Does the Premier League Need Loyal Supporters?

RTG comes to you today fresh off the back of a business trip to Washington DC in the USA. This afforded us the unique opportunity of being able to experience watching Premier League football in one of the countries favoured by the Premier League for hosting one of the 39th games. Unlike New York and Boston (other Eastern Seaboard cities visited by RTG), Premier League football is much harder to come by in Washington DC. But after a little research and asking a few questions of the locals, we were able to find a bar in the Arlington area of the city that showed a number of Premier League matches simultaneously, at 3pm GMT, while serving up a respectable brunch….perfect.

Most of the clientele in the bar were not expats, missing their weekly football fix, but appeared to be genuine US football (soccer) supporters. Leaving aside the unavoidably irritating aspect of hearing Americans talking about football, there was something reassuring about this gathering – supporters in different colours watching different teams playing simultaneously in a non-threatening atmosphere. And surely, if the US is to get into football, that’s exactly how it should be. In fact, in an ideal world, they would all troop off to watch DC United afterwards and support the MLS too. What they definitely should not have is an enforced 39th fixture from a foreign league superimposed upon the MLS that has enough of its own problems attracting big crowds.

The main games on offer were, predictably, the Chelsea, Manchester United and Arsenal games, though there was also a hardcore watching Rangers v Aberdeen from the SPL. Interestingly enough, Chelsea replica shirts were by far the most prevalent, something that would definitely not have been the case five years ago. Invariably, when people start to follow a sport that is taking place in another country, they tend to pick up on the successful teams. Fair enough and RTG has always said we support anybody who is a football supporter no matter how short a time they have loved the game and no matter where they choose to watch it. But is the Premier League’s determination to court these fans, for financial reasons, at the risk of upsetting the loyal, England-based supporter, wise business or short-sighted folly?

Real caution needs to be observed here and RTG suspects that, once again, the Premier League is taking the short-term financial view rather than the well-considered route that looks after the interests of the English game. Football today is not like it was when RTG first started following the game. The prevalence of matches on TV, the celebrity profiles of the modern footballers and the absence of the kind of loyalty we used to see, breeds a different kind of supporter. RTG wonders if the ‘one team through thick and thin’ attitude, that has shaped the game to date, is disappearing in modern times.

When Frank Lampard (or any footballer for that matter) runs to the crowd kissing his badge, is he doing it for his own self-promotion or in recognition of his respect for Chelsea and its supporters? RTG suspects he’s basically saying, “I love you right now but please still like me when I suddenly decide to join Barcelona for more money”. Perhaps it suits the money makers of the modern game to have supporters who are equally as flexible in regard to who they follow. When RTG was in Thailand watching an Arsenal v Liverpool game some years ago, spectators changed allegiances at half time simply because Arsenal were winning and looking the more likely to get the points.

As the game over here continues to distance itself from its supporters, will we begin to see the same kind of attitude in our newer supporters? They may represent a huge financial opportunity to the Premier League, both here and abroad, but is this what we want for our national game? If we want to make as much money for the Premier League, in as short a time as possible, then it probably is. But what happens when the good days are over? When the sport of football needs those supporters who would turn up day in and day out to support their team, they may just find that they’ve gone elsewhere.

Reclaim the Game – The Weekend’s Events

• The self-appointed ‘Best League in the World’ looks set to contribute four teams to the Champions League quarter finals, assuming Liverpool do not commit football suicide in the San Siro this week. Interesting then that, the ‘Best League in the World’, could not produce one win in the UEFA Cup on Thursday night, now that there are some half decent teams in the competition. Perhaps, ‘Best Top Four in the World’ might be a more accurate and, perhaps, more worrying description.
• Avram Grant, in the eyes of the media and many Chelsea supporters, has reverted back from “surprising a few people” to being “out of his depth” again after a 1-0 defeat to Barnsley in the FA Cup quarter final. How indicative of the modern game. If Chelsea were to win their games in hand, they will be two points behind Arsenal, with the game at Stamford Bridge against the Gunners still to play, and they are in the last eight of the Champions League. Despite this, and overcoming the turmoil they were in when Grant took over, this is still not deemed good enough for the media or the modern Chelsea supporter.
• Experiments with two new officials behind the goals at a FIFA or UEFA event will happen in the next 12 months as FIFA appeared to turn its back on goal line technology. Some see this as the game moving back in the wrong direction but RTG welcomes this, assuming the officials have more power than simply goal line observation. ‘Hawkeye’ at Wimbledon has been shown to be fallible and, this blind faith in technology, rather than being the answer to all woes as most pundits seem to think it is, could actually make life worse. However, assuming there are enough people out there willing to do the job, extra officials makes more sense. If they can help on penalty decisions, as well as on the goal line, RTG believes fallible humans are far preferable to fallible technology.
• It is refreshing to see the FA Cup semi-finals contested by only one Premier League team and none of the ‘Big Four’. However, for the FA, this is a bit of a double-edged sword. The one year they could probably have done with filling Wembley, twice over, for the semis, they may have to cut ticket prices to do so.
• Rumours abound in Leeds that they may soon be given back some of the points they were deducted at the beginning of the season. Stand by for more potential law suits should they end up replacing another team in the play-off places. Yet another reason for more clarity and transparency in the way the game is administered.
  
