The Premier League? No, thanks!

 

 

 

So here we go, another epic Premier League season.  As Sky continues to trumpet, the 30th since they "created" it, launched the "Premier League Era" and changed the face of British - and arguably world - football forever.  Another season where billions of pounds are pumped into the Beautiful Game (or at least The Premier League: how much of it filters down through the pyramid to the smaller clubs, whose full house crowds of a few hundred probably number less than the bloated press and tv crew that covers even the smallest EPL fixture, is a point for serious debate!), and even the worst PL team, relegated after a season of huff-and-puff incompetence, goes away with a hundred million or more  in "prize money".   Is there a competition anywhere else in the world where the rewards for being absolute shit are higher?  Can't think of one myself.

It will be another season of hyperbole, with commentators yelling their heads off at very little in an effort to create excitement, of players falling over at the slightest (often imaginary) touch and rolling around as if shot. Of managers who couldn't pick their noses never mind a winning team bemoaning a perceived incompetence of the match officials (sometimes justified, to be fair) or VAR and/or seeking to defend the indefensible when it comes to their own performance and that of their players.  A season of fans paying obscene amounts of money for the Matchday Experience (whatever the hell that means).  A season of endless over-analysis  in press and on television by under-qualified hacks and overpaid pundits, only some of whom were decent players back in the day.  

Of fans - ah, the fans! The lifeblood of the game! - trading insults and opinions, loves and hates, opinions and self-congratulation in equal measure on social media, even if it comes down to racially abusing players and their families and threatening all kinds of dire consequences for "that open goal you missed, you useless [insert epithet of choice here]!"   Most of it, of course, is mere delusion, not to be taken seriously - but it will be, by press and tv and other fans because, well, it's the Prem....

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It will be a bit different this season, because it stops in the middle to allow for the first ever "Winter World Cup", hosted in Qatar in the Middle East, "where it's simply too hot to play in the summer", say FIFA.  There is so much nonsense written about how hot it's going to be, and how it will harm the players (never mind the fans, but then there probably won't be too many there, given pricing).  But here's the thing (well, a couple actually): the Qatari organisers have invested billions into building genuine state of the art stadia, complete with closable roofs and air conditioning to help players and spectators cope with the heat.  And secondly, having spent a winter working in Doha a few years ago, I can speak from experience when I say that, although it's hot, mid to high 20s C in the November/December I was there, that is actually no hotter than it is at the moment here in Northern Europe, and with today's fitness levels that is something players should be able to handle.  In fact, they do, happy to play here, and on summer tours (simply money spinning operations with team building and fitness secondary concerns) in the US, the Far East, Australia and elsewhere, in temperatures and humidity to match anything Qatar can offer in winter.  Not that the press would ever say that - they are too busy bleating on about sportwashing.......

That is a term that seems to have crept in lately, to describe any sporting event in which a foreign source, typically Middle Eastern, Chinese or Russian, has invested a significant sum of money.  The allegation is that "they must be hiding something..."; "how do we know it's clean money?"; "what about human rights, they've got a terrible record.....".  At which point, if I'm drawn in to reading an article on the subject, I switch off, from a boredom overload.   Because all the complaints are essentially complete and utter bollocks.  Shall we discuss some?  Of course.....

"They must be hiding something".  "How do we know it's clean money?"  Typically comments like this are aimed at wealthy businessmen, say Russian oligarchs or American tech multi-billionaires, or Chinese online entrepreneurs. Well, yes, I suppose there may be the odd bad apple investing his (un)earned billions into a club, but then London, or more correctly the City, has been nicknamed the Laundromat for years now: it's an open secret.  But you could argue that the successive governments, largely but not exclusively of the Blue interest, that have allowed this culture to develop, allowing the more exclusive areas of the city to be sold off to shady networks of shell companies hiding the true beneficial ownership, in return for substantial donations to party funding (generally rewarded by a peerage, like the ex-KGB officer who has a seat there....) are actually responsible for the sportwashing more than any club.

"Human rights."  A bugbear of mine: what exactly are they, and in what way are/have they been abused by, let's say, Qatar?  Or Abu Dhabi?  Or Saudi Arabia?  All of whom have bought Premier League clubs more or less successfully in the recent past.  What exactly are "human rights", for a start?  I would suggest the right to life and a decent education - but even those are questionable, as the recent Roe v Wade Supreme Court decision and its fallout show.  If a decent education is a "human right", then define "decent education" - and prove that every kid in Britain is not having his human right to that abused on a daily basis because not every kid is getting a decent education.  What about health care: is that not a basic human right?  Ask any poor American with inadequate insurance, dying from cancer as a result, or for that matter the guy dying for want of a transplant that cannot be carried out because of yet another NHS crisis, whether his "human rights" (that to life itself) is being violated. 

