“It’s only a game, son…” Aye, we’ve all said it as we shuffled amidst the throng exiting Goodison Park on a bad day, gripping firmly the young fella’s hand to ensure you didn’t separate, and one eye on the ground keen to side step the finest manure deposited by Her Majesty’s four-legged friends.  Down through the generations the baton has been passed – you may remember your first game with your Mam or Dad; you’ll definitely recall the last game you went to with a parent.  And, of course, you’ll remember the day you introduced your own offspring to a life inside Goodison Park.

The older you get, the more misty-eyed you possibly become when reflecting on “the way it was”.  The pain of modern-day Everton eases through nostalgic recollections taking you away from “the way it is” today.  Kids, I swear, Everton used to be one of the biggest clubs in the land, feared and respected in equal measure.  We used to buy world-class players, not sell them.  Our team was laden with class players – who would fight with all their might for that Blue jersey.  They knew what donning that shirt meant to the fans. 

Can we honestly say that about the bulk of today’s players?  The answer, I sadly believe, is an emphatic no.  Football, as a game, as a business, is removing itself further and further away from the very core of support it should be embracing.

It now costs more than ever to attend football matches.  And that’s without bringing the kids.  You might have to get out of your bed at 4:30 am and travel 238 long miles from Liverpool to Portsmouth in order to stand on an open terrace in the pissing rain and observe football — or something that passes itself off as entertainment these days — being held to ransom by ludicrous TV scheduling (also designed to accommodate an Asian TV audience).  Furthermore, what’s the odds you’ve also paid a subscription to Sky, including the extra fee that comes with subscribing to Premiership Plus?  Instructions left with “Her Indoors” back home to “do me the match” on yet another unmarked video!  Amazingly, and perhaps hard to fathom as you criticise EVERYTHING wrong about modern day football, you realise that you’ve bought into the Sky Sports myth.  You’ve bought into the Premiership myth.  All of this done willingly — is it any wonder the cost continues to rise?

Will the time come when the penny (borrowed!) drops?  When it dawns on the average punter that he’s being taken for a mug here?  The opening weeks of this current season saw the game in general come under great scrutiny — cost, attendances, value etc.  Four Four Two magazine have conducted their own survey of where the game has gone wrong and what measures are required in order to get the game back on the right path.  Writer David Conn presented their own blueprint for the game and I would like to comment on their findings through Evertonian eyes…

Share The Money More Equally

It’s quite ironic that since the launch of the Premiership we Evertonians have seen our beloved boys in Blue struggle for survival.  Twice we’ve been involved in momentous last-day Great Escapes; for a generation of Toffees, their being inside Goodison Park on either of those days when The Man Above chose to Abide With Us is questionably their cherished moment.  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  Everton FC – champions twice in the previous five seasons – were one of the Big Five, calling the shots back in 1990.  Our then chairman, Philip Carter, was invited by Greg Dyke (then managing director) to dinner at LWT.  Sitting around the table with him, a who’s who of English football at the time:  Edwards (Manchester United), White and Robinson (Liverpool), Dein (Arsenal) and Scholar (Tottenham). 

It was to be the beginning of the end for football, as we’d traditionally known it.  Thirty pieces of silver lay waiting on the table, promises of riches beyond their wildest dreams.  Before Mr Carter could ask for a sorbet……… they’d all sold their soul for a dance with the devil and his promise of never-ending riches.  With the subsequent breakaway of the original First Division clubs in 1992, to form the Premiership, we’ve witnessed an absurd amount of money pass through the football industry.  Like a sieve.  Perversely, the more money there is, the more clubs find themselves up to their tonsils in debt.  How can that be?  Something’s amiss, surely!  When was the last time Everton FC was given a financial clean bill of health?!