  Hat’s Off, Take a Bow (Or Not)
  
  Player of the Week – Fernando Torres. Outstanding again in Liverpool’s demolition of struggling Newcastle. Some players take time to adapt to life in England. Liverpool must be thankful that Torres seemed to hit the ground running this season for where would they be otherwise?
  
  Villain of the Week – Sepp Blatter (once again). He has over stepped the mark again by calling for lifetime bans on players for malicious tackles such as that of Birmingham’s Martin Taylor on Eduardo of Arsenal. He has asked to review the reports to see if Taylor’s ban should be increased from three matches. This is none of his business and completely out of context. He should butt out of what does not concern him.
  
  Hero of the Week – Kayode Odejayi. Ensured that the FA Cup would be won by someone outside of the big four for the first time since 1995.
  
  Shock of the Week – None of the big four appearing in the FA Cup Semi final draw today.
  
  Cliché of the Week – “Is Portsmouth’s name written on the cup?”

Media Myths and the Pub Bore

Having focused, quite rightly, in our last posting on the Premier League’s 39th game abroad idea, it now appears that the one factor that everybody, bar this blog, overlooked is that local and regional football authorities are none too keen on the idea of a big fat bloated Premier League pitching up on their turf. Even Sepp Blatter managed to tear himself away from the Ann Summers catalogue to stick his oar in and ominously implied that there needed to be consultation before such a venture could take place. Bernie Ecclestone, part owner of QPR and supremo of Formula One, probably summed up the ridiculousness of the Premier League’s proposal stating that he would be prepared to take the Big Four, only, abroad for a one-off tournament. Enough said. Let’s hope this one gets put to rest once and for all. One of the curious side effects of this proposal is that it has generated rumours of established teams being targeted to be bought and moved lock stock and barrel to foreign parts. Chelsea for Dubai anyone? At the moment we are able to laugh at what seem ludicrous proposals but, depending on how things progress in our beloved game, let’s hope we’re not soon crying.

So, with that put to rest for the time being, RTG is turning its attention on the media and the pub bores that feed off the myths largely generated and propagated by them. What does RTG mean by this? Well let’s have a look at some popular misconceptions that the lazy media people and ex-players, such as Richard Keys, maintain, and then become folklore the length and breadth of the country.

Great Football Pub Bore Myths of Our Time – Part 1

Terry Venables is a great manager. RTG does not doubt that he has done some good work, most notably at Barcelona, but if you analyse his actual record you’ll see a tale of financial woes at virtually every club, and national association, he’s ever been associated with. In addition, he’s often been cited as the best England manager of recent times and many have asked for him to return. The reality was he had the lowest win percentage of any England manager – all be it with one of the lowest loss percentages also – at a time when England played no qualifiers for a tournament that was held on home turf. Indeed, virtually all his games in charge were played at home. England won two out of the five games in Euro 1996 and his, and the media’s, obsession with one, by then overweight and unfit, individual caused us to limp out at the semi final stage.

Talking of Paul Gascoigne: well, he’s an England legend isn’t he? Is he? Let’s look at what he won for England, or indeed any of the teams he played for. Aside from some good performances against Oxford United and Portsmouth (then in the second tier of English football) he’s widely accepted as winning the cup for Spurs in 1991. Well, as far as anyone who stays on the pitch for ten minutes before injuring himself in a reckless challenge can be said to win the cup. A foul, by the way, that led to Nottingham Forest taking the lead. Italia 90 is still regarded by the media and pub pundits alike as the ‘Gascoigne’ world cup. All he actually achieved was to be filmed crying for his own misfortune at not making the final had England gone through. Which of course we didn’t. Likewise, six years later, he was too unfit, following his exploits in the ‘dentist chair’ (which he mocked the media for criticising) to get to a cross that would have been the golden goal that saw England through to the final of Euro 96.

Speaking of Terry Venables’ record, one of a succession of forgettable draws, during his tenure, was against Colombia at Wembley in 1995. The only memorable moment came in the form of Rene Higuita’s ‘scorpion’ save from Jamie Redknapp’s over hit centre. Many still wax lyrical about the ‘crazy’ Higuita’s antics. However, if you can see the whole of the footage, the linesman clearly raises his flag for an offside long before the ball gets to the goal. Spectacular maybe; but not as risky and ‘mad’ as the media would have you believe.

The unique factor in Higuita’s dive, is that it is the only time that the English media ever spoke fondly of a ‘diving foreigner’. After all, it is the ‘nasty foreigners’ that have brought this aspect into the game isn’t it? Anyone who saw Rodney Marsh or Francis Lee in the '60s and '70s will remember that these two in particular made diving an art form. Not to mention Michael Owen’s crafty efforts for England and Liverpool (the ones against Argentina in 1998 and 2002 are remembered with particular fondness but never spoken of).

