Season 2011-12 Fan Articles

It Works With Horses?

By Jimmy   Stenn  ::  28/09/2011   65 Comments (»Last) Ever since Sky started paying millions and millions to Premier League clubs, the teams who have earned the most have consistently finished higher. They then used this extra money to buy better players from abroad, and also cherry pick the best talent from the teams below. They were able to use this extra money to improve their stadiums, increase capacity and have more corporate facilities, all of which made their income swell.

Because of the TV deals signed over the last 20 years, English football is the most watched sport globally, meaning those teams at the top, who were shown more often than the others, gained new fans, who in turn buy the clubs merchandise, and due to the number of fans abroad, give clubs the opportunity for money spinning pre-season tours.

Every year, the gap between the richer and poorer widens; every year, the prize money for the Champions League increases. The only way to get to the top is have a rich businessman take over, spend millions on players to try and catch up, all the while causing the true value of players to be skewed, meaning poorer clubs fall even further behind as they are not able to pay the now inflated prices.

Success in football these days is no longer measured by trophies won; it is how much you make, how much you are worth, how much you own. Winning is a by-product of all of these things. Qualifying for the Champions League group stages is all that the top European teams aim for, it's what keeps them afloat. Failing to do so for a few years puts you way way back (see Liverpool).

The financial fair play that is to come into place is an attempt to try and level the playing field, but will only make things worse. It will ensure the rich stay rich, whilst the poorer stay poor. If Man Utd earn £500m a year, then they can spend £500m a year. If Fulham earn £70m, they can only spend £70m. Ii effectively prevents any chance of a rich businessman taking over a smaller team, spending money on players to make them contenders. It is basically closing shop to everyone else. If you're on the inside, great; if you are on the outside looking in, you're screwed.

People say that a wage cap would make things fairer; it wouldn't. It would just mean top teams will pay all players the maximum, leaving smaller teams unable to keep their players happy on smaller wages, and mean they would inevitable lose out when going head-to-head with a bigger club trying to sign a player.

The big clubs will never agree to spending less money. I feel the only way to make it a level playing field would be to let the big clubs carry on spending all the money they want, but change the points system. At the moment, a win gives you 3 points, a draw gives you 1, irrespective of who you play. I think there should be a handicap introduced where a small club beating a big club would give them more points than a big club beating a small club. You could define a big and small club either by how much they earn or spend, or by whatever teams finished 4th the following year.

It would only apply when a big and small team played; the other games would be the same:

• big team beats small team - 3 points
• small team beats big team - 5 points
• big team draws with small team - 1 point
• small team draws with big team - 2 points
• big team beats big team - 3 points
• small team beats small team - 3 points
• big team draws with big team - 1 point
• small team draws with small team - 1 point

Obviously it can be tweaked, but I think that would guarantee smaller teams finishing higher each year, and if a small team finishes 4th, the extra money they get means they can buy better players, but will have the points handicap against them, meaning other teams will be able to take more points off them and the other big teams, to give them a better chance of finishing 4th and earning a good chunk of money for once.

If it was in place for 10 years, you would see teams finishing a lot closer together, a lot more different teams qualifying for the Champions League, and even see a few different teams win the league.

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