The Four Four Two report stated that the FA’s own research had shown that £2,000M is needed to maintain / preserve the public football facilities around the country.  The Premiership clubs, collectively, stump up a meagre £15M – a drop in the ocean.  It’s food for thought, wondering exactly what might benefit the Premiership club locally if they were to invest and preserve those local facilities.  I know many of you reading this are thinking aloud – “let’s get our own friggin’ Youth Academy sorted first mate!” — but if a club like Everton invested more in the local public football facilities then there’s a raised hope that in time to come we’d see better players coming through that system and hopefully joining Everton!  Might save the Club a few quid in the long run, doing that — saving us going through agents who contact their associates, who then bring in a relatively unknown foreign player not prepared, or equipped, to give his all for the Club.  Take note of the fact that at present we have not one but FOUR foreign left backs all earning a wage.  Who knows, with better local facilities we might have uncovered a gem or two, enabling us to look closer to home instead of shopping abroad for left backs.  [Oi……. which one of you just shouted “Michael Ball”?!]

Four Four Two are proposing, to increase competitiveness in the Premier League, that all clubs share the money thus:

• 80% equally
• 10% in merit payments

• 10% in facility fees

The custodians of Everton Football Club can harp on ad nauseum about such a notion being preposterous, as the Club needs to greatly increase its revenue (i.e. forever hammer the same people for more money) in order to compete with richer clubs, but the stark reality today is that Everton are no longer the big club we grew up supporting.  Southampton, in their last season as a Premiership club, had a bigger turnover than us.  Charlton Athletic are in the process of extending their capacity greater than Goodison’s.  Most of our Premiership rivals possess corporate facilities we can but dream of.  Clubs who were struggling for survival not long ago have now overtaken us — on and off the field.  Although we continually look to bridge the (financial) gap between ourselves and the other self-appointed big clubs (did someone say Big Five?!) the fact, staring straight at us, is that we need to associate ourselves more with the likes of Charlton Athletic — "working with clubs like Charlton to ensure a better deal for all Premier League clubs" — rather than feeding off scraps that fall from the top table and hoping one day we’ll return to the top.  That simply is not going to happen in the current climate of football.  They’re getting richer.  We’re not.  We need to effect change to ensure survival and future prosperity.  [Crikey, that sounded very Blair-esque…]

Limit The Ticket Price

It’s amazing how quickly we forget how escalated ticket pricing has become.  As recently as 1991 it was possible for a kid to enter that hallowed Theatre of Dreams (sic) up the road in Manchester for as little as 90p.  NINETY PENCE!  At Goodison, back in the 1989-90 season, the average ticket price was £4.79 (according to figures in the Four Four Two survey) yet nowadays the price of admission ranges from £26 to £34. 

One of the factors we all believe to ring true about being an Evertonian is that we are very much a “family club” — a family club in the sense that it was your own family who introduced you to Everton.  What was your first experience of Goodison?  It is likely to have been in the company of a family member — your father for example.  Being originally from Walton myself, I will always have an affinity for the place... but even I do not consider it harsh to state that Walton is not exactly the most affluent suburb of Liverpool.  Everton Football Club has a key role to play in the local community, yet ask yourself:  how many “dads and lads” can afford to stump up the funds these days to get into Goodison? 

A general observation made these days is that we’re witnessing a younger generation passing up on attending football matches — the cost is simply beyond their weekly means.  Look around on match day and what do you see?  You’re probably amidst a sea of 30-somethings and 40-somethings that view matchday as a day on the ale interrupted by 90 minutes of dross.  If the kids are being priced out of coming, you are losing that next generation of customer.  It’s a problem facing all clubs.  Reducing the prices will go some way to attracting back fans now lost to the game.  According to the Four Four Two report the average age of an attending fan is now 39; they are the people who coughed up £2 or £3 back in the 1980s, when their loyalty was signed, sealed and delivered.  Times have changed.

Introduce A Salary Cap

I believe that Jimmy Hill, then chairman of the PFA over 40 years ago, could never have envisaged the problems now facing football as he forcefully led the campaign to remove the then £20 salary cap imposed on all footballers.  When you see the likes of Rio Ferdinand chucking a strop and eventually “earning” a basic wage in excess of £100,000 per week, you know you’ve got problems, the game increasingly losing its last touches with reality.  It’s equally as farcical to view a player these days, earning £10k per week as being one of the game’s poorer earners!  Utter madness! 

