The future of football – July 2001…

Lovers of Football, I am worried………….Jeffers to Arsenal; Lampard to Chelsea; Campbell to Arsenal; perhaps Dyer to Leeds; and more to come no doubt – Barry to ?…… this is becoming a very disturbing trend in the Premiership..i.e. the top five, who will be challenging for the Champions’ League places (add Chelsea; forget Ipswich), buying the best young players from the “also-rans” – teams who realistically have only the 6th place to aim for at best, and thus the final Uefa Cup spot, and will settle for a mid-table finish and hopefully a decent cup run. Of course, the top five still hope to develop a youngster from within or get a break with a player from overseas, but this is the surest way to improving the squad and challenging for top honours.
These players will be joining many other top players at their new clubs and become part of the squad system of 16-18 players striving for both European and Domestic glory. They are often on the bench when all of them would be automatic starters for the lesser clubs in the Premiership. If they stayed they would be amongst the best players on these clubs, playing in every match, but playing on a team with a slim chance of a European place. Soon personal ambitions become thwarted, ego’s and the press gossip start to play a bigger role than they should, money rears it’s ugly but undeniable head, and before long they are on their way to that big club in the top five.
More than ever before it really has become a super league within a league with a second tier of perhaps 8 or 9 clubs, followed by the regulation candidates from the final 6 or 7. Each group buys the best players from the group below (Villa get Kachloul from Southampton) but has no chance to get top players from the group above unless well past their “sell by date” (Wise goes to Leicester). I’m sure both will help their new clubs but only to get a little closer to that 6th spot – no further.
If we accept that this is the way of the future, and I don’t know how it can be prevented with the way things are, then we at Villa Park and many other clubs will be looking at many more seasons like last year with mediocre performances by the team on the field matched with frustration for the fans off it. In baseball over here the candidates for the World Series are guaranteed to be from a select bunch of maybe 8 teams at the start of the season, with about ten of the “poorest”teams merely making up the schedule. American Football, however, has a salary cap and the Super Bowl contenders have recently come from a wide range of the teams and this trend looks to continue. (Basketball also has a cap but with only five players on the court you only need to have “three super stars” and keep them happy financially and the title can be won with the rest of the squad just role players taking up the remainder of the cap money).
I believe that a salary cap should be introduced into baseball and also into football in the Premiership. With a cap, the top five will not be able to stockpile all the top players – they would be unable to keep up with their wage demands….lesser teams will be able to offer the same or more in wages, thus attracting some of these top quality “stars”, and being able to compete on a level playing field as it were. The net result will be a far higher number of top teams and a revolving door of teams challenging for the Premiership and European Champion’s League places or at least a chance of breaking into that tier based on team organization, team spirit and morale, tactics, management, coaching, and scouting, and not necessarily on money alone.
English Football needs to address these issues before too long to prevent further disillusionment amongst the real fans who will not continue with their support indefinitely. The repugnant spectacle of a European Super League presented not as sport but as entertainment with the feel of a huge outdoor gameshow may not be far off if the powers that be proceed with their current lack of vision.
P.S. Just renewed my two season tickets for next season…