6 go mad in Europe

Sir Henry Norris who blagged Arsenal into the top flight in 1919 despite them not winning promotion. They've been at this sort of shit for years... 

Apparently, 6 English clubs think it's a mad good plan to join a new league. And stay in the English league at the same time or something. If you want the finer details, read the FT or Shoot or something, their journalist got paid to write the article so it's probably better than this.  

Anyway... 

It's not the first time they've intimated this is their end goal and whilst this proposal is possibly doomed, that's not the point.

The self appointed top 6 is a bit of an odd bag. (history tells us, the all time top 6 would include Everton and Villa and the current top 6 includes Leicester and West Ham, none of them are represented), but let's roll with the one that includes Chelsea, Arsenal and Spurs (the latter is a particular comical presence, being neither in the historic, nor current top 6) and play along with their delusions... 

Aston Villa (not big) 

In this article, I'm making the presumption that they make a clean break or our FA chuck them out. That's far from a given as I imagine the point of this grandstanding is to try and force through changes to their domestic league structure that allows them to keep a foothold in their league of origin but with a lot less 'low yield' games to play (i.e, a top flight of significantly reduced size and the reduction or end of domestic cups) - thereby securing two TV markets and not totally alienating their traditional support base. (Rearrange the following. Cake Have Eat Your Can't And It.)  

Their aim is clearly to get to roll around in trough of money so deep you'd need the submarine they used to film the Titanic wreck with to get to the bottom of it. The key point here is - these 6 clubs will further ruin the structure of the English game by having income from 2 leagues, whilst everyone else has 1. Do not by the 'solidarity' payment bullshit. The FA must kick them out. It must not negotiate with terrorists so to speak. So, I'm assuming they've gone themselves or been booted out...

With that established, let's consider the winners and losers in this circumstance and decide whether on balance we should be grovelling at their feet shouting 'Don't go! Please don't take your wonder from our lives' or whether we should actually just shrug and go 'whatevs m8, in a bit. Bring us back some duty free tabs will you?' 

Losers: Sky/BT/etc 

You can bet your bottom euro that a new league set up by the clubs will operate under a different broadcast model. Why would you want a third party when you can sell direct to the market yourself? Pay per view is where its at and without question, the big clubs already have the set up, the facilities and have acquired the data over the last few years to push this to their multinational fan bases. TV rights have to be negotiated and shared out. That's a real pain in the arse when you could just flog direct and rake in the money yourself.

Essentially, it'll be like a dolled up and much more glam version of iFollow, albeit probably without the eccentric local radio coverage, which on balance, is a shame.  

It's an absolute disgrace, the traditional values of the Barclays Monsanto Lockheed Martin Premier League are what all supporters want and this is just a horrible exercise in corporate greed. Now time for the news, sponsored by Amazon... 

Losers: Actual fans of big clubs

It's all very well assuming that the only people who watch Man Utd are sat on a sofa, nowhere near Manchester (possibly Kent, possibly Kenya) but there are some *actual supporters* of these teams. Not everyone who watches Chelsea is a city worker called whatever people who used to be called Tristan are called these days (maybe Tristan?) who is inviting his coworkers to the 'soccer game.' Some of them are actually just normal people who happen to support Chelsea or Man Utd hard as it is to believe!   

For the people who go to games, this is rank shite. Half their matches are in another country, historic games are no more. Are Spurs really all that much bigger than West Ham? Have we forgotten that actually, Everton built Anfield and were there first? Isn't Chelsea vs Fulham a thing? Imagine paying through the nose to go and see the big rivalry with er... Espanyol or Porto...? It's all a bit weird. It's a bit like telling me (a Blackpool fan) that I'd be more excited to play whoever is 5th in the Spanish third division than I would to play Bolton or Preston. Sort of... 

