I mean, we could get behind them, instead of constantly slagging them off. There is no other party in town at the moment. I know its a British thing to kick the crap out of people when they are down etc but honestly, the vast majority of complainers i haven't seen near a European Event in 5 years.
Regarding the payment and Teams on the website. Pay no attention to it whatsoever as an accurate reflection of who's going. I know for a fact the 15s have paid and are showing as pending.
I did say in my more remote position, I haven't been seen at a European event since Ardingley last July, or Chantilly the September before that. Before I had been to, with only three notable exceptions, every Millennium event for in excess of 10 years.
One of the complaints I often heard from the septics was that there were no new locations, they wanted to go to europe to see sights as well as play paintball. OK, Notre Dame in Chartres is a notable piece of Gothic architecture, and Prague will doubtless provide much entertainment. In fact I had suggested it to the MS several times. London is unlikely to be a central location, the closes we ever got was Crystal Palace, I doubt it could really get any closer without blowing the budget.
Seriously, they could have run with what the MS had in place more or less for a year whilst they investigated new venues etc. They would have had to replace Bitburg as it was apparently the German members of the MS board who were most opposed to the NXL take over.
For the above reason, its no wonder that the Eurorefs are unlikely to be in attendance. Here you had a Corps of well trained and experienced referees, now you are likely to have a bunch of greenhorns, teams reffing teams for points, or the importation of NXL refs from the US.
An increase in fees would be more acceptable if more was being offered, OK, its not across the board, and there are more formats being offered. But I can't see so far that the choices of venues if far and above that of the MS, the standard of reffing will be greatly improved. Historically one of the biggest complaints has been the cost of entry.
For some fairly obvious reasons, the webcast only covers the Pro field, you can't expect the broadcast of multiple games from multiple fields on multiple channels. I am pleased to see that the EPBF sideshow of Nations Cup games will be included in the Webcast. It was often complained about that those who went especially to represent their country did so without the chance of their friends and family at home being able to view. However, I mistakenly described it as pay to view, its a subscription service. I wonder how many wives/husbands/parents/friends etc. will actually want to sign up for it.
Lower team numbers may just be a part of the system taking its time to update, but, honestly in this day and age, that's piss-poor, it's nor beyond the realms of technology for that to be updated instantly, or at least daily, not on an ad-hoc basis when someone finally gets around to it.
I am aware of the size of the CPS events, I would describe them as being like a local event but in another country. If the NXL does make an almighty hash of it Slava, with the right allies, could be in a good position to promote an alternative, especially if he made friends with some of his former foes.
If you view that as complaining, kicking something while it is down, or slagging off, fine. It is intended to be observation a basis for discussion.
