Game 39 – The Death of English Football?

There is a stench around English football at the moment. Last weekend I watched Aston Villa v Newcastle United with a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. The fans at Villa Park were there but, through no fault of their own, not quite part of it all. Somehow disengaged. One of the fundamental bedrocks that make football what it is centres around the idea of team and fans as one – fighting towards the same aims.

But with all twenty Premier League directors voting unanimously in favour of moving games away from places like Villa Park and playing them abroad, this match as well as many others in the Premiership that week took on a hollow feel. Upon scoring the first goal of his hat-trick John Carew ran towards fans in the Doug Ellis Stand and, spotting a gleeful supporter with outstretched arms, decided to hug him. Perhaps Carew himself could sense the increasing feeling of disenfranchisement amongst English football fans and thought to address the situation with his own personal gesture. It was a nice moment, team and fans in harmony. He was booked for it.

The sense of unease from which I could not rid myself made the game feel haunted. The action was there and yet simultaneously elsewhere. Like a child dragged to a dentist against his will, as much as he is there in body, in spirit he is miles away, lost to overwhelming ambivalence. He thinks – ‘I am here, but I would rather be somewhere else.’ Like Dubai perhaps. Or Los Angeles. In light of the Premier League’s revelations, Villa Park did not feel as one, with all in unison striving towards the same goals. Instead, off-putting noises emanated from somewhere in the distance, drowning out the game’s passion and nullifying the chants and emotions. At first I could not put my finger on it. Then I realised. The piercing din from afar was that of cogs and clunky machinery. It was the drone of ringing tills and rigorous number-crunching, carried out while suits in ivory towers greedily plotted ways to drain yet more money from the game.

In the last week the Premier League has laid its cards firmly on the table. Richard Scudamore’s statement, his greasy, smarmy manifesto may as well have read this: ‘We have outgrown English football and its fans. There is money to be made elsewhere.’ Succinct, to the point, but at least honest. Instead he acted the politician and hid his crafty profiteering behind soppy human interest stories trying to invoke that, to the average season ticket holder, flying to Bangkok and back for a league game should be relished as the chance to prove beyond all doubt one’s status as the ultimate fan, one with the type of praiseworthy commitment to make you the envy of your peers. Why wouldn’t the ordinary fan want to follow his team all the way to Malaysia was the angle from which Scudamore tried to win over supporters.

Unfortunately for him, the real agenda has been quite brutally exposed by many since the plans emerged, and any rhetoric aiming to mask the issue as to do with anything other than lining pockets has proved transparent. ‘Let’s not kid ourselves, this is all about money,’ Charlton Athletic’s chief executive Peter Varney told BBC Sport, before pointing out the solemn reality. ‘But clubs will vote for it because they are promised extra guarantees on their next television contract.’ David Gold summed up the ethos of the proposals. ‘This will enable all 20 clubs to expand their global image, and I find that quite exciting. The purists won’t like it but we are a business.’ There, in a nutshell, is what the whole issue boils down to.

A good thing?

In itself, playing games abroad might not necessarily be a bad thing. There are tangible arguments that support the idea. It would spread the popularity of the English game, and bring the excitement of the Premiership to several new audiences. For young children in poorer parts of the world who might realistically never receive the chance to travel to England and see their heroes play, such a proposal would be very appealing, and looked upon in that light the suggestion could even be considered admirable.

However, the reality is that this global expansion initiative has little or nothing to do with spreading the game at grassroots level around the world. Richard Scudamore and the Premier League’s club directors harbour no real intention of creating international solidarity through noble distribution of the sport England created to the universal roots from which football’s support spring. Will these principled guardians of the English game take the Premiership ‘brand’ to the humble streets of Africa? Will games be played for the benefit of those in the favelas of South America? Wherever the game is spread, will it be done so with free tickets for locals and young children to allow them to share in the splendour of the Premier League? The fact that one of the key ideas when these plans were announced was that cities would have to bid for the right to host games suggests not.

What makes the proposed scheme even more incredible is the breathtaking arrogance with which the Premier League announced it, a revelation that has only more recently come to light. Far from being meticulously planned, there appears to have been little or no discussion with the countries to which they are looking to hawk their product. ‘There was no consultation, I just read about it in the newspapers,’ said Mohamed Bin Hammam, president of the Asian Football Confederation. ‘There are some issues that we’ve got which would cause us to be very hesitant,’ stated Sunil Gulati, head of the US Soccer Federation. Judging by UEFA president Michel Platini’s reaction even FIFA were apparently not consulted. ‘I was laughing. I laughed because it will never be received by FIFA, by the fans and by the national associations. It’s a nonsense idea.’ His baffled laughter no doubt struck a chord with many.

The logistics of a Premiership global expansion also appear questionable at best. Richard Scudamore announced the league would ‘not [go] to places where there is fully developed professional football.’ With national football leagues already set-up in countries throughout the globe, the implication here is that a bunch of stuffy executives will somehow handpick leagues they deem inferior and storm in to ‘expand their global image’ as Gold so wonderfully put it. Such an attitude is completely derogatory to recognised associations in the Premier League’s target countries; leagues like the MLS or the Japanese J-League, whose time-honoured infrastructures are already well-established. Put simply, this is imperialism the football way.

Of course, this idea has been coming. As soon as the Miami Dolphins touched down at Wembley for a competitive NFL clash, you could practically see lightbulbs flashing in the heads of every sporting director in the land. And that game with the New York Giants undoubtedly proved successful. So maybe the globalisation of domestic sport is the logical next step? Who knows? 52 years ago Sir Matt Busby defied all conventional wisdom and took Manchester United into European competition against the wishes of many, and this bold act shaped football as we know it today. Richard Scudamore might well revolutionise the game and be remembered as a pioneer. But with the strength of ill-feeling reaching boiling point, he might also irreparably damage the already fragile relationship between fan and club in this country as we know it. Whichever way you look at it, the stakes are high.

English Premier League, FIFA, Game 39, Globalisation of Football, The F.A.