The game, as a whole, cannot sustain this outlandish level of living beyond its means.  Our own Chairman, the esteemed Mr William Kenwright, once said that "you don’t need five million pounds to buy a five million pound player."  With the way transfer deals are structured, that statement is not incorrect... but it’s the application of such logic that sees clubs sliding further and further into debt.  Everton’s debt, when Bill Kenwright and True Blue Holdings secured control of the Club, stood at £8M – it spiralled somewhat uncontrollably since.  Even after factoring in the sale of a certain master Rooney, we remain heavily in debt (thank you, Bear-Stearns!). 

You simply cannot buy what you cannot afford.  Such a shame then that football clubs continue to live beyond their means, wallowing in a sea of debt.  As the clubs become increasingly dependent upon television money handouts, the danger lies ahead when the next TV deal fails to produce what might have been promised previously.  Ask any Nationwide football club about relying on TV revenue as a main source of income/survival…

This is one area that really needs no further debate.  The time has come for a mandatory introduction of salary capping in top-level professional football.  How often do we hear (on Sky TV) that the Premiership is “the greatest League in the world!”?  If you hear it often enough, you just might believe it.  The truth of the matter tells a different story: the Premiership has become about as uncompetitive as any League can be.  Chelsea, a Russian oligarch’s plaything, are taking the piss, capable of spending more in a season than we have in a decade or more!  Manchester United have dominated the domestic game since the breakaway Premiership was formed.  Only Arsenal have come anywhere near matching United’s achievements.  Liverpool?  Everton?  Tottenham?  Aston Villa?  They’re there to make up the numbers and little else.

One of modern sport’s greatest ironies and examples of salary capping working to great effect occurs over in America’s NFL where the competition is thriving, attendances are up and more and more TV revenue is incoming.  Back in 1994 a limit was placed on the amount any franchise (yeuk!) could spend on player and coaching staff wages.  Twelve years on and the record ain’t broken!  Look and learn!  Look and learn!

I love this quote, taken from an article from The Guardian last January –

“The Premiership is supposed to be domestic football's gold standard — but, in reality, it's a contest with all the competitive balance of a hay dash fought out between a stallion, a mule and a maimed goat.  Actually, that would probably be more interesting.  Calling the Premiership the most exciting league in the world is like a low-budget 1970s sci-fi convention selling itself as a Page Three Extravaganza: it's a sham.”

We’ve seen the experiment put to the test in the lower divisions — clubs under the new rules limited to spending 60% of turnover on players’ wages.  (Incidentally, according to the recent figures published, Everton’s wage bill is now down from being 74% of turnover in 2004 to a mere 51% of turnover this year.)  There is little or no room for chairmen to “live the dream”, potentially placing that club’s future in jeopardy.  It makes sense and, although we’ll always hear people bemoaning the restrictions in place, it appears to be working with ten points being the current difference between the leaders of League One and the twelfth place team.  In League Two there is a ten-point difference between first and fifteenth.  Anyone noticed the state of play in the Premiership recently?  Chelsea have already secured more than double the points total collected thus far by the team in thirteenth position (Middlesbrough).  How competitive is that?  So, if this current ruling is working in the lower leagues to make them competitive, then why not enforce a similar ruling amongst Premiership clubs?  If it’s in the best interests of the Premiership, as a competition, then all should welcome it.

Get Fans on Every Club’s Board of Directors

Once upon a time, in an era far removed from the modern day “game”, this was the case at every club throughout the entire country.  These clubs then became limited companies in order to protect those members (fans) from being held personally liable for any debts incurred.  With the advent of The Great God Sky moving into the game in the early 1990s we witnessed a glut of clubs becoming nothing more than vehicles for owners to make personal fortunes — Martin Edwards, so often the finest example of one individual making a mint from football’s new found “wealth” (over £9M entering Mr. Edwards’ bank account). 

