Want To Really Improve England? Follow Chris Waddle's Logic And Abolish The Premier League

So here we are again and at the risk of being premature, let the recriminations begin, let a thousand fulminations of manufactured anger spring forth from the pens of the press pack and the FA arse-sheathing commence. England are useless once more and we can engage in our real national sport- debating why we're rubbish at football.

There is something fitting in the fact that the final act of the ‘golden generation’ against Uruguay has been to comprehensively instruct the next on the mechanics of failure. That hope was ignited by an all too brief glimpse of Rooney’s talents before an avoidable error by Gerard was a delicious end to the era that began with David Beckham’s appointment as captain at the start of the Millennium.

Now we look to the future - we’ll see the FA argue that this is why their ‘League 3’ scheme is necessary, despite the fact that young English players already play at a higher level than the one it suggests. 

One man got his criticisms in early, a ‘disappointed not angry’ Chris Waddle, who said:

“I’ll tell you what the biggest problem is when you think about it all – the Premier League. They have a product which they sell around the world. It’s entertaining but it’s doing our players no good whatsoever.

The Waddler - better at criticsm than he was at 'pelanties'.

“We go on banging the drum that we’ve got this and that.. Do you know what makes the Premier League exciting? Players like Luis Suarez – the foreign players.”

Waddle’s ‘rant’ (it was more of a pontification) came in a soundbite and so by its nature it was incomplete – but there was something deeper in his exasperation at ‘the Premier League’ than the worries that have been trotted out ever since Chelsea became the first English team to field an entirely foreign team in 1999. He went on to criticise the sense of immediacy and demands to pick star players rather than crafting a successful team over the long term. You can listen to it in full here.

To focus on the Premier League’s preferment of foreign talent over English ingénues is rather like mocking Donald Trump over the ridiculousness of his hair-cut and gaudy taste. To spout on about young players being cast off is like hammering David Cameron for his propensity for appointing incompetent chums to important roles and then frowning about it.

It’s part of what makes the subject of criticism idiotic, but not the essence of what’s wrong with it. The rotten core from which the poison seeps to every branch.  Whether he meant to or not, in one sentence Waddle got to the festering innards: “They have a product which they sell around the world.”

The Premier League is exactly that – a product, not a footballing competition at the pinnacle of the English game but a giant vampire squid, which uses its position at the top of the English football pyramid as a gigantic cash cow for select clubs, players and agents.

The mistake made in the creation of the Premier League was that it assumed that the league operated in isolation – that as a ‘product’ or ‘brand’ it would greatly improve the financial state of its clubs with no negative consequences. That 20 clubs are extraordinarily well off is not a bad thing in itself – but the knock-on effects are.

The first problem is the immediacy it promotes – depending on their stature clubs must finish in a certain position to maximise revenue – relegation is a disaster that can lead to financial ruin (despite gargantuan parachute payments that destabilise the division below) and so managers bring in a motley crew before being sacked the moment things turn sour. 

At the top end of the table Arsene Wenger is vehemently criticised for preferring youngsters over big money stars, while Manchester United’s rebuilding project seems likely to consist of waving cash under the noses of a combination of big names and trusted Louis Van Gaal lieutenants. One can hardly blame them, it’s what financial and on-field success demands, as sponsors demand glitz and success for their money that the top clubs now depend on. In United’s case their very solvency may depend on it.

Rather than having a league which fosters long-term development and good football, with teams taking a chance on youth and developing players, the great rewards mean that the cost of failure is so huge that any of these notions go out the window. In the past West Ham may have given a team of youngsters experience in the hope that they could continue the club’s much vaunted footballing history. Instead given their commercial aspirations relegation is such a heavy blow that Sam Allardyce is the answer. 

The perverse incentives exist even in youth development – as there are 65 or so league clubs with comparatively miniscule budgets, many of whom are in financial difficulty, the incentive is there for Premier League clubs to poach, buy and hoard players who they can comfortably afford rather than let them develop by playing for their home club until they mature. They’ll then spend months on loan deals or in their Premier League club’s reserve sides.

Connor Wickham - not yet a talent wasted but let down by the system

A prime example is Connor Wickham – bought by Sunderland for a relatively pricey sum (reported as from £8m-£15m) from Ipswich in 2011 (a windfall which seems large, but is far lower than the sums teams receive for being relegated from the Premier League), the striker then spent two years struggling to hold down a place in a poor Sunderland side as managerial changes, new signings and the fact that as an 18-year-old he was unable to immediately adjust to the Premier League.

This spring there was spurious talk of Wickham, who scored the winner for England in the 2010 U-17 Euros, going to the World Cup as after a successful loan spell at Sheffield Wednesday he fired Sunderland to Premier League safety. 

Imagine a league system where players like Wickham didn’t have to waste three years of their career but instead were able to develop in a fully competitive league system at their own pace rather than finding themselves competing with a collection of misfits and imported stars. A club which was run well financially and which produced good young players could rise through the league structure rather than have their squads picked apart by teams with budgets inflated by Premier League money or owners spending to grab or keep a share of those riches. Imagine if all that TV money at the top of the game was instead shared so that clubs all throughout the English professional game could have top-class academy facilities and could compete in a truly competitive structure as opposed to the current one where there's an obvious ceiling at about 8th in The Championship for those without the luck to have funding.

That was what was so astonishingly inept about the FA’s ‘League 3’ idea – it would encourage the very behaviour that causes the problems in the first place. It's getting Donald Trump a stylist and assuming that he'll no longer be a total arsewipe.

If we really want an England team we can be proud of then we should forget the meaningless inquests and cosmetic exercises in appeasing the top teams and abolish the Premier League and share its prosperity with all clubs in the pyramid, playing to English foorball’s strengths, its depth and popularity, by using the money produced by its popularity to fund 50 or so brilliant academies (and better ones at the bottom of the pyramid).

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