This applies to almost all the leagues in Europe.
From Goal.com
Norwich City’s well deserved victory over Manchester United at Carrow Road on Saturday was a shock, not least to Manchester United, and coupled with Birmingham’s draw at Chelsea it prompted a number of respected UK media pundits to inform us with just hint of smugness that this is what makes the English Premiership so competitive: anyone can beat anyone else on their day.
I am a passionate devotee of English league football and the Premiership in particular, but I’m not blinded by patriotism. A result such as the one Norwich achieved is remarkable precisely because it is so rare. Portsmouth’s defeat of United earlier in the campaign was in the same category, as was Manchester City’s defeat of Chelsea and Bolton’s triumph over Arsenal. But while it is true that, given a bit of luck and a particular set of circumstances (such as the ‘big’ club deciding, rather disrespectfully, to ‘rest’ a string of its top players on the day) any team is capable of beating any other – in ANY league or competition, not just England’s – the fact is that it is happening less and less often.
It is not my intention to belittle or patronise the exploits of any club here. Saturday was the best day of the season for Norwich by a mile and the three points were convincingly and deservedly earned. They are fighting for Premiership survival and I for one hope they achieve it. What I am concerned about is the polarisation of power within the Premiership.
As a fan of English football I’m aware that it tends to sustain itself on a number of myths that shape its world view of itself. These myths, endlessly recycled by the national media, are the currency of the people who run the game. But then both they and the media have a product to sell. So let’s peer behind the self-satisfied smiles and smug hyperbole.
English football has long sneered at the situation north of the border where the Old Firm of Rangers and Celtic utterly dominate the Scottish domestic scene. There was a tendency to deride other leagues such as Holland’s and Portugal’s for the same apparent reason, and while the argument held considerably less water when applied to Serie A and La Liga, the English perspective on those two has generally been that the Premiership is more exciting, more competitive, more open, more honest, and generally ‘better.’
More Exciting?
As with most stereotypes there is a bit of truth and a lot of generalisation in there. The reality, of course, is rather different. Yes, English football is exciting a lot of the time. Two well-matched teams going hammer and tongs at eachother in front of a capacity, partisan crowd is a compelling spectacle in an intoxicating atmosphere. But there are plenty of fixtures in the Premiership that don’t exactly set the pulse racing and, what is more, the excitement factor is often a function of that Anglo-Saxon attacking mentality than can be exposed as naïve on the European stage.
More Open?
Yes, English football is open too, the consequence of that get-it-forward quickly approach and a fairly rudimentary appreciation of the art of defending. The technique and skills on show in the Premiership have burgeoned dramatically over the past 15 years with the steady influx of exotic overseas talent which has unquestionably raised quality standards and enhanced the product. British-born players have benefited enormously from exposure to the different ideas and application of foreign coaches, team-mates and opponents. But much of that imported skill has been in midfield and attack, and talented players have the skill and vision to open up defences that are hardly monolithic.
More Honest?
And is English football inherently more ‘honest’? I see little hard evidence of this. Vestiges of the traditional spirit of fair play persist but as in all sport everywhere, as professionalism raises the stakes by offering ever greater rewards, so win-at-all-costs becomes the accepted creed. The English game’s pious bleating that ‘diving’ is ‘not really part of our culture,’ and that feigning injury, or seeking to get an opponent booked or sent off, is something that ‘the foreigners have brought into our game’ is insulting nonsense. Players the world over are chancers, and ours are no different. Maradona has been pilloried for almost 20 years for the infamous ‘Hand of God’, but when Michael Owen was booked the other week for trying to reach a ‘header’ with his hand against Azerbaijan, it passed without comment. Maradona’s crime was that his ‘goal’ stood.
More Competitive?
So that brings us to the nub of the debate, competitiveness. It is a sad but inescapable fact that the competitiveness of the Premiership has steadily declined, and will probably continue to do so. Until two years ago, the title had become a two-horse race. Chelsea’s dramatic emergence has ruffled the feathers of Manchester United and Arsenal but everyone knows, every August, that come the following May it will be one of those three holding aloft the championship trophy. This season Chelsea have left the other two trailing in their wake so even that scrap is less compelling, by mid-April, than it should be.