Why are so many of England’s bigger clubs averse to such a notion of fan involvement within the Boardroom?  What’s there to be afraid of?  Surely by bringing on board fan involvement you’re increasing the likelihood of people involved in advancing, to the best of their ability, their particular club.  Two of the largest clubs in the world — Real Madrid and Barcelona — embrace the notion of fan involvement.  If you’re a member of either Spanish giant, you’ve a say:  you’ve a vote enabling you to your say when electing the club president.

Due to numerous reasons over recent seasons — such as gross mismanagement by an egotistical chairman plunging the club further into debt (and eventually administration) or a chairman intent on selling the lease on the ground to a property developer — we now have trust funds set in place at 134 league clubs in England, Scotland and Wales.  Thirteen of those clubs are actually owned by the trusts:  ordinary people from all walks of life — fans — now entrusted with the task of ensuring their club survives and prospers.  When, if ever, will the so-called People’s Club (sic) embrace such a fanciful notion?  It’s perhaps worth offering a timely reminder that if we take a peek back through our own history we’ll observe the name of one Will Cuff.  Mr Cuff, a young fella who played in some of those initial games as St Domingo’s Football Club, went on to serve Everton Football Club as a player, secretary, director and chairman.  I reckon he must have been a fan!  Open up the clubs and embrace the notion of fan involvement.

Make Our Clubs “Community Clubs” Again

The charge being made by the Four Four Two survey is that “clubs claim the loyalty, and names, of their towns and cities, but often exploit rather than repay it.”    On this issue I believe Everton to be no worse than many of our Premiership rivals.  Everton cater for kids with occasional training camps.  Our Social Inclusion Youth programme targets young people, through sporting and educational activity, with the aim of improving their self-esteem.  The Schools Development programme sees in excess of 50,000 school children coming into contact directly with the Club’s Football In The Community coaches.  Those kids are, hopefully, future match-going Evertonians.  Make it a priority to reduce the ticket prices, please, Mr Wyness, and get the bulk of these kids hooked on Everton (for life!) now!  They spend more than enough on merchandise as it is.

Reconnect Players With The Community

“Fans want to admire their club’s players, not see them as overpaid mercenaries.”  That’s the verdict according to Four Four Two and it’s hard not to be in complete agreement.  Long gone are those days when a player might hop on the same bus from town as the fans and head for County Road, his boots draped over the shoulder!  Nowadays the players’ car park mimics a rather expensive car showroom — personalised number plates obligatory.  They are the "haves".  The fans, viewing these heroes from behind iron bar fencing, the "have-nots".  However, easy as it is to stick the boot into footballers these days for living in perceived ivory towers, adrift from the real world — we tend to ignore the good so often done without publicity sought.  I’ve criticised the man often enough for his lifestyle in the past prohibiting his playing career but there can be no doubt about the charity work a certain bird-fancying Everton forward undertakes away from the glare of publicity.  Also, as Christmas looms we’ll no doubt hear and see our current playing staff doing the rounds in local hospitals.  If only everything wasn’t so stage managed, more off the cuff…

And, finally…

Make the FA a Strong Independent Governing Body

Stop!  Read that again!  “Make the FA a strong independent governing body?”  In your dreams, Four Four Two!  That simply is not going to happen.  However, it’s worth noting their recommendation that the Government introduces a Football Act, establishing a framework for football, including the proportion of television money that must then be invested into the game’s grass roots.  Long-term benefits for the game in general can only occur if the money in the game filters all the way back to its roots. 

What long-term benefits will we see when Nuno Valente kisses his Everton badge one last time and packs his bag for his next venture?  He’s recently turned 31 so I can’t see Everton securing much of a fee when he departs.  I’ve absolutely nothing against Mr Valente but he’s yet another fine example of money departing the domestic game for foreign shores, never to be seen again. 

Something’s got to change.  Ah yes……."it’s only a game, son…"

Colm Kavanagh

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