The Greedy Game

Last week, Liverpool Managing Director Ian Ayre came out with the most controversial statement that pointed to Premier League teams striking individual deals in the international market. However sane it might sound to a financial expert, for the fan, that would mean the end of the league we have come to love so much.
"Maybe the path will be individual TV rights like they do in Spain. There are so many things moving in that particular area," said Ayre. What he has failed to mention, or even realize, that La Liga is the most unbalanced leagues in the world of soccer. It’s a league where you dare not predict that anyone other than Real Madrid and Barcelona would win the league any given year. With each one earning more than 10 times the other 18 teams in the league, the best talent in the world flocks at the Bernebau and the Camp Nou.
The strength of the Premier League is the competition. Leaving aside the period in the early 2000s where the fight for the title was between Old Trafford and Highbury, later the Emirates. After the Abramovich money shower, the league has had intense competition with Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool battling it out for top honors. The fight went to the final weeks and has been so for the past few years now.
If Ayre were to have his way, then it is almost clear what would happen. The top supported teams around the globe, viz. United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, would strike deals that could earn them millions of pounds more than the present 1/20th share of £3.2bn. This would mean that they can now offer £200,000-a-week to every player that plays for them. Hence, only the best talent from around the globe would be selected and hence unavailable to the rest of the league. It would eventually lead to a league inside a league, where these four clubs would run away with the competition. Mind you, competitive though it will be, there will be a great divide between the two mini-leagues. Robbed of their international TV income, the other clubs will start to fade, eventually calling it a day and closing shop due to insufficient funds. What would you call such a league? La Liga.

“If you're a Liverpool fan from Liverpool, you subscribe. But if you're in Kuala Lumpur there isn't anyone subscribing to Astro, or ESPN to watch Bolton, or if they are it's a very small number. Whereas the large majority are subscribing because they want to watch Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal," Ayre went on to add further. That very small number is actually a significant number. If you take away the chance for the fans in Kuala Lumpur to watch Bolton, you are leaving that team in obscurity; not affording them a chance to build on that fan base.
Ayre’s mouth may be saying the words of Liverpool owners who might wish to build on this idea. A similar idea was floated around by Richard Bevan, the League Managers’ Association chairman. He was trying to warn the world when he said that many of the foreign owners wanted to scrap the relegation and promotion concept and keep the Premier League as a separate entity. First and foremost, it is almost a separate entity, currently. Secondly, even though it is being said that the owners have never discussed such a possibility, it is hard to imagine that it has never been mentioned behind closed doors. It has been said that this idea comes, primarily, from the American owners, who own teams in the American sports markets of NFL, MLB, etc. And in these leagues, they do not have relegations and promotions. To that, there is only one answer, as far as I see it. There are no “lower” leagues in these sports. And if they are, they are not connected to each other in the way that the football in the UK (or other parts of Europe) is connected.

Financially, scrapping the current design makes sense. The owners want to guarantee their investments, and as staying in the top tier of football earns them the most money, they are entitled to make such suggestion. But this plan opens many cans of worms. Who, from the current crop of teams, stays in the Premier League? Who decides these things? If there is no promotion, would the teams in the lower leagues be motivated to perform? This would possibly mean the ruin of the Championship. Parachute payments which are made to relegated clubs will dry out. These parachute payments are what give the relegated teams the chance to bounce back into the top league. Relegation threatened clubs would be the most benefited with this idea. But that will also mean a loss of motivation to move out of the traditional relegation zone. A method to punish such clubs would then be required. If one is looking at American sports as a reference, then look no further than the NFL. In 2008, the Detroit Lions finished the season without a single victory. Though ridiculed, they were never really punished. In fact, they were “awarded” the first pick of the fresh talent from the next season. I agree that the draft system is unique and gives equal opportunities to teams performing poorly to add strength to their ranks. But there is no draft system in football and there would also be no punishment for coming in 20th.
In addition to this, the excitement of the relegation battle will be lost. The five-side struggle last season we witnessed, was like nothing before. Watching Match of the Day highlights, they way they switched from game to game as things happened around the country created even more intrigue and excitement. One could see the agony of Birmingham fans and players as Pavlyuchenko scored in the 90th minute goal. You could sense the jubilation in Wigan at the final whistle. Such drama would be lost forever.
If you want to look at American sports as a golden sporting market, then adopt the more useful strategies. Apply the concept of salary caps to each team. This will ensure that no top team can buy the cream of the players available by offering them inflated deals. It is natural for a sportsman to sign under the largest pay number. But if teams are limited in the amount of money they spend on players, then a Manchester City would not be able to pack the City of Manchester Stadium with superstars (alright, not all of them are). UEFA is bringing in the Financial Fair Play Rule. But that is just a small hurdle for the teams, and eventually a way will be found around it. Moreover, it essentially looks at what the clubs spends and earns and puts a relation between that. No efforts are made to look beneath the numbers to see where the money is moving in and out from. Manchester City have already found a loophole by giving away the naming rights to Etihad, basically the company of its owners. A salary cap would be a massive step to see that there is minimal disparity in the sport.
Money is the root of all evil. This old cliché holds firm with the new ideas being thrown into the ring these days. All such ideas look at making teams (and hence companies and investments) stronger, richer and successful. None of them talk about doing the same for the sport itself.

