The Devil In Me

Towards the end of last season and certainly over this summer the growing discourse about the Premier League’s impregnable top four has developed into a deafening scream. Last year, Everton in fifth place were a whopping 11 points behind their neighbours in fourth and that placement was effectively decided weeks before the season ended in the Merseyside derby. After Tottenham began comically the Toffees became the great blue hope to break the quadropoly. Now it seems as though we were all fools to even hope. The stark fact is that Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have occupied the top four spots for four of the last five seasons and the gap is getting wider. Why?

In the 1990s we had champions from Manchester, London, Leeds and Blackburn and very nearly from Norwich, Newcastle and Aston Villa. AS we approach the end of this decade we are likely to have seen only 3 different teams win the league. To say that it is the fault of Sky or the Champions league that our league is becoming so brittle is now a pretty empty argument. Rupert turned up in 1992 and the Champions League was formed a year earlier, those systems were already in place.

If you go back to the 2001/2002 season then you will note Newcastle finished 4th and were closely followed by Leeds United, God rest their souls. In 2002/2003 the Geordies had climbed to 3rd and both Blackburn and Everton were close (much closer than this season) in pursuit in fifth and sixth. This hegemony is therefore recent, 5 years recent and it is getting worse.

Something else happened in the summer of 2003 that may have changed our game even more significantly than the advent of the ‘Sky era’. Roman Abramovich purchased Chelsea and pioneered the now common trend of not just millionaire chairman, but billionaire chairman. There had been clubs in the past that had thrown huge sums of cash at their teams to become successful, please note the obvious examples of the ‘Galactico’ Madrid and Lazio, and whilst they were resented by their rivals at the time an all-powerful dominance did not emerge.

The difference in the case of Chelsea is two-fold. Firstly, Abramovich is determined to become the best, his resolve is obviously made of titanium and he is not in this for the short-haul, you also expect billionaires to have something of a stubborn streak and he is no different. Secondly, they appointed Jose Mourinho as manager. Love him or loathe him, Mourinho was the decisive factor in Chelsea’s early success and by some furlongs the most gifted and intelligent manager of his generation.

For two years Chelsea were in a different class to their contemporaries and only did not progress further in Europe because of an exceptional Barcelona team and an exceptionally lucky one from Liverpool. The other clubs had to step up their game and the only one in the country with both the resources and a manager of ludicrous resolve was of course Manchester United. People talk about there being a top-two now and they are not wrong, you could easily make a case for Wenger being the pound-for-pound best manager in the league but that isn’t enough.

At the risk of sounding like a business report for a second last season we were all exposed to the books at United, Chelsea and Arsenal. United, as we know are, 600million pounds in debt, Arsenal owe 400million on their new stadium and Chelsea have a quiet loan agreement for 600million pounds with the man they call Roman. That was the top three clubs in the country last year and collectively they owe enough money to fund an expedition to Mars.

Of course the other clubs are not going to risk going into that kind of debt trying to catch up and only Chelsea with their sugar daddy, and United with their giant stadium and global appeal, can hope to survive such terrifying mathematics.

Despite Scudamore’s recent enthusiasms about the Premiership product, the reality is that a decent sense of competition and fairness has been completely eradicated by this situation. The Premier League’s chief is a blind man who has only managed to perfect the art of licking his lips at piles of money.

This week I read that the 78million for Kaka deal is still on and frankly if this ‘money-from the moon’ trend does not stop then we are in trouble. United and Chelsea look unbeatable by all but themselves at the moment and while you can say ‘good luck to them’, McDonald’s for breakfast lunch and dinner will get boring after a while. In short we could fall out of love with the game, some already have. Love hurts they say, in a footballing context it costs too.

Stratospheric businessmen are difficult to control, Thailand can’t even keep an eye on its biggest crook, but systems can be adapted and rules can be followed. To save the game in our country we need to change the structure of both the Premier Leaugue Commision and the F.A. Scudamore must go and a panel, including some ex-players, must be brought in to replace him.

Structures need to be implemented so that instead of deducting teams like Bournemouth 17 points for going broke clubs are deducted points for overspending from their revenues. If, for example, there was a single point penalty for every million pounds a club overspent by, then United and Chelsea would both start next season at -600points. Some may say they could still win the league with their squads but I am not sure I would feel sorry for the guys from London (United are in debt against their will, Chelsea are embracing it greedily).

Whilst I do think that it was Abramovich’s irresponsible ambition that started to poison this league it is now a collective responsibility to save it. Finger pointing is for another time. The suits in charge of the Premier League need to make changes and changes now, because they are in danger of killing the golden goose. Personally I preferred it when that goose was a White Horse, running across the Wembley turf, but it is still football, and it is more important than profit and loss.