The real indictment of how the league is evolving is the gap between United in third place (as I write) and Everton in fourth. It’s an outrageous 13 points. Given that United are themselves 14 behind Chelsea that means the gap between first and fourth is currently 27 points. Twenty years ago, a span of 27 points would have covered the top half of the old First Division. This season, arguably the real competition within the Premiership is between Everton, Liverpool and Bolton for fourth place, and between those three and maybe three others for Uefa Cup qualification. The scrap to avoid relegation is reasonably keen but typically involves all three of last season’s promoted clubs.
When the main competitive focus within the Premiership is on the battle for consolation prizes, is that healthy? Is that a sign of a vibrant league?
It’s important to keep a sense of perspective, of course. For one thing, this is not a phenomenon confined to England. The very top of the Spanish and Italian Leagues currently have an exclusive look about them, too. And let’s not forget the historical dimension. The last time a ‘new’ name was added to the list of clubs winning the league championship in England (ie the last time a club won the title for the first time) was 1978, when Nottingham Forest joined the elite. The list of English champions now totals 24 (after 105 seasons), but of that group just four clubs (Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Everton) have won 55 titles between them. That’s 52 per cent.
For comparison, 56 per cent of Italy’s 102 championships have been won by just three clubs (Juve, Milan and Inter), while 62 per cent of Spain’s 73 championships have gone to either Real Madrid or Barcelona. Germany is a bit more democratic: Bayern Munich have won just under 20 per cent of the 92 German championships contested, though their 18 titles are at least twice as many as any other club has managed. We kid ourselves if we think the big prizes in Europe are evenly distributed.
However, this concentration of glory – and power – in the hands of relatively few clubs is gathering pace. Money doesn’t talk in football – it screams; and the advent of the Premiership in England and the Champions League in Europe have had dramatic financial implications. Prize money within the Premiership is geared to finishing position so obviously the highest earners from that pool are the top finishing clubs – who tend to be the same clubs year after year, with slight variations in order. Substantial media revenues, particularly from TV, swell the coffers of the top clubs because their games are the ones the broadcasters want to screen. Símilarly, these clubs play to capacity crowds each week and scoop the greatest gate revenues (though as Arsenal have shown, if you outgrow your stadium that income stream can be restricted ad eventually force a costly relocation). Most significant of all, though, is the fact that finishing in the top four gains you a ticket onto club football’s greatest ever gravy train, the Champions League. The riches from that tournament are mind-boggling and of course, it is the same clubs, more or less, who benefit year after year.
Result? The rich get ever richer and the poor, if they’re lucky and not run by amateurs, get by. So the cycle perpetuates itself, and each year the wealth, and therefore the gap between those who qualify and the also-rans, increases. It makes for fascinating Champions League tournaments each year, while squeezing competitiveness out of the national leagues and increasingly marginalising the Uefa Cup.
The ideal would be ultra-competitive national leagues – a Premiership for example in which any one of a dozen or even half-a-dozen clubs stood a realistic chance of winning the thing – plus a vibrant and compelling Champions League. Sadly, the two seem mutually exclusive because of the modern game’s economics.
And that points inexorably to the Champions League growing in stature and importance. That is the arena where the top clubs, potentially dulled by lording it over their weaker brethren at home, now have to test their mettle. That is where a team like Arsenal or Barcelona, like Manchester United or Real Madrid, find out that their domestic superiority is no guarantee of success on the bigger stage. But they will use the unbalanced economics of their own leagues to fill the coffers that can help them compete more strongly in the Champions League. Self-interest rules, OK?
The problem is that the national leagues are the real lifeblood of the game and somehow a way must be found to ensure they remain attractive to fans (that means ensuring more than one or two clubs stand a chance of winning) and therefore attractive to TV and to sponsors.
In the meantime, we should make the most of results like Norwich’s at the weekend. They help to preserve the illusion that the Premiership is competitive, rather than a framework for several mini-leagues within a league that very few can aspire to win. And those few clubs who CAN realistically win the title should hope that we don’t all eventually become bored with the inevitability of it all. After all, competitiveness is the essence of every sporting contest. And increasingly there is too little competition in this competition.