It seems to me that allegations of sportwashing are merely another way for the green-eyed monsters who support a club not taken over by wealthy owners (of whatever nationality or provenance) and hence less likely to win something, to express their irrational dislike of the clubs that have been fortunate.  It's not even a new activity, as far as I can see - go back a hundred years or so, and there were ample cases of wealthy businessmen - bankers, mill owners and others - buying their local football clubs, professing to be "lifelong supporters" and being applauded for doing so.  Rarely were questions asked about the treatment their workers received in their factories, mills, coalmines or whatever, nor about the low wages earned for 16 hour working days from the age of 14 or 15.  It seems to me the only difference between some of them and today's buyers is that the older generation were invariably white and local, rather than of a different skin colour and from overseas - that old Britisn parochialism again.

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There is a column in The Guardian newspaper's football section, dedicated to The Premier League and headed "10 Talking Points from the weekend's action", with Comments invited from readers about the journalists' talking points.  It's always worth a read, rarely of much relevance to what actually happened and as fine a forum for taking the piss out of opposing supporters or simply letting off steam as you can find.  I thoroughly enjoy it, even though it's all nonsense.  Yesterday, there was a bleat from a guy in response to the Manchester United talking point, quoting a friend of his, a United supporter, who after ONE game was apoplectic, calling for the manager's head (he only joined the club in June and is highly successful and repected) because United will never win anything...... The supporter demands that the club is "expected" to win every year, he cares nothing for cup competitions or any European competition except the laughably and inaccurately named Champions League because "they're an irrelevant waste of time and money".  I can't remember ever reading such a bunch of tripe in all my life, and like others I took him to task.  I commented as follows:

Thing is, the Prem isn't really football. It's a glossy, media fuelling business full of over-paid, egotistical overpaid clowns - and that's just the managers. It's no surprise that clubs like Mans U and C, Liverpool, Chelsea, the Arse and so on attract similar followings - viz. glory hunters. There are 92 clubs in the Prem + Championship, EFL and 2, and only a handful of trophies to win, or European competition spots to fill. The majority of clubs are living from hand to mouth with little or no propsect of winning a damned thing and more concerned about surviving for another season. The lower down you go the more of them there are and the harder it is. The people who loyally spend their hard earned pennies to watch Sutton Utd, or Bristol Rovers, or Leyton Orient and their peers (and I mean absolutely no disrespect to any of those clubs or supporters, quite the reverse in fact) - THAT is football. Not the plastic nonsense rammed down our throats on Sky or the sports pages of any news outlet.

This is a simple and obvious truth that any football fan with two brain cells to rub together would agree on.  It is the way football has always been, and was part of its excitement.  Even the lowliest of clubs could dream of winning something, and had something to play for.  The most famous example is probably Wimbledon: I saw them play at my then local club, Tonbridge, back in the late 60s, when I was a kid, and they were horrible.   But something wonderful happened: they were bought by a Lebanese businessman - and I remember no questions beings asked about the provenance of his wealth, nor accusations of sportwashing - and in a relatively few years the club rose all the way to the First Division (as The Premier League was then called), established themselves as a force there and even won the FA Cup by beating Liverpool, then the best team in the country.  They were still horrible, and the wheels eventually came off, they were sold, moved out to Milton Keynes and deserted by their original fanbase plummetted back down the leagues, but as MK Dons (a limp nod to their Wimbledon roots). The local fans eventually formed another club, called AFC Wimbledon, started at the bottom of the pyramid and have worked their way right back up into the league.  Neither club is likely to reach The Premier League, given today's financial inequalities - thank you, Sky!  - but it remains a brilliant story.

It's a story every lower league club, including my own, aspires to.  The sad thing is that with every passing season it becomes less likely it will ever be repeated. Perhaps that is just the price of progress, but it seems to me a hell of a price to pay.  A goverment enquiry a year or so ago into football governance and finances made a large number of recommendations to help the grass roots game.  Unfortunately most of them were dependent on The Premier League's support and co-operation.  It's been very quieot on the subject for months now - which is no surprise.  It's like expecting turkeys to vote for Christmas......

The Premier League Era is, in my view, killing football.  And that is not something to be proud of, Sky, BT Sports, Chelsea, Mans U and C, the Arse or anyone else involved.  This is not a 30th anniversary to be celebrated.

It is quite simply a sporting tragedy.