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.
No comments:
Post a Comment