I am a passionate devotee of English league football and the Premiership in particular, but I’m not blinded by patriotism. A result such as the one Norwich achieved is remarkable precisely because it is so rare. Portsmouth’s defeat of United earlier in the campaign was in the same category, as was Manchester City’s defeat of Chelsea and Bolton’s triumph over Arsenal. But while it is true that, given a bit of luck and a particular set of circumstances (such as the ‘big’ club deciding, rather disrespectfully, to ‘rest’ a string of its top players on the day) any team is capable of beating any other – in ANY league or competition, not just England’s – the fact is that it is happening less and less often.
It is not my intention to belittle or patronise the exploits of any club here. Saturday was the best day of the season for Norwich by a mile and the three points were convincingly and deservedly earned. They are fighting for Premiership survival and I for one hope they achieve it. What I am concerned about is the polarisation of power within the Premiership.
As a fan of English football I’m aware that it tends to sustain itself on a number of myths that shape its world view of itself. These myths, endlessly recycled by the national media, are the currency of the people who run the game. But then both they and the media have a product to sell. So let’s peer behind the self-satisfied smiles and smug hyperbole.
English football has long sneered at the situation north of the border where the Old Firm of Rangers and Celtic utterly dominate the Scottish domestic scene. There was a tendency to deride other leagues such as Holland’s and Portugal’s for the same apparent reason, and while the argument held considerably less water when applied to Serie A and La Liga, the English perspective on those two has generally been that the Premiership is more exciting, more competitive, more open, more honest, and generally ‘better.’
More Exciting?
As with most stereotypes there is a bit of truth and a lot of generalisation in there. The reality, of course, is rather different. Yes, English football is exciting a lot of the time. Two well-matched teams going hammer and tongs at eachother in front of a capacity, partisan crowd is a compelling spectacle in an intoxicating atmosphere. But there are plenty of fixtures in the Premiership that don’t exactly set the pulse racing and, what is more, the excitement factor is often a function of that Anglo-Saxon attacking mentality than can be exposed as naïve on the European stage.
More Open?
Yes, English football is open too, the consequence of that get-it-forward quickly approach and a fairly rudimentary appreciation of the art of defending. The technique and skills on show in the Premiership have burgeoned dramatically over the past 15 years with the steady influx of exotic overseas talent which has unquestionably raised quality standards and enhanced the product. British-born players have benefited enormously from exposure to the different ideas and application of foreign coaches, team-mates and opponents. But much of that imported skill has been in midfield and attack, and talented players have the skill and vision to open up defences that are hardly monolithic.
More Honest?
And is English football inherently more ‘honest’? I see little hard evidence of this. Vestiges of the traditional spirit of fair play persist but as in all sport everywhere, as professionalism raises the stakes by offering ever greater rewards, so win-at-all-costs becomes the accepted creed. The English game’s pious bleating that ‘diving’ is ‘not really part of our culture,’ and that feigning injury, or seeking to get an opponent booked or sent off, is something that ‘the foreigners have brought into our game’ is insulting nonsense. Players the world over are chancers, and ours are no different. Maradona has been pilloried for almost 20 years for the infamous ‘Hand of God’, but when Michael Owen was booked the other week for trying to reach a ‘header’ with his hand against Azerbaijan, it passed without comment. Maradona’s crime was that his ‘goal’ stood.
More Competitive?
So that brings us to the nub of the debate, competitiveness. It is a sad but inescapable fact that the competitiveness of the Premiership has steadily declined, and will probably continue to do so. Until two years ago, the title had become a two-horse race. Chelsea’s dramatic emergence has ruffled the feathers of Manchester United and Arsenal but everyone knows, every August, that come the following May it will be one of those three holding aloft the championship trophy. This season Chelsea have left the other two trailing in their wake so even that scrap is less compelling, by mid-April, than it should be.