'Blackburn’t Nuggets

As I write this, the Blackburn squad, what remains of it, travels to India to play the Red Lizards of Pune over the weekend. It’s a nice way to get away from the pressures of Blackburn and get on with some team-building and sight-seeing. That’s possibly the view of manager Steve Kean. My guess would be that he rather fancies the fact that he’s getting away from the fans who have been asking for his head for some time now and almost sang him out after a crushing defeat at the hands of Manchester City.
Venky’s has made a right mess of the team that is the only one outside Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea to have won the Premier League. Of course, that came due to the spending spree that then owner Jack Walker went on, purchasing the likes of Alan Shearer. But as we look back over the past 12 months, Venky’s have taken a mid-table stable club to the relegation-threatened one. These guys came in with high standards and ridiculous claims. Everything happened with the help of the dubious Jerome Anderson, who is an agent and works for SEM. This firm, along with their partner, Kentaro, has apparently influenced the owners’ decisions all the way.

First, and up until now, the most controversial and damaging decision was to let go Sam Allardyce. A manager who brought them from the brink of relegation and stabilized them was removed over alleged signing issues. Anderson and Kentaro’s decisions to sign some players went against the manager and Venky’s went about removing the obstacle and installing Steve Kean, a man represented by Jerome Anderson himself. If that was not enough, the team signed a pre-contract with Jerome Anderson’s son, Myles. Then came the ludicrous claims of bringing in Ronaldinho and Raul. For a club battling relegation, this was not just a mere stretch, but a fantasy. Kean went on claiming that contracts for these players would be worked out in the near term and tried to calm reports of this just being a dream. Of course, the two did not come to the club, as expected. But in place he bought a Scottish unknown, Goodwillie.
Such preposterous decisions have been the reason that Venky’s now is a joke on the UK. Being called “poultry farmers” all along, the Indian owners are ridiculed in every section of the paper. After a poor run last year, Kean somehow managed to pull off a miracle and keep Blackburn afloat. The owners must have been delighted, but their management will always be in question. Take for instance, Kean travels to India once a month to chat with Anuradha Desai, the matriarch of the Venky’s venture. The brothers are seen at games wearing suits and sporting ponytails, trying to understand what is unfolding before them. Clearly they bought this club to promote their product, they aren’t the first. But then use your players to make a ridiculous advert to sell that product was nonsensical. I would be amazed to know how many people in India know any Blackburn player. These people know nothing of what football is, in England at least. Without understanding the culture of football, Venky’s has dived into a pool without learning to swim.
And mind you, the team is not bad. It’s a team a good manager can keep in the middle of the table, maybe even squeaking into the top half. Players like Samba, Robinson, Johnson and many others may warrantee a place in many other squads around the league. But the fault lies with the owners for getting rid of a popular and successful manager and rocking the boat that already had a few holes in it. Then to steady the boat, they brought in a manager who has never managed a first team and never really played at the highest level. Kean has been the whipping boy of the league this season and only saw fewer columns in the papers because Arsene Wenger was making a fool of himself elsewhere.
The current season has started very badly and there is no indication that this will improve without the manager going, or some drastic change in the players and tactics. They are out of sorts and out of ideas. The lonesome win in the League came against a clueless Arsenal that did more for Blackburn than Blackburn itself. After the win, Kean tried to make good with the press and fans by interviewing for everyone who asked him the time, in the process saying how his team was back. Nobody pointed out to him that they had only beaten Arsenal who were thrashed at Old Trafford, scraped a win against Swansea and were beaten thoroughly by Liverpool. And who scored more goals than they did in the match for Blackburn.

It’s not a team that gets a lot of mentions around the place, but I felt it was worth displaying the carelessness and stupidity that has been going on at the club for the past year. Blackburn has Venky’s to blame and Venky’s have themselves to blame. Whatever the owners might say to calm the supporters, they cannot stop the singing from the terraces for the manager’s head. They need to make a decision fast, before the fans turn their heads against them. Then there will be hell to pay, and not even free nuggets for the season will stop the fans clucking around with protests. Right now, Blackburn is like a headless chicken, running wild. Something needs to be done to stop the chaos.