Minnesota and Florida have failed to generate government > > support for new ballparks > ><SNIP> > >I wish the rest of the country had that much sense. Why >should my tax dollars go to corporate welfare for a sport >that's already swimming in dough, especially a sport that >bores me to tears? The same goes for other sports stadiums.
Indeed. Every five years or so, the local soccer stadium here is expanded to seat even more people, and every time the City Council contributes a few million guilders (tax payers money) to it. The owner of the team sees the revenues increase, and with it the profits, but I do not get a penny of it -- even though *my* tax money was spent on that damned stadium. But do soccer teams *need* government funding? No, because they are already swimming in money. Players in what are considered the top teams here have salaries of a few tens of millions of guilders; if the teams can afford to pay such insane salaries, surely they can afford to pay for stadium expansion themselves. Worse yet: while the local soccer team gets loads of government money they do not need, the funding for other local sports clubs (mostly recreational) is almost non-existent. A great example of money not going were it is needed. Further, we have a problem with violence at soccer games. The costs run into tens of millions of guilders per year; in part because of the need for increased police presence and riot control, and in part because of the property damage caused by this violence. The soccer teams however refuse to pay the costs -- they argue that this is a matter of public safety, and therefore the responsibility of the government. IOW, they reap the profits from the soccer games, and the tax payers get to pay for cleaning up the mess afterwards. Personally, I think it would be a good idea to ban professional soccer. It would save us all an awful lot of money. Jeroen _________________________________________________________________________ Wonderful World of Brin-L Website: http://go.to/brin-l Tom's Photo Gallery: http://www.tom.vanbaardwijk.com
