English Football – The Addiction To Money
Nothing reeks of “modern day football” like the transfer window, and this summer was no exception. We are now seeing players fetching eye watering transfer fees, with salaries beyond the imagination of most folk, with some regularity. All of this conjecture then fuels the endless debates about who should be sold, brought in as well as the relentless predictions of where teams will finish. And then, fast forward to matchday, where Saturday afternoons simply are not complete without fans staring at their phones, putting on their bets, hoping that Berwick Rangers get that last minute equaliser, or praying that Slovan Bratislava get back into the game against Maccabi Haifa, all whilst watching their own team’s match. Whether we like it or not, money really is at the heart the beautiful game, and truth it is the addiction to it, from all sides, is only going to get worse.
Whilst football was once synonymous with Cruyff turns, Rabonas, Panenkas, and on-pitch moments which live long in the memory, today – the reality is that, whilst the artistic flair does remain on the grass, the once latent financial backbone of the sport is now being elevated to the forefront – and there is increased exposure of corporate sponsorship, Public Investment Funds, betting firms, and merchandise spending sprees, as fans of all teams compete to win the “Battle of the Transfer Window”.
“It’s a worrying spiral we’re in, and we should all be standing against it, yet like crazed gamblers, we pressure owners into doing rather rash things in the hope we all find ourselves on an expensive Easyjet flight to some foreign country”
Some say that this plain greed encourages reckless mis-management of their respective clubs, whilst at the same time giving the nod for owners to exploit loopholes, or better yet – ignoring the rules while striving for winning at all costs or just to remain competitive. It’s a worrying spiral we’re in, and we should all be standing against it, yet like crazed gamblers, fans once again spin the wheel of fortune speculating that lucky number seven comes up, pressure their owners into doing rather rash things via social media and Talksport, in the hope we all find ourselves on an expensive Easyjet flight to some foreign country. One only has to observe Chelsea and the Frank Lampard saga, after all it was the “fans” who wanted their hero back.
Sure, the media, like the drug dealer, fuels this craving. But the media does not operate in a vacuum and is merely responding to what the market wants, evermore expensive signings to show that “we mean business”. Why not stop at four essential signings when we should be getting in six or seven? Well, it doesn’t quite work that way, as, like the guarantee of Quaaludes giving somebody a bad trip, the endless narration of the hopeless money addict starts.
When an owner shows caution or modest spending plans to concentrate on off pitch investment, like Arsenal a few years back, then they are “not showing ambition” or “backing the manager”. When things start to go south, the immediate response is to sack the manager along with the coaches, while forgetting compensation packages not only cost money, but also affect FFP (Financial Fair Play). Today we have now arrived at the point where we equate a player’s value with a transfer fee, not on what he or she can bring to the team, while at the same time binning perfectly good players as “not good enough” based on a 20 minute cameo. Of course, when the final day of reckoning comes in the shape of administration, like a junkie, fans simply blame others rather than have the self awareness that they played their part.
The reality is that English football, and thirty years of the Premier League, has led to a vast majority of fans becoming addicted to other people’s money. While some lofty fans espouse the virtues of German Football governance, very few, if any, are prepared to do what it takes to become free of excessive spending and commercialisation. Be honest, name one fan who would sell the best player for a modest fee in order to balance the books? How many would attend a financial board meeting, or even more radical, be a representative on a board? How many fans would rather keep the ticket price modest if it meant missing out on that elusive 15-20 goals a season striker? Would we accept, like Brentford did, to close down the Academy and make drastic savings for the longer more sustainable means of support, helmed by a man that made his money via sports betting, with all the social and ethical consequences associated with gambling?
In many ways, the 50+1 rule (DFL regulations stipulate that 50% of the voting shares in the commercial companies which operate most Bundesliga clubs’ professional football teams remain in the hands of the members of the parent clubs — plus one share) operates in a similar respect to FFP rules in the English game. It is in place to act as a break on excessive spending and outside interference, the only difference being that since members of sports clubs are ultimately responsible for the health of their respective teams, they have to shoulder the responsibility. Consequently FFP places the constraints of good governance and sustainable fiscal planning on the owner. In both cases when a club is rightly punished for going into administration, collectively all parties are ultimately to blame, because the brutal truth is that somewhere along the chain, it started with the phrase “not showing ambition” and “not backing the manager”.
