Stop saying 'bail out' - Damien Collins MP and 'saving football'

A jungle is an ecosystem. A lion doesn't eat everything for the sake of it. It would grow fat and get eaten if it did. Whether or not it had a crown, which frankly is a mental thing to put on a lion. 

This blog references 'When Sky Invented Football' podcast. It's grand and you should subscribe. It's the best football podcast I've heard in ages.  

I'm coming out fighting for this one. Towel in the corner, gumshield in... I'm on my best behaviour as well. Writing in proper sentences and everything...  

The episode in question concerned Damien Collins MP and his plans to save football from itself. It seems he and Steve Baker MP, alongside Charlie Methven from Sunderland had all inputted into the process. I'll be honest. That's not my ideal dinner party line up. I have prejudice. We all have. I apologise and promise to curb my instincts and give a fair and unbiased reaction to their thoughts.  

I'll start by saying there's significant merit in them and some overlap with my concerns and thinking about solutions. A strengthened financial regulator and local fans being able to audit finances are key points I agree with. The ambition to see the German model become a part of the English game is welcome as were many other sensible and measured points. 

Here's the thing though. I can't bring myself to endorse this as anything other than a sticking plaster for the immediate situation (welcome as it is) because it doesn't get to the heart of football's problem with itself and unless we address that, the sticking plaster is pointless. One thing that sticks in my craw as I'm listening (to the point it's inspired all this) is the repeated use of the phrase 'bail out' to describe the idea of the Premier League paying any money to EFL clubs. 

It might be unfair to single out a seemingly innocuous phrase in this way from a well meaning and well thought through attempt to bring financial sanity to the game and rescue clubs from the brink, but, this is 28 years of hurt, disenchantment and unfairness we're talking about. I've heard this phrase used all over the place and in the midst of otherwise surprisingly refreshing ideas, it had a particularly nails scraping on the blackboard effect. 

Since when did football fans do 'fair' and 'measured' anyway? 

Here's some reasons why the Premier League aren't 'bailing out' any clubs in any meaningful sense and why we should think of any 'rescue package' (to used more inaccurate nomenclature) as more akin to war reparations or attempts to right the wrongs of colonial history... Melodramatic? Maybe, but I think fair, given the evidence I will lay out below. 

In 2018/19 Liverpool announced a £42 million pound profit and a turnover of £533 million. They received £152,425,146 in total from the FA in the form of TV rights, international rights and various other incentives. The figure that stands out to me, is the payment of £36,451,842 'merit payment' - a disgusting marketers term for 'prize money'. 

Liverpool got £36,451,842 for finishing second. They didn't WIN anything yet were rewarded with a figure of such astronomical size that I had to count the numbers to make sure it was right. Liverpool's total payment (that's money they were paid for simply competing, not money they earned through the turnstiles or selling shirts, transfer dealings, sponsorship etc) of £152,425,146 is greater than the combined turnover of the ENTIRE League One clubs combined. 

Lets just breathe. What I am saying is not, 'Liverpool earn too much money because they are a big club and it's not fair because little clubs don't have as many fans' - I am saying Liverpool are GIVEN more money that the entire third tier EARN, on top of their considerable revenue generating power that comes from being a big, historic and successful club. 

Liverpool are alloted that money because at some point we decided to reward teams for being 'popular on telly' instead of simply rewarding sporting merit in the form of trophies. We decided that it was ok, to allow a system whereby the big clubs would have a competitive advantage over the smaller teams further enhanced by the financial system in place. Liverpool received £45 million more than 17th place Brighton and already have turnover that exceed the Seagulls by £400 million.

It's like having two X-factor competitors, one with a backing track and a mic and the other shouting from behind the stage, then pretending it's 'competitive' and the one with the advantage 'deserves the rewards that go with winning' (and calling it a 'great spectacle' to boot) 

Guess what happens next? - in the 2019/20 table, Liverpool are a long way ahead of Brighton! Who knew that would happen? Anyone have punt on Brighton to finish above Liverpool? 

Yet Brighton themselves have a turnover that just about equals the entirety of League One... Are we spotting a problem yet? Brighton aren't fundamentally a 'big club' - They've rarely spent much time at the top table and plenty of time picking up crumbs off the floor and yet their earning power vastly exceeds any clubs from a similar level that not so long ago they were at. 

Are we yet seeing what is at the heart of football's financial problems? It's like a mind bending painting (put the effort in and imagine!) where a series of weight lifters are lifting weight disproportionate to their size. The biggest one has two balloons on a cane raised above his head and is being feted and showered with prizes whilst the weakest is sweating trying to lift the weight of two articulated trucks, getting nowhere and being lambasted by the crowd for 'not trying hard enough' 

What are the losing weightlifters supposed to do in the circumstances? Give up? Has the winner really earned his victory?

It's literally easier for the already rich clubs to compete and every year it gets a little bit easier. 