Part 2 to follow. Watch this space.

Reclaim the Game. The Week’s Events

One of RTG’s major fights has always been against drug use in football. Many serious luminaries of the game believe it is not a point worth worrying too much about because drugs don’t have a major benefit in team sports. Wrong. Many of Juventus’s trophies in the 1990s were achieved using drugs, a scandal we still know only a fraction about. Arsene Wenger’s first great Arsenal team were taking a now banned substance, Creatine. RTG mentions this because Dwain Chambers’ return to athletics competition by threatening to take the UK governing body of athletics to court is a stark reminder that, the richer you become through sport, the better drug dealers available to you. If it is not a problem in English football now, it soon will be.

Capping Foreigners Not the Answer to a Better England

Sir Alex Ferguson has come out in favour this week of a cap on the number of foreign players allowed in each Premiership squad. Given that only four of Manchester United's starting line up last Saturday were English (though four more than Arsenal it should be noted), it is likely that there is more than just a hint of tongue in cheek here from the maestro of the mind game. Sir Alex is a genius when it comes to winding up his rivals and this comment is more likely a reflection of a man with a growing confidence in his team's ability to see off challengers to United's Premiership title this year. Let's face it English football would be a sorrier place without him whether he is being serious or not.

But what would a cap actually achieve? Premiership football is where it is. It has attained a high standard and entertains supporters the World over. At least three of the big four usually qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League and last year we had three semi-finalists. The point is we can't go back and lower the standard now. Putting an artificial restriction on the number of foreign players would almost certainly do exactly that. Rather than helping English players to get better, it would more likely create an artificial situation where clubs would have to pay a premium for them to keep their quota at the required level - whether they are good players or not.

There is an argument in Scottish football that when Sky pulled out of its coverage deal with the SPL, it meant that expensive foreign imports could no longer be afforded by the clubs. The result has been that more younger, home-grown players get to play at the highest level than would have done previously. Hence, the more impressive performance by the Scottish national team in the Euro 2008 qualifiers. It certainly seems a reasonable argument but if you actually look at the stats, there are no more Celtic or Rangers players in the Scotland team now than there were in 2002, 2004 or 2006 when Scotland finished third in their Euro and World qualifying groups. You could argue that perhaps there are more Hearts players present than there were and Hearts were certainly one of the clubs who went for East European imports in some numbers. But what is not mentioned is that two of Scotland's star performers in their current run, James McFadden and Duncan Fletcher, rarely start for their clubs. And while it has to be said that Scotland have certainly surprised everybody by their current position in what is a really tough group, they haven't actually qualified for anything yet.

At RTG we actually believe that football has moved on to take on the status of a truly global sport. There is, therefore, a big argument in favour of Premiership teams employing players from places like Africa as it might actually help to instil some sort of regulation in the movement of players. With the huge spoils that are currently on offer in leagues such as the English Premiership, the procurement of a young African player's signature by an agency and his subsequent movement overseas can be likened to something little short of people trafficking or slavery. If English football can help improve the transparency of deals involving non-European players then perhaps we can see an end to the farcical situation that occurred over the Tevez affair. Of course, FIFA-affiliated national football associations could all help in this with more co-operation, transparency and less corruption involving transfers across borders. But at RTG experience leads us to suspect that this will never happen.

If we care about the development of the game overseas, then there is also a lot to be said for developing players from China, India, Korea etc. in the best European leagues, to encourage the game abroad. Let RTG stress again, we are not against the operation of football as a business. It is too late now for it to be anything else. We just want to see that genuine competition is maintained.

It is true, that there is something frustrating about seeing players like Jermaine Pennant or David Bentley struggle to break into the Arsenal team when they are clearly more than capable of holding their own in the Premership. And perhaps their attitude, that Arsene Wenger could not seem to come to terms with, was borne more out of the frustration of being highly paid millionaires sat in the reserves week after week. But the real way to develop English players is not by artificially raising the value of home-grown players. English footballers would benefit more from a proper coaching and education programme backed by the FA. That way, they would earn the right to be in their club starting line-up as skillful and intelligent footballers rather than being there because the club has to pick them. While the responsibility to develop players rests solely with the clubs they will continue to operate in their own best interests and not those of the England national squad.

Reclaim the Game - The Week's Events

• It is early days and we shouldn't jump to conclusions just yet but there are worrying signs of yet more polarisation in the game - this time in the Champions League. Is it our imagination or do teams appear to be achieving qualification for the knockout stages earlier this year and does there appear to be a bigger prevalence of teams at the bottom of their group struggling to maintain the required standard? Let's hope not. The last thing Europe's elite competition needs is for the group stage to become a meaningless bunch of games simply to see the predictable 16 teams march comfortably through.
• Rumours have reached us that Steve Maclaren actually visited LA Galaxy, not to watch David Beckham (because he didn't even attend the game in fact), but to attend an interview for the vacant manager's position. Well, all we can say is jolly good luck with that Steve. Though sources today seem to suggest that Ruud Gullit is likely to be appointed very soon. Oh well!