Greg Dyke cutting the tape at Brentford, where he was once Chairman
So the FA commission has met, and come up with proposals to
ensure that the England football team turn into world-beaters. The centrepiece
of this is an attempt to create a new 'League Three' of Premier League B-Teams between
League Two and the Conference, with these teams allowed to be promoted up the
pyramid to League One.
What’s clear is that the problem it’s intended to solve is a
very real one - young players who find themselves signed to top-tier clubs tend
to be shut out of making first team appearances, hindering their chances of
progressing to another glorious penalty defeat. Yet Greg Dyke’s proposals are at best a reward for terrible behaviour that misses the point –
and at worst a folly that could entirely destroy the English game as we know
it.
The Premier League and its clubs seem to regard the
behaviour of Cartman from South Park towards his mum as a model – they behave badly and against
the interests of the England team, then the FA offers to reward them by
changing the rules to attempt to justify and mitigate their actions. Any
suggestion that things shouldn’t work in their interest would no doubt be
greeted with a “But Greg….” Followed by a tantrum after which they’d get what
they want.
The Premier League's negotiating tactics
Yet to explore why this isn’t just a bad idea bounced around
a boardroom one needs to go back to the start of the Premier League, the
promises made and what’s happened since.
The genesis of the then Premiership (with which Greg Dyke
was involved) provides a beautiful exemplar of how things tend to work. Then
one of the justifications behind the move to create a breakaway from The
Football League was apparently to improve the England team. It didn’t work,
because that patently wasn’t what it was for. The closest England have come to
international glory since was Euro 96 with a team of players who reached
maturity before they were required to display their skills in front of Richard
Keys.
In fact the Premier League has created many of the problems
that the FA now feel they need to solve – firstly as the rewards for being in the
Premier League increased (which was why it was really formed), relegation represented
a huge financial hit and clubs no longer wanted to spend 2-3 years building a
side and taking a risk on up and coming players.
A further side-effect of the need for instant success (or
the safety of mid-table) was that this desperation caused the inflation of
internal transfers, causing clubs to look abroad for cheaper alternatives who
could make an immediate difference to their fortunes.
The likes of Cantona, Bergkamp and Henry are always rightly
cited as having a great influence on the English game, but for every fondly
remembered star there’s an Andrea Silenzi, a Lillian Laslandes or a Gilles De
Bilde – average players bought for short term gain who will have blocked a
young Englishman from playing 30 games a season.
Clubs didn’t do this out of spite – it made economic sense.
If you’re rewarded with tens of millions of pounds for staying in the league or breaking into the top four places, the incentive to spend that money on a
cheap foreign player or top prospect (who’d go for millions were he English) is overwhelming.
Andrea Silenzi - Not fondly remembered by Forest fans
The collapse of ITV Digital in 2002 added to this disparity,
as even large clubs outside the Premier League found themselves terminally starved
of cash (and smaller ones even more so). With the top league’s riches
continuing to increase this meant that when a youngster from a Championship
club began to look like a prospect he’d inevitably find himself leaving for a
large wage packet before he’d even achieved anything with the club that had
spent years developing him.
Thus a situation was created whereby instead of a talented
young English player gradually gaining first team experience, perhaps leading
his club to minor success before making his big move, he’d be signed at 18 or
19 by a Prem club, spend 2 years loaned around clubs in the division he
would’ve been playing in anyway, then if he was lucky find himself on the bench
of his parent club. By which time a new manager was probably in charge who’d bought
two new players in his position. Lower league clubs need the cash, so have to sell, Premier League clubs would buy early on the cheap and in bulk to minimise the risk of missing out on the next big thing.
One might even (whisper it quietly) have suggested that
giving a few clubs run by rich individuals enormous power over the way that the
game was run including the transfer market and youth development, perhaps
wasn’t the most sensible way to guarantee things were run altruistically for
the good of the England team.
The solution to this you’d have thought would be to increase
financial equality in the game – force the big clubs to use some of their
massive windfalls at the top to significantly increase development funding
lower down the game, or if one was being really radical enforce salary caps or
maximum squad sizes including loan players to stop the stockpiling of players.
Instead the threat of the withdrawal of the paltry (but
vital to some clubs) solidarity payments was used as blackmail to ensure that the
last great idea to rejuvenate the England team was adopted, the EPP. This now
means that those with the resources to run a ‘Category 1’ Academy, or Premier
League teams as they’re otherwise known, can now poach players from lower
academies while paying little compensation.
