Are you suggesting successful clubs lower down the leagues on Soccerverse cannot become big clubs? If you are, then it's a pointless game.

The first spark landed at 15:42 UTC on Thursday and #general-chat didn't calm down until 19:36. By then it had 133 posts from ten voices, the biggest economics row the server's had in weeks. The question was fanbases, stadiums, and whether a minnow can ever really join the elite.

Sokker MonKey had laid the fuse that morning, complaining that promoted clubs "end up with the same revenues as the world's top clubs... it makes no sense." leedsarewe agreed: "It all stems from poor planning by the devs from the outset." Then player1x came through the in-game chat bridge with "you cant really get the same income as the big clubs with a small one," and it all went off.

The post count: - leedsarewe: 29 - joachim_95952: 22 - looplab: 17 - player1x and NachoHeras (in-game chat): 13 each - s043: 12 - username_hamburgler: 11 - Cipi | El Rincón del DT: 10

leedsarewe and s043 batted real-life examples back and forth. leedsarewe brought up Wrexham's rise and Brentford's attendance. s043 wasn't having it: "Wrexham will never compete financially with Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal." Then, flatly: "But you can't buy fans."

So I checked the turnstiles

looplab asked the question nobody answered: "do we know how many clubs have already reached max capacity and where they are?" Fair shout, la. Out of 5,350 clubs, 38 have fanbases at 95% or more of their stadium capacity, and four are at or over 100%.

Burton-upon-Trent is the lad's best counter-argument. They started in ENG Division 4 with 3,445 fans and 6,912 seats. Today they're 4th in Division 1, level on 33 points with third-placed Bournemouth, with 27,170 fans in 27,512 seats. That's 7.9 times the fans, 98.8% full, and still the smallest ground in the division. So the ladder exists.

But look further up: - Nine of the 20 English top-flight clubs have exactly the fanbase they started the game with. That includes all seven clubs above 52,000, from Manchester Red down to Newcastle. - Ten clubs have grown, and none of them has passed Leicester's 38,307. The league average is 44,694. - Aston Villa, the club leedsarewe rates "bigger than Spurs", have shrunk from 41,679 to 38,061. - In Spain, MichaelLaudrup's Donostia-San Sebastián are 2nd. That's the Real Sociedad case NachoHeras raised, yet their fanbase is still on its day-one 32,189, below the league's 36,178 average.

My Liverpool are top on a frozen 53,183, so I'm not complaining, pal. Still, a 98.8%-full Burton next to seven clubs that haven't gained a single fan since day one looks a lot like a glass ceiling.

Skin in the game

These aren't armchair economists: - Leedsarewe manages Taunton: three promotions from Division 10 to Division 7, one league title, and still 3,001 seats, the same as on day one. - NachoHeras runs Roda, 5th in Spain and sitting at −182,359 SVC. "I need to sell Butez w Villarreal cause I cannot pay him even if I Q to CL." He also holds 4,017 influence in Burton and asked: "Where is the incentive for that club?" - joachim_95952 said "Now 90+ players are a punishment" and added: "I got 1 at Brighton and he is killing the finances on his own." Brighton's Luka Modrić is rated 95 and takes 882,000 SVC in wages, which is 29.5% of the club's 2.99M SVC bill. - leedsarewe also moaned about real-life Spurs spending big and finishing 17th. Nickx's in-game Tottenham are 18th, sitting on 193.3M SVC, the biggest balance in the division. Make it make sense.

The handbrake

Cipi warned that clubs gaining fans out of thin air means "this is printing money." He also had a weary line on the whole thing: "This is a constant discussion, we have it almost every season." Marius backed limits too: "It has to be somewhat within reason tho. the +-20% currently does this."

The suggestions came in thick and fast: 1. looplab wants a stadium market and to "delink stadium capacity from tickets." 2. username_hamburgler wants burned, vested builds: "You can build but no trophy = no boost." 3. s043 wants boosts for below-average clubs based on last season's league finish. 4. leedsarewe wants to shrink the big grounds to balance it out: "This way the economy is not altered."

The whales in the room

player1x asked whether "titan and protagonist actually even cash out anything?" joachim_95952 defended them:

Protagonist reinvests and gets shit for that. Soccertitan has an enormouse reserve that could kill svc economie. But I think they both want the best for the game

The rich list backs him. protagonist is No. 1 at 108.9M SVC net worth but holds just 299,183 SVC in cash. SoccerTitan is No. 2 at 81.0M, with 26.1M SVC liquid. username_hamburgler had a cheekier take: "That guy protagonist buying all the good players."

At 18:49 hamburgler tagged AndyG: "We have really discussed this for like 2 years now. Where do you see this going?" No public reply had come by the time the chat went quiet.

Verdict: both sides have a point. Burton proved small clubs can climb. They just can't get any higher than mid-table, la. Keep it tidy, and somebody give Andy a nudge.