Football regulator exactly what Premier League deserve
It is a time of reckoning in English football. For too long the UK’s most elite competition has hoarded wealth, whilst forgetting the roots it came from. The Premier League is about to get exactly what it deserves.
Finally, a plan for the long awaited ‘football regulator’ has been confirmed by the UK government.
The announcement comes almost one year after a fan-led review concluded looking at the state of club ownership following the infamous European Super League coup. It will be made up of an independent body, with the principal aims being to protect the whole English football pyramid and ensure no breakaway leagues can be formed without fan approval.
Government regulation is not borne out of want. It is a need.
Leading football clubs in England have shown that they cannot be trusted to act in the interest of the fans that they serve. The Super League proposal may have only involved six clubs, but I find it difficult to believe any of the 14 remaining Premier League clubs would have turned down the rumoured £300 million fee for signing up to the competition.
The Premier League has entangled itself with all the worst values of capitalism. The rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Florentino Pérez’s master plan presented an opportunity for the highest earning clubs in England to separate themselves further from the pack. Picture six mafia bosses sat around a table smoking cigars and playing poker having just ordered the execution of over 100 people.
Instead of mafia bosses it was American hedge funds and Russian oligarchs, instead of people it was football clubs.
The argument that Premier League clubs bring in the most money, so should be able to do with it as they please, is a flawed one. Without the lower rungs of the English football pyramid, the quality of play would be far inferior at the top. Player development would be stalled, the threat of relegation would be no more, football as we know it would cease to exist.
I am not suggesting that it is the responsibility of Manchester City to ensure that clubs like Bury or Macclesfield can sustain themselves in lower leagues. It is, however, necessary that every English football club pulls in one direction, and that no professional team in the country is ever in a position where they could enter administration.
It is clear, as it has been for some time, that the Premier League have not been doing enough to ensure the survival of the football pyramid.
In 1992, England’s top clubs decided to breakaway from the football league, and form their own ‘Premier League’. Since then the growth of the competition has been exponential. England’s lower divisions have been left in the dust. Since 2000 more than a third of clubs in the top four leagues have gone into administration – with almost all of them being outside the Premier League.
Less than a day after the government’s announcement, Premier League higher ups reacted. The news hasn’t exactly gone down well…
West Ham co-owner David Sullivan said: “A football regulator is a terrible idea, the government are terrible at running everything. Look at the mess this country is in.”
Whilst Mr Sullivan may not be entirely wrong in his assessment of the current government, is anyone honestly surprised that a man in charge of a football club isn’t happy about losing some control over said club?
Richard Masters, CEO of the Premier League, has already sown the seeds of doubt ahead of any arrival of the new football regulator. “We don’t want football to become the ultimate political football” he said, as if that isn’t exactly what football already is – as shown by the perfectly fine and not at all human rights defying, Qatar World Cup.
The fact is that English football has been hijacked by billionaires who either don’t turn up to watch the games, or don’t know how many players are allowed on the pitch. Fans who helped build clubs from the bottom up, are hardly an afterthought to pompous Premier League owners. The Super League being the perfect example.
For too long Premier League clubs have put their feet up, resting them on the backs of the rest of the football pyramid. It is about time someone flipped the script. A football regulator will likely not be enough, but it’s a start.
It’s time to take back football.