What this proposal, even if it is a double bluff, reveals in plain sight is, what we've probably known all along. That the people who run these clubs don't really give a fuck who watches them and where. The names of the teams are merely a brand to them. The identity maybe Liverpool or Woolwich Arsenal but if you can make more money on a permanent peripatetic tour of the globe, then lets crack on and roll in that filthy lucre. How long before the European league is inviting a side from a 'new market' in? How long before the leading Asian clubs are invited? Wouldn't the Chinese market be a nice one to crack? And so on and so on. 

I don't support a big club. I obviously support the BEST club, but not the one with as many fans/money/trophies as the self appointed big 6 so I can't really speak for what they want as fans, but the limited number of them I know aren't salivating at the prospect of playing yet more European games in a league with little or no jeopardy.

Why would you? European football is great, but it's great because it's exotic, it's hard earned and the chances of being knocked out are pretty high. If it's not earned, nor exciting, then why go abroad, when you can play a boring game of football up the road anytime. It's magic if you win because it's a once or maybe twice in a life time thing. It would be like having birthday cake every day. It would start to taste a little sickly. You'd yearn for something a bit more bland.  

Whilst a European run is great craic (I imagine!) when it happens, the season upon season cost of following the club just further elevates football into the realms of a lifestyle activity, not something normal people can afford to do. If I supported one of these teams, I'd want my owners head on a spike, regardless of what a sugar daddy they've been if they signed me up to 20 away games a plane flight away at the cost of visiting the clubs I could get to on a bus, tube train or in a car.

You going to Oldham away? 
Nah, saving my money for thirty years time when we've got to remortgage to get to games mate. 

Losers: The football authorities

Along with Sky, the Premier League, La Liga, Seria A and UEFA are in high dudgeon about the plan.  The speak nicely but the subtext is a loud "How VERY DARE THESE UPSTART CLUBS SPOIL OUR BRAND?" The words of the authorities (and the outrage for money by Sky pundits) all seems a bit like 'hang on, this is OUR gravy train... I mean, won't someone think of the supporters...?' 

I often wonder what football authorities actually do? I can see they hand out fines occasionally and inconsistently, don't do very much about racist attacks on players or rapist owners that rip a club to bits, they generate a fixture list and presumably keep an eye on the league tables but beyond that, I'm a bit lost.  I once ran a bit of mini league between a few teams of lads with my mate. It wasn't that taxing. Ok, I'm being glib here, but the elevation of the EPL and to a lesser extent EFL into brands of their own, with huge turnovers and swanky offices, marketing strategies and highly paid CEOs is a bit mystifying. 

The game's authorities have got cushy, comfortable and fat on the commodification of the sport. They've stood back and waved through the global capital. They've smiled benevolently at the cutting of ties with local communities and created a world where over half the clubs in the country are owned by foreign money. I'm not being xenophobic here. I'm saying, it's hardly a surprise when global capital wants to take the game for itself, wants to move it into a global sphere and beyond the remit of the archaic traditions of the FA. Why are we surprised. Global capital destroys the local. That's just what it does. Look outside. 

The biggest irony of all is UEFA whining about the 'uncompetitive' nature of these proposals when their own plans for the Champions League are to make an already shit competition (that precludes just about all but the biggest 15 or 16 clubs from getting anywhere in it) even shitter (and makes anyone not from Spain, France, Germany, Italy or England getting anywhere in it, even less likely)

It is frankly outrageous that someone else should think of a bloated and boring European competition in which the same teams play each other over and over and everyone is mostly bored. Where's the sport in that if it doesn't have the Champions League music eh? 

Losers: The wages paid to players. 

I don't blame the players one bit for earning the money they do. Football has a market value and when you see the rights to watch you play being flogged for billions, it's fair to ask the question 'where is that money going, if not to me?' If the answer is 'to the orphans' then you're probably a bit of a cunt to ask for more money, but if it's 'into the pocket of an even richer person than you' then I think it's fair game. 

What will likely happen is, without the 'big' teams, the value of domestic TV rights will plummet and probably the sponsorship opportunities too. This will mean a decline in wages. It has to. Without it, there will be no way of paying the kind of highly inflated sums that have become the norm. 