Let's drop another fact in the mix. The League One clubs earn NO prize money from the league AT ALL. Not even for winning it. Not a penny. They receive approximately £1.5 million in TV revenue and the excruciatingly named 'solidarity payments' as a grudging acknowledgement that the other half exist. It's a bit like throwing 50p from the window of a Bentley at a refugee and shouting 'there you go, one day, you can be like me!' or giving the losing weightlifter from earlier a bit of chalk for his hands, whilst giving the winner an even lighter cane as you do so. 

Let's add in the Champions League for it is relevant. Liverpool earned 111,000,000 (euros - almost £100,000,000) for winning the Champions League. It's safe to say Brighton didn't enter that.   

Surely it's fair to recompense clubs for the extra games in Europe? Perhaps, but it certainly doesn't cost that much to stage and travel to those games + they get extra income through the gates. They are, effectively already recompensed. 

Lets add ANOTHER fact. Clubs currently get £15 million just for reaching the group stages. That money would pay for the entire wage budget of 2.272 League one clubs. That is a fact...

What of it? Liverpool as they are fond of reminding us, haven't won the title for thirty years and thus we have to play through a pandemic to make sure they do. English clubs face few barriers to group stage entry and receive further cash everytime they win a game within it (the groups often contain at least one 'weak' side from a European nation without the luxury of a £9.4 billion TV deal)

The top clubs (we've established are rewarded lavishly and disproportionately) can 'fail' and still scoop significant 'prize money' - even if Klopp hadn't licked Liverpool into shape and they'd finished 4th and lost all their games in the group stages would still have a) got another go at it next year... (why?) and b) been £40m better off than Brighton - Less than £145m (which was the gap in income) but never the less a significant sum. 

To sum up the disparities at work - League One clubs recieved 1.5 million (plus the odd bit of cup revenue) for their existence. Every other penny was earned through turnstiles or commerce. Liverpool (with considerable commercial advantages) received £250,000,000 just for playing in two of the tournaments they were part  

So, what we are undeniably seeing, is a system that distorts the nature of the game. One in which the already successful (or those with the external resources to buy into that elite) become part of a self perpetuating cycle of riches. 

There is no way into this group of teams by sporting merit alone. No matter how good your 'measured growth plan' is. The money within the game (which, prior to the the 'split' was distributed centrally and in a fixed and fair manner) is 'trapped' at the top. It's not trickling down as (some readings of) economics would suggest it should. How can it? The river has been dammed. The lower league water bed is dry. We don't need bailing out. Precisely the opposite. We need the water to flow downstream, like it should. 

We didn't dam the river! We need to blow the dam up. Now. We're literally dying down here. 

Thus, to return to the original point, whilst Damien Collin's proposals are well thought out and sound radical, they don't address the single biggest issue in the game. It is not 'bad ownership' that is ruining the game. It is a financial model which means that 'bad' ownership is really, the only alternative for a football club to attempt to achieve it's core purpose (winning matches, promotions and ultimately the league) - Without that purpose, it isn't football. 

Forest Green may knit yoghurt, share falafel and do communal yoga, but without the football, it would just be a picnic park. Shrewsbury may have had 'a great day out' but they were gutted when VAR (don't get me started) robbed them of a goal against Liverpool. Blackpool might have been 'on the best trip' in 2010/11 but it hurt when we went down as much as it does anyone else when it happens to them. Football fans of all teams want to win. 

There are terrible owners. I am a Blackpool fan. It would be insane to pretend otherwise. I'm saying no more on that. There are property speculators and sociopaths and all sorts of weird types who are attracted like moths to football's light only to smash it and leave clubs and by extension communities in darkness.

Yes, Collin's ownership proposals would help that. I agree wholeheartedly and applaud Collin's assertion that 'we need stable finances to attract the right sort of owners' - yes, we do. We really, really do. (see my writing on the Newcastle situation for an expansion on that) - but, the fact remains that many clubs are in difficulty, not because there owner wants to flog the ground and build houses or is convicted criminal who wants to run off with their revenues, but simply because they want to live the dream and it got out of control. 

That's the point of football. To try and win. As we saw above that dream costs incredible, eye watering sums of money. That are literally given out to a small pool of clubs that are at a considerable advantage even over the clubs in the same division as them who in turn are at a considerable advantage to the clubs in the division below who in turn are at... It's that painting again... It's the little guy straining every muscle, urged on by the taunting. Trying to lift that impossible weight... 

The club owners can either choose to try (and possibly do both themselves and the club an injury) or they can just not bother trying at all.

Supporters in general have one demand of players and by extension clubs. They expect them to TRY. If the team isn't trying, then that is the one thing that will really cause a crowd to turn on their team. That applies to the board as well. Fans will be patient, but if they feel a board of directors isn't trying to compete, then fans will mutter, grumble, boo, chant, protest, then they'll eventually (some of them) give up and walk away. This is true. A football club the fans perceive not to be trying their absolute best to compete is an unhappy place. 

We know as a football fans you can't expect to win every week. I'm a Blackpool fan and we've never won the league (but we have had a Ballon D'or Winner,  England's 1966 MoM, won the most famous match of domestic football ever played anywhere in the world and we've got Armand Gnanduillet and thus are magical in ways most of you can never understand....) and we might never win it in my lifetime, but I have to believe it's possible, however unlikely. More to the point, my 9 year old son has to believe it MIGHT happen. 