“On the one hand we have discussions on Alex Scott where the overall message was ‘get him in at all cost’, yet on the other hand there was also a rather fraught discussion on ticket increases and how it punishes loyal fans”.
But nothing shows this disconnect more than when I tuned in a few weeks ago to an episode of one of Bournemouth’s fan channels. I enjoy for the most part the banter and discussions, but on this occasion it was strangely surreal, as if I’d found a missing Amon Duul 2 track while on LSD. On the one hand we had a transfer discussion on the “worth” of Alex Scott and a “bidding war” between contributors, where the overall message was “get him in at all cost”, along with another striker, and four or five other players that were needed. On the other hand there was also a rather fraught discussion on ticket increases and how it punishes loyal fans.
At no point did it occur to any of the participants of the implications of FFP. To keep it simple, FFP rules have been set out to ensure clubs do not spend more money than they earn, which is now 90% of revenue. In practice, this means clubs cannot gain a competitive advantage by overspending or failing to pay creditors in doing so. This relates to club finances, good governance and accounting which include paying transfer fees, salaries and tax bills on time. The key point is when it comes to losses, as clubs cannot exceed £105 million across a rolling period of three seasons. If the loss is between £15m and £105m, the deficit must be covered by the club’s owners.
I’d like to reference a Premier League FFP Table Club-by-Club Report, which highlights how tight the latitude is regarding FFP in relation to Bournemouth. Sure, spending 40 million makes sense in FIFA, as some suggested, especially when considering you can get two international players for the same price as one England Under 19 with no top flight experience, but it leaves us in a bit of a pickle when it comes to the January transfer window. Meanwhile in Bournemouth-land, everybody can afford to be Scott Parker.
It doesn’t take a fiscal mastermind to work out why ticket increases are needed to increase revenue, when every penny counts, and whilst I accept that how it has been implemented in an almost Soviet central planning fashion of such fiendish complexity to almost encourage class war, nonetheless fans are hardly advancing the cause for fan involvement in club governance or even football punditry, when they themselves admit that they “don’t do football finance”. I am certainly not getting on the back of the contributors, they sounded positively sane compared to the titans of online punditry, Rory Jennings and Mark Goldbridge to name two excellent examples.
In an even more ironic twist, encouraged by the mass media, English fans and pundits are now accusing Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East of financial doping. Putting aside the moral questions of human rights, although many were strangely quiet when China, who has arguably an even more wretched record, was doing the same thing, yet the finger has been pointed at the English Premier League by every other league for the last thirty years of, you guessed it, financial doping, especially from developing nations within Africa and South America.
So here is the paradox at the heart of football, while German fans are grappling with the onset of globalisation, most of them, by being members of their respective clubs, at least have some semblance of what tight fiscal rules looks like, and many are prepared to not sacrifice the “purity” of the German game upon the altar of commercial imperatives, although for how long they are willing to hold out depends on how long they, the record World Cup holders, are prepared to go without a trophy. On the other hand, England fans crave for more decision making, yet most are completely detached from the realities of football governance and finance, and in some cases just general common sense, while having their cake and eat it attitude of wanting to be the richest, the 1% if you like, in world football.
The fact is that football is now a multidisciplinary game that covers the world, where it is no longer enough that you played for your local team, been a trialist, or been a lifelong fan if you want to be taken seriously by those who govern our sport or own our clubs. As the great John Barnes pointed out during the Super League saga, it’s not for business to learn about football, but for football to learn about business – and this applies to football fans, or at least those who pay lip service in caring about our game. Thankfully the days of ‘football people’ are long gone, many of whom left a train wreck of financial ruin behind them, but fans won’t be taken seriously unless they are weaned off the money habit, and instead focus on things like ensuring there is good coaching, developing players, governance and insisting on value for money. Judging by the hype of this transfer window, Betty Ford need not worry.
A lost South Londoner who finally found his football home at the Cherries, with a passion for providing alternative but balanced views of AFC Bournemouth.