Find more statistics at Statista

Here's an interesting thing. It will hit the wages in the top flight harder than it will lower down the league. The higher you are, the more dependent you are on TV money. Oddly, a team with 30,000 supporters might see a far greater need to slash wages than a team with 5000, simply because the proportion of money received from TV revenue falls considerably as you go down the divisions. That's not to say it's cushy being Morecambe or Accrington. It's not, but those clubs have already worked extraordinarily hard to make themselves pay. They are *well run* and many clubs above them in both league position and income really are not. 

Winners and Losers: The also ran clubs (in a financial sense) 

There's a tier of teams who have banked heavily on breaking into either the Premier League or the top 4 and reaping the rewards of that investment. On a financial level, having their pot of gold whipped away from the end of the rainbow might be very problematic. How likely are their owners to remain invested in a dream that no longer exists? Everton... I'm looking at you with your half a billion spent on nothing and a solid gold stadium to pay for. 

However, what might be the flip side of this is the prospect of actually winning things. If you don't collapse under the imploding finances, there's a very real prospect that Everton, Aston Villa, Leeds and others could find themselves as the biggest clubs in English football, suddenly in the role of top dogs after decades of playing second fiddle to the teams who have just left. Lets face it, if they went tomorrow, West Ham, Leicester and Everton would be in a three way title battle. That seems weird, but lets remember, Wolves were once one of the absolute best in Europe, Everton are the third most successful club ever. Leeds are a one club city in a big city and Villa won the European Cup. The point is, would it be that bad? Why are Chelsea or Man City 'big' - simply because of investment. Nothing more.

Hurray. Another cup we didn't want. It's like when your gran buys you a sweater. Smile and look grateful then shove it somewhere and forget about it. Next year, repeat. 

It would also be interesting to see whether the prospect of a ban from all other football prompted an exodus of players from the clubs involved. Would we see a situation akin to the rebel tours of South Africa or the Packer revolution in cricket, with some players choosing to put money first and others refusing to take the dollar and turning up in less likely circumstances as a result?

As it stands, you'd expect the big German clubs (their fans say 'nein!' to the breakaway) to be very excited at the prospect of making offers to some disgruntled Premier League stars, unhappy at having their careers meddled with, but also some of the mid ranked Premier League clubs hanging around outside the gates of Stamford Bridge, Old Trafford and the rest with signs marked 'Come and play for us! You won't get banned!' 

Winners: Fans of other clubs

I don't buy that the point of supporting a smaller club is to look forward to the day in the sun when you get to play Man United. It's a shame if we lose the big names, because by and large they're teams you'd love to beat and love to hate, but there's a sense that over the last thirty years, that the prospect of getting one over them has become more and more difficult to envisage. It feels with every passing year that those 'lesser' sides are more and more, mere cannon fodder. It's statistically verifiable that all the major competitions have less variation in winners in the last twenty years in this country and certainly in the other major league involved as well.  

In short, if you don't support the big six, it's becoming ever less likely that you will (possibly ever) see your team win anything. There is an unprecedented monopoly on trophies that is even harder to take when you consider that the FA Cup and League cup seem to get won by accident most seasons. Yes, through the 70s and 80s Liverpool seemed to win everything, but at least they were trying to win everything and not playing weakened teams and winning anyway... 

What is the point of football if we can't at least imagine glory? With a significantly devalued top flight TV deal, an absence of the dominant clubs and a greater reliance on match day revenues , then the balance of power could shift somewhat and we might find a game, shorn of a few big names (both in terms of clubs and players,) but invigorated with a new sense of possibility. 

Winners: Fans in general

As above, with TV deals inevitably much smaller and the domestic game competing against the Super League format, the authorities would perhaps look to free to air TV. IF the Super League is behind a paywall (and lets face it, why wouldn't it be?) then fighting it with free to air TV would be logical. Sky aren't going to pour 9.5 billion quid into a league without the biggest names but if the games are on terrestrial TV in front of big audiences, then there's a chance you can maintain the interest of sponsorship. 