People are impatient, people tell themselves all sorts of things to justify doing what they do (and what others do if they believe it will fulfill their dreams. It's perfectly possible to understand why a club might invest significant sums of money into achieving what they and their supporters dream of doing. It's literally how business works - you dream of giving your customers a product they love to buy. But I could throw the life savings of everyone in my town at competing with Amazon and I wouldn't stand a chance. Find another niche you might say - Amazon have already got the online shopping world sewn up. Fair enough... I'll set up a poorly read football blog with no obvious income stream and populate it with dense articles about obscure players and finances. That's my ticket out of the ghetto sorted! 

But what does the football club owner do? He can't 'find another niche' - The owners of clubs who've tried and failed to break into the elite or fallen from the top table at the wrong time, the small but ambitious clubs, looking to build on success and grow, the teams whose investment has taken them so far and can see 'the next level' in sight - what are they supposed to do? Go and play cricket instead? They are football clubs. Their very purpose is to compete with other football clubs. 

We can talk about community ownership and be misty eyed about the 'value' of clubs to the people who support them. I know the value of my club. I am writing about it at gone 11pm on a Friday night because I love the absurd nature of supporting them. I see, week in, week out, the hope, the elation, the grumbling, the sheer excitement and total disappointment that it brings to thousands upon thousands. To those in the stand and those far away for whom it's totem of home. 

But... and it's a big one this... they aren't purely community or social facilities. It isn't 'a culture hub.' A youth club doesn't have to 'beat' the youth club up the road to satisfy it's core purpose. It can do what it does That can be different to the next one.. The theatre doesn't have to put on 'a better play' than the next theatre. It just has to offer something distinct and of quality. It can attract a totally different audience with a play that has totally different qualities. That's not an option for a football club. It can do great work, it can be run for better or worse, it can be managed cleverly or poorly, but ultimately it has to try and win (and it does have to win *sometimes* or it will decline terminally) - it can't 'pivot' to another approach. It's trapped by it's purpose and trapped in a rigged system. Of course it overspends to try and compensate. What else can it do?  

Every football fan wants one thing. They want their team to try and win - that is the glue that bonds the community - black, white, rich, poor, Tory, Labour, Christian, Atheist, whatever... the one thing that unites us is (and it's absurd, but 132 years of history are the evidence) that we want to win. We understand that we often don't and sometimes we know for almost certain we won't, but we need to know we might. That's how little football fans ask for. Just a possibility. That's it. 

The authorities that run the game have failed to respect that simple fact and it is that which is ultimately leaving clubs in a position where they must live at the edge of their means (even with well intentioned owners) and take gambles that can cost a community dear. The grotesque inflation of the leading teams finances can only have negative consequences for those below. We should ABSOLUTELY curb spending in League One, but if we don't do it at the top, then the job of the regulatory bodies will be a nightmare and the flame of competition will grow ever dimmer. We'll see even less teams able to dream, to win, to excite and the game will be worse for it. 

If we are serious about financial control (and the thought Damien Collins put into his proposals suggests he is at least making more than the usual token effort) then there is one simple way to do it. Curb the money given to Premier League clubs for simply existing and impose a salary cap. This will free up money for the broader game, open up competition and reward sporting merit above simple brute force spending. 

If public money is to be spent rescuing clubs, we have to rid ourselves of the illusion that football is beyond regulation or that the money is 'tied up' and big clubs 'need it' - they haven't earned, they stole it and built a system that rewards them for that year after year after 28 years. 

I repeat. If public money is going to be spent supporting football clubs then we need to rid ourselves of the illusion that football is beyond regulation. 

The Premier League should not be untouchable whilst the rest of the game continues to adapt to what it has done to it. The primary driver of this crisis might be Covid19, but ultimately (to use an insensitive but apt metaphor) football has a serious underlying health condition that I have (to torture the metaphor) diagnosed very clearly above. 

I'll be happy to put my taxes into supporting the game at every and any level when the entire sport is made to look at itself, stop messing about with different governing bodies and look after itself holistically, not simply protect the interests of the few. 

If we're going to talk about community when speaking about football politically then we need to make the phrase 'football family' mean more than expressions of  mawkish sentiment on twitter. There are clubs dying. If my sister is skint, I'll help her out. That's 'family' - I won't lecture her on how my 'market value' is such that I am entitled to ignore her completely whilst burning cash in front of her and at the same discussing the words 'values' and 'integrity' with an entirely straight face. That would be a frankly psychopathic way to treat someone I consider 'family' 

It makes you think eh? 

I commend Damien Collins for his efforts to address this issue and am surprised he got so much right. I'm not well disposed to lectures on football from politicians but it was a decent effort as they go. 

What says a lot is, despite his unwillingness to countenance questioning the Premier League and all who sail in her, he seems to care and understand a damn site more for the game than the shower who run the FA. 

I got through the entire piece without saying 'tory' or making disparaging remarks about charlie methven. I deserve a drink.