There are some smooth operators at the Premier League. There are guys who know
how to squeeze the last penny from a television contract, whose cunning
exploitation of revenue streams is the envy of the sporting world. It may
not be the best league, but it is the wealthiest and that makes its chief
executive, Richard Scudamore, popular with his employers.
So once, just once, is it too much to ask that all this creativity, this
explosion of ideas formulates a proposal governed by more than money?
Whatever Scudamore’s legacy in terms of riches, after almost ten years of
his stewardship it is considered impossible that any club beyond a
privileged quartet can win a trophy of significance. And that is a failure.
Scudamore says that he does his best to protect the interests of all his
members and this may be true. Yet where has it taken English football, apart
from Beijing in January? He holds up collective bargaining on TV rights as
an example, but he maintained that rather than invented it. Now he suggests
that the rogue 39th game, the international round, is to the benefit of the
smaller clubs because the elite few would have exploited foreign markets
with friendly fixtures had the Premier League not put it forward. So what?
They have long utilised that market anyway.
In the meantime, where is the idea that addresses the biggest flaw – the
yawning chasm between four clubs and the rest? Where is the scheme that has
something more meaningful than another fast buck as its goal? Everything
that is wrong with the Premier League can be summed up in two words: Steve
Sidwell.
At Reading, Sidwell was important. He was the best player and the success of
last season’s campaign was in no small part because of his presence.
Understandably, he was ambitious. Last summer he left Reading on a free
transfer and joined Chelsea, believing at the very least that he would be
important when Michael Essien departed for the African Cup of Nations.
Instead, he has all but disappeared.
Sidwell features in low-priority cup competitions and has started one league
match since December 1. Chelsea have not even registered him as a member of
the squad for the knockout phase of the Champions League. In his absence,
Reading stumble towards relegation. Down there with them are Fulham, a club
who, four years ago, lost their best striker, Louis Saha, to Manchester
United, where he has started 50 league matches.
This pattern is repeated throughout the top flight. Wayne Bridge, Shaun
Wright-Phillips, Yossi Benayoun, huge players to smaller clubs, all bought
by the elite to boost overstuffed squads. Only recently has Wright-Phillips
got a sustained run at Chelsea, yet when he moved in 2005 the fee was £21.5
million.
That is what has changed – the creation of clubs who can spend tens of
millions on the heart of a rival team, then put him in the reserves. Players
of talent and ambition were always upwardly mobile, but when Manchester
United bought Paul Ince from West Ham United for £1 million in 1989, it was
not to be a squad man. It is Chelsea’s ability to keep Reading in their
place by using their best player as a makeweight that has corrupted the
league, not the fact that a big club can rake in a few quid in Shanghai.
Imagine if all the thought that went into the proposal of the 39th game was
put to work on that problem. That instead of prioritising the greed of the
owners, Scudamore and his executive wondered whether a rule could be
established that gave a player the right to leave, or be bought back, for
half the money if he did not start 15 matches in his first season. This may
be unworkable, but it is a thought. And the next one may be better.
But to make any of them count, football has to be placed above money on the
daily agenda. And, unlike fixtures on the far side of the globe, that is
something that will never happen.
Pitch perfect
Wasn’t the pitch at Wembley good on Wednesday night? Apparently, £150,000 was
spent on new turf with extra rigs to provide artificial light, ensuring that
the rye grass grew stronger, thereby avoiding any potential repeat of the
boggy disaster against Croatia in November that may have contributed to
Scott Carson’s uncertainty in goal and England’s failure to qualify for the
European Championship finals. Meanwhile, that banging sound you hear is the
noise of a stable door slamming shut. No prizes for guessing what happened
to the horse.
Gift from Ghana
Delighted when his country reached the later stages of the African Cup of
Nations, an 82-year-old Ghana fan offered his granddaughter to Junior Agogo,
of Nottingham Forest, by way of reward. This is an interesting development.
Usually it sets a footballer back at least eight Bacardi Breezers to get
that kind of action.
Badger baiting
A friend of mine used to work with someone who was known as Badger. He says
her badger and the one that is Fulham’s trouble-making mascot had something
in common. They were both (none of that, thank you. Ed).
Warnock not missed
No denying Neil Warnock has done a fine job reviving Crystal Palace. It was
even getting to the stage where some were beginning to wonder what the
Premier League was missing. Having seen the aftermath of Palace’s defeat
away to Charlton Athletic on Friday, during which Warnock made an unpleasant
attack on Lee Probert, the referee, and called his integrity into question,
the answer is clear. Not a lot.
Moral Moyes
Yakubu Ayegbeni is Everton’s best striker, and with the league so delicately
poised the club clearly need him. He returned late from the African Cup of
Nations, however, without explanation, so David Moyes, the manager, fined
him £80,000 and dropped him from the squad to play Reading. Everton won. An
outbreak of moral fibre in the Premier League? It will never catch on.
Southgate holding own
Jonathan Woodgate has been impressed with the regime of Juande Ramos at
Tottenham Hotspur. “He knows what he is doing, he’s a proper manager,” he
said, a comment widely interpreted as a dig at Gareth Southgate, his former
manager at Middlesbrough. And Ramos certainly is a proper manager, with
experience at ten clubs before arriving at White Hart Lane. Southgate is in
his first job, it is his second season and he is holding his own in the
Barclays Premier League.
At this stage in Ramos’s career he had just left Alcoyano for Levante, minor
clubs in minor divisions. In fact, Seville were the first club at which he
enjoyed a win rate above 50 per cent. So Southgate does not deserve
disrespect or negative comparisons with Ramos, or any man in his fifteenth
year of management. Considering the size of the challenge he has accepted,
he is doing fine.
Yeung restless
Carson Yeung wants representation on the Birmingham City board, worried that
the value of his investment will fall if the club go down. He may also care
to wonder whose fault that might be.
An unfunny comedy
Jack Warner, the Fifa vice-president who acts as a special adviser to the
federation of Trinidad and Tobago, has given his blessing to the FA and
clarified previous statements that were critical of the 2018 World Cup bid,
so it is as good as certain that a friendly against England will take place
in Port of Spain in June, despite the many ethical issues concerning
Warner’s use of his position. A very good sitcom about the morality of
English football in the 21st century could be written these days, but
unfortunately the most appropriate title has been taken: Shameless.