What's perhaps even more significant is the relationship of the clubs and the sport in general with it's most committed followers. The ones who actually turn up at the ground and sit in the seats. With reduced incomes from TV, the game will have little or no choice but to listen a bit harder to what fans want, be it in the form of ticket prices, their desire to stand, the kind of atmosphere in grounds or the horrendous weeping canker sore on the face of the beautiful game that is VAR. 

Ask yourself. When a player scores a goal for your club, do you really give a fuck if he's on £500 a week or £500k a week? Does it matter? If the value of the domestic game falls, we're not going to see people stop playing football (or if we do, are they the people you'd want at your club anyway?) and we might see more opportunities for local players, the global market playing less of a part. Ok, the big six would be able to take your players, but the kicker is... they do anyway. So what really has changed?

'Big' is a question of perspective...

Winners: Ownership: 

I wrote a very lengthy piece about how the English game has performed an incredible trick of pricing itself out of the game. Look at Newcastle. There is literally no one in Newcastle who wants to buy Newcastle who can afford to buy Newcastle. Even if everyone puts their hand down the back of the sofa and chucks all their change in a bucket every week and all their ex players chuck in and a big local business help out, they can't come close to matching the kind of money offered elsewhere. 

Look at Wigan. When the Whelen family sold up, the club went through a double ownership change and a hellish period of turmoil before being bought by someone as far away from Wigan as you could imagine. This story repeats time and time again and whilst there's nothing wrong with money from anywhere in particular, there is something troubling about the fact that these clubs which still mean an awful lot to the people who support them and the communities where they are are now beyond the pockets of even the wealthiest people. 

What chance is there any sort of more equitable, community based or socially minded model of ownership if even a multi millionaire can't stomach the thought of the ever rising costs of a football club? 

Wouldn't it actually be good if football was a bit cheaper? Wouldn't it be a good thing if fans could buy clubs, or if you're sceptical about that, people from the locality with a bit of money and an interest could do so? Why are so many clubs in a precarious situation? In short, because football costs a lot and too many people with not enough money own them and the number of people who want to own them seems to be declining judging by the challenges of finding ownership faced by some our 'crisis' clubs in recent years. 

Conclusion: 

The problem we have as fans, is that it's likely the football authorities, the broadcasters and the general football world with its nose in the trough of 'the way things are' won't see the situation the same way we see it. Whilst it's a minor shame to imagine Blackpool's 2024 top flight victory won't include the slaying of a few big names (and Spurs), it's a small price to pay for the prospect of imagining we could actually compete one day. Even if it is in our wildest dreams. 

The only way most clubs will ever challenge is if the costs are reduced. The Premier League has become very, very rich by creating an image of itself as a global league. It saw what Serie A did and did it bigger and better and unlike Germany and Italy, more or less wiped out the fan culture as well. It now faces an existential crisis. For nearly 30 years, it's zealously self promoted itself as the biggest and the best. It's told you it's the ultimate show and that it deserves all the money, it deserves all the attention, it deserves all the hype and the costs are worth it, because it is the ULTIMATE. If it loses that status as the most glamorous league to an actual multinational league, it's value to external markets will fall. Costs will fall with them. It will make relatively little difference to us as English football fans aside from the slight sense of loss over a few clubs and the memory of their history. It will still be our top flight. It's the global audience and armchair fan who will bemoan and switch over to another 'product.' 

The very real danger here is not so much that these clubs break away. The biggest risk is that after some brinkmanship and threats, the football authorities will capitulate to their underlying demands and we'll see the worst of both worlds. A domestic game structured even more obviously in the interests of a few clubs, a landscape sculpted to allow them to both have their cake and eat it. I don't want to live in a world where we're scrabbling from the crumbs from the fat, engorged faces of global capital stuffing themselves sick on never ending TV exposure in every market possible, stopping only to vomit their next demands over the rest of us. 

There's 86 clubs who aren't them. We do not need any more of the above. So, whilst I feel sorry for their supporters, my message is, good riddance to all you've wrought on our game and in the nicest possible way:

Fuck off, take VAR with you and close the door on your way out. 

utmp

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