The real indictment of how the league is evolving is the gap between United in third place (as I write) and Everton in fourth. It’s an outrageous 13 points. Given that United are themselves 14 behind Chelsea that means the gap between first and fourth is currently 27 points. Twenty years ago, a span of 27 points would have covered the top half of the old First Division. This season, arguably the real competition within the Premiership is between Everton, Liverpool and Bolton for fourth place, and between those three and maybe three others for Uefa Cup qualification. The scrap to avoid relegation is reasonably keen but typically involves all three of last season’s promoted clubs.
When the main competitive focus within the Premiership is on the battle for consolation prizes, is that healthy? Is that a sign of a vibrant league?
It’s important to keep a sense of perspective, of course. For one thing, this is not a phenomenon confined to England. The very top of the Spanish and Italian Leagues currently have an exclusive look about them, too. And let’s not forget the historical dimension. The last time a ‘new’ name was added to the list of clubs winning the league championship in England (ie the last time a club won the title for the first time) was 1978, when Nottingham Forest joined the elite. The list of English champions now totals 24 (after 105 seasons), but of that group just four clubs (Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Everton) have won 55 titles between them. That’s 52 per cent.
For comparison, 56 per cent of Italy’s 102 championships have been won by just three clubs (Juve, Milan and Inter), while 62 per cent of Spain’s 73 championships have gone to either Real Madrid or Barcelona. Germany is a bit more democratic: Bayern Munich have won just under 20 per cent of the 92 German championships contested, though their 18 titles are at least twice as many as any other club has managed. We kid ourselves if we think the big prizes in Europe are evenly distributed.
However, this concentration of glory – and power – in the hands of relatively few clubs is gathering pace. Money doesn’t talk in football – it screams; and the advent of the Premiership in England and the Champions League in Europe have had dramatic financial implications. Prize money within the Premiership is geared to finishing position so obviously the highest earners from that pool are the top finishing clubs – who tend to be the same clubs year after year, with slight variations in order. Substantial media revenues, particularly from TV, swell the coffers of the top clubs because their games are the ones the broadcasters want to screen. Símilarly, these clubs play to capacity crowds each week and scoop the greatest gate revenues (though as Arsenal have shown, if you outgrow your stadium that income stream can be restricted ad eventually force a costly relocation). Most significant of all, though, is the fact that finishing in the top four gains you a ticket onto club football’s greatest ever gravy train, the Champions League. The riches from that tournament are mind-boggling and of course, it is the same clubs, more or less, who benefit year after year.
Result? The rich get ever richer and the poor, if they’re lucky and not run by amateurs, get by. So the cycle perpetuates itself, and each year the wealth, and therefore the gap between those who qualify and the also-rans, increases. It makes for fascinating Champions League tournaments each year, while squeezing competitiveness out of the national leagues and increasingly marginalising the Uefa Cup.
The ideal would be ultra-competitive national leagues – a Premiership for example in which any one of a dozen or even half-a-dozen clubs stood a realistic chance of winning the thing – plus a vibrant and compelling Champions League. Sadly, the two seem mutually exclusive because of the modern game’s economics.
And that points inexorably to the Champions League growing in stature and importance. That is the arena where the top clubs, potentially dulled by lording it over their weaker brethren at home, now have to test their mettle. That is where a team like Arsenal or Barcelona, like Manchester United or Real Madrid, find out that their domestic superiority is no guarantee of success on the bigger stage. But they will use the unbalanced economics of their own leagues to fill the coffers that can help them compete more strongly in the Champions League. Self-interest rules, OK?
The problem is that the national leagues are the real lifeblood of the game and somehow a way must be found to ensure they remain attractive to fans (that means ensuring more than one or two clubs stand a chance of winning) and therefore attractive to TV and to sponsors.
In the meantime, we should make the most of results like Norwich’s at the weekend. They help to preserve the illusion that the Premiership is competitive, rather than a framework for several mini-leagues within a league that very few can aspire to win. And those few clubs who CAN realistically win the title should hope that we don’t all eventually become bored with the inevitability of it all. After all, competitiveness is the essence of every sporting contest. And increasingly there is too little competition in this competition.
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