The new rules introduced with the
FA’s connivance effectively encourage the very problem they’re now trying to
solve, while worsening the financial plight of clubs lower down the leagues by
taking away an important source of cash – young players who could either be
sold or provide success.
So we’re now in a situation where the FA is bemoaning the
loss of the old competitive structure – whereby players would learn their trade
lower down the footballing pyramid, and trying to artificially recreate it, but
with all the extra power once more being placed in the hands of the Premier
League. Not only would one not be stopping
them stockpiling players, one would be actively encouraging it even more by
giving them a place to play them. It would be absurd if it wasn't so potentially damaging.
Worse, this wouldn’t be the last thing that
would be asked for – if the biggest clubs continue to accrue wealth and power,
what will the FA do when the next inevitable review comes along? The history of
football since 1992 tells us the answer – give in to whatever they demand.
St Pauli fans were not happy to be facing B-Teams in the mid-2000s
Defenders of the plan point to the success of countries with
a B-Team structure in place – mainly Germany, The Netherlands and Spain. The
picture isn’t as pretty as advocates would suggest though – Spain’s B-Teams
have played in their league structure for over half a century, for most of
which their national team’s underachievement was a running joke. Others would
point to coaching as playing a far more significant role. In 2010, Spain,
Germany and Italy each had roughly ten times as many coaches as England. Those
around the age of those players reaching their peak in Brazil this summer will
be aware that as kids starting out in football they played 11-a-side from the
age of ten, something that is now a thing of the past as English football has
become more enlightened.
More pertinently Germany moved to ban B-Teams from the league in 2007 amid concerns that they were wrecking the competitiveness of the
league. B-Teams with attendances in three figures were topping the league,
while if you caught Bayern Munich II in a bad week you might have to face a
player with Champions League experience. TV companies even pulled out of deals
as the league wasn’t seen as competitive. Ultimately they proved unsuccessful
due to the power of the biggest clubs, but it’s hardly a ringing endorsement.
It’s an especially frightening warning for The Football League
– one of the things that makes the English game unique is its competitive
depth. Incredibly the English fourth tier is better supported than the top
Belgian and Portuguese leagues – allowing B-Teams in (which the proposals would
effectively do) would, if the German example is any guide reduce it to a
sideshow. That’s without even considering the likely impact on the loan market
and the competitive balance of the league.
Yet something more may even be at stake – English football’s
depth and variety is reliant on a sense of egalitarianism. The sense that a
huge proportion of the clubs below the Premier League, right down to the likes
of Luton in the Conference can rise through the pyramid. It’s one of the
cornerstones of a league system that beneath everything all teams are equal.
That even though Hereford United are a small club, a decent board and manager
could soon see them at Hillsborough, Elland Road or Molineux on an equal
footing, with fans of Wednesday, Leeds and Wolves in turn looking up higher
still.
AFC Wimbledon - No strangers to FA idiocy
It’s a spirit embodied by Wimbledon, who rose from The
Southern League to win the FA Cup, and then back into The Football League after
previous FA idiocy, or by the likes of Swansea and Hull who’ve recently risen
from bottom to top. The idea that fans of clubs who have as much right to their
position in the league as Manchester City, Arsenal or Chelsea should watch
their clubs turn out against development sides, simply because the game’s
moneymen have decided that they’re irrelevant is downright offensive. You're admitting that yes, some teams are far more equal than others - and are doing so because their own historical greed.
Even if this were the best way to improve the England team,
which is extremely dubious, it wouldn’t be worth the price. Because that price
is actively killing the game as a competitive exercise for hundreds of
thousands of fans across the country – codifying that their dreams aren’t worth
as much as ensuring that Chelsea have a decent back-up should Fernando Torres
continue to resemble a traffic bollard.
It’s all the more offensive coming from the FA – self-styled
guardians of the game, and not beneath using that sense of romance for
marketing purposes, despite their decisions gradually stifling it with supine
acquiescence. It rather sums up the contempt the FA have for smaller clubs who can't throw their weight around that they allegedly failed to consult with Conference clubs - those who any 'League 3' would directly effect. In an interview with TALKSport Dyke also mentioned clubs being in financial difficulty as a reason the plan should be implemented - further increasing the sense that lower league clubs will once more be bullied into giving in for scraps from the top table.
If it comes to pass it will be the end of one chapter of
English football, one that lasted from the 19th Century to now, in
which everyone had the right to support their local team in a competitive structure
that stretched right to the top.
You can sign a petition against the FA's idiocy here.
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