I remember my first memories of the English league. It was the 92/93 season when the Premiership was first formed and Man Utd won the league for the first time in yearrrrrrrrrrrssss! Eric Cantona scoring a rifle free-kick against Arsenal and celebrating with that cast on his arm will always be in my collection of early Premiership memories. From those early years I was hooked. 18 years on I’ve seen the English Premier League become the biggest on the planet with the likes of Zola, Bergkamp, Henry, Ginola, Le Tissier, Ronaldo, and who can forget the Premiership’s greatest striker of all… Leicester City’s Ade Akenbiyi (world class?), gracing the league, and with the speed and competitiveness between the teams, the Barclays Premier League is definitely the most entertaining.
But underneath that exciting appeal I feel there is something deeply wrong, ‘papering over cracks’ as they say. The same speed, intensity and competitiveness has attracted a worldwide audience and this audience includes mega-rich owners who don’t give a sh*t about genuine football fans but instead care about using the English league and its popularity to make a few bucks (step forward Abramovich, Man City Sheikh, Glazers etc).
If you’re a Man City or Chelski fan it may seem great, but in the bigger picture and from a neutral (Brentford fan) point of view it’s awful. These owners are buying their way to success as opposed to 15 years ago when managers like Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger built their way to success. Yes, Fergie and Wenger (to a lesser extent) have splashed out big money on players in the past, but that money came from the success they created on the pitch first, not a mega-rich owner… BIG difference, more respectful!
‘So what’s the problem?’ I hear you ask. I’ll tell you. These owners are just turning the game into a business, making the rich richer and the poor poorer and eventually this will kill the competitive nature of the league, the same quality that made the league popular in the first place. Instead the English league will become just like the Scottish league (with better quality obviously!) where you just have the top 2 or 3 rich clubs and then everyone else. I mean, how do you expect small teams like Blackpool to continue to be competitive when an owner of a big club drops a load of cash and nips their playmaker? Or Newcastle to consolidate their place in the Premiership when a rich owner waves £35m and big wages in their star striker’s face? (The same striker who just recently signed a contract extension) Newcastle could spend that £35m on another good striker (if he’s not at a big club already), but what if they buy him and then over time he turns into a really good striker? Another big club will eventually just come, wave the cash and take him too! The words ‘vicious’ and ‘circle’ spring to mind.
Do you see my point? And then on top of that, with these ridiculous amounts of money that are being thrown around, these owners are going to want a return on the money spent, and that’s where innocent fans like you and me come into it, paying extortionate prices for football. Spending £45 on a new shirt every season when the only difference in the shirts is a piece of trim on the sleeve, paying £12.99 for ESPN, who based on their football coverage should change their name from ESPN to SHIT. This problem is leaking down the leagues as well. Do you know how much it costs for a season ticket at Brentford? £380!!! Don’t get me wrong, I adore Brentford, but with £380 a year I could order a load of porn and get more pleasure out of that than out of watching third-tier hoofball!
I could go on and on with this topic, but I won’t. All I will say is that all of these owners in the English league at the moment are corrupting the game. Instead of the important matters being on the pitch like it was when I first fell in love with football, nowadays football is more about the money off the pitch… That is not what I call the beautiful game!