MARTIN SAMUEL: Our league is healthy when you look below Platini and his 'big four'

05 May 2009 08:08
What the Champions League needs is another all-English final. For only when Michel Platini, the UEFA president, sees how consistently his pride and joy is dominated by the strongest four English clubs might he do something about the way the contest in our league has been ruined by his competition. The argument against the Premier League, when compared to the old Football League Division One, is that it is uncompetitive and only four clubs can win it; but that is not the Premier League's fault. Look at the rest of the table, the other 16, and nothing has changed. Start the league at fifth place and run it down to 20th and teams still leap up and down in a manner that is perfectly healthy. In the last four years, Fulham have gone from 12th to 16th, dropped further to 17th and then bounced back to seventh, going into Saturday's game at Chelsea. That is 15 place shifts, at an average of just under four each season. Portsmouth were 17th, then ninth, then eighth, falling to 14th this season, before the weekend defeat at Arsenal. Blackburn went from sixth to 10th to seventh to 15th. Over the last four years, beyond the Champions League quartet, the 12 Premier League clubs that have survived every season have moved, on average, 11.5 places up or down at a rate of roughly three places each season. That is just how it used to be. There has been the odd seismic leap (Aston Villa 16th in 2005-06 to fifth in 2008-09), the odd crashing fall (Tottenham Hotspur fifth in 2006-07 to 11th in 2007-08), but our popular, if slightly optimistic, belief that on the first day of the season anybody could win the league still stands; providing we close our eyes and pretend the top four do not exist. For what has changed in recent years is that four clubs have been cemented in place at the top, placed there by the extreme wealth afforded from the Champions League. Platini huffs and puffs about the English game but the biggest problem for the Premier League is UEFA's money and that is beyond the control of domestic football administrators. The only way to address it would be to insist that all benefits from the Champions League were divided equally between Premier League clubs, which sounds wonderful, but would only hasten the agitation for a breakaway, closed-shop, European super league. Manchester United do not slog their way to Moscow or Rome for the benefit of Bolton Wanderers. UEFA have a similar problem because Platini knows that to pursue proper wealth redistribution would lead to abandonment by the biggest clubs, and provoke civil war with football's governing bodies. So he likes to talk about equality but sticks with a system in which 75 percent of television and sponsorship money and 50 per cent of new media contracts from the Champions League goes directly to 32 clubs, usually the biggest and richest ones. The remaining cut stays with UEFA (£477m in the bank and counting, thank you very much) to cover expenses and administration and what is left is divided between member associations, leagues not represented in the Champions League group stages, teams eliminated in the early knock-out rounds and winners of the top domestic leagues who failed to qualify. By comparison these payments are unsubstantial but, even so, they remain with the elite, the big fish in small pools, perpetuating the hierarchy in domestic competitions. The champions of Moldova are still compensated in some small way if they fail to reach the last 32 of the Champions League, with no thought of how that might affect the Moldovan league, which has now had the same winner nine years running. As England consistently have four clubs racking up the big numbers in the last 32, it is the Champions League money that seals the first tier of the Premier League. By maintaining this success, there is an added effect, because the same clubs get invitations to play on summer tours abroad, increasing their profile in lucrative foreign markets, creating extra revenue, and tightening their grip further. And what is amusing is that these monsters that UEFA have created have lately turned on their masters and are on the brink of making the Champions League as much a closed shop as the upper echelons of the Premier League. And now, of course, something must be done. Yet if UEFA would care to look over the last four seasons in which Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal have proved impossible to shift domestically, they will find that beneath them, a healthy, vibrant, competitive system still exists despite this, whichis the irony, and perhaps the place to start. Time to follow this Matt finishMatt Derbyshire could not make the team at Blackburn Rovers, so accepted the offer of a loan to Olympiakos, the Greek champions. On Saturday night he scored two goals, including an injury-time equaliser in a 4-4 draw, to inspire a comeback from 2-0 down against AEK Athens, as his team triumphed in the Greek Cup final 15-14 on penalties. Having now scored seven goals in eight games, he is on course for a championship winner's medal too and perhaps the Champions League next season if his deal is made permanent. More young Englishmen should follow his example. Micah Ricahrds, the Manchester City defender whose career is already in retreat at the age of 20, has engaged the services of Max Clifford. Oh yes, a personal spin doctor is exactly what he needs. Fabio Capello just loves stuff like that. Fools pulled the plug on Team BathTeam Bath played their final game as a potential member of the Football League last week, a 2-2 draw with Bishop's Stortford, which left them in a very creditable 11th position in the Blue Square South league. Not bad for a university football team. Sadly, the club will now resign from the league and will continue to play only at collegiate level, abandoning the dream of climbing football's pyramid to play against professionals. For those like Ivor Powell, the former Wales international, who arrived in Bath 45 years ago and is still a member of the coaching staff at 92, it is a tiny tragedy. The decision to stand down was made reluctantly after Team Bath were informed that they could never be considered for promotion to the Blue Square Premier, and then on to the Football League, because they did not have their own ground. This small-minded judgment (Team Bath share a perfectly adequate facility with neighbouring Bath City) completely failed to take into account Team Bath's unique status in the game, which only added to its richness and diversity. With a squad made up of students and failed professionals, Team Bath won five promotions in nine seasons and in the 2002-03 season became the first university side to reach the FA Cup proper in 122 years. Now their little adventure is over due to regulations that, at their level, are senseless. English football is less colourful for their passing and the fools who enforced this petty resolution should be ashamed. And now the bickering starts. Far from providing a solution to hard times, the spending cap introduced by the FIA, motor sport's governing body, would appear destined to inspire only another interminable round of allegations and counter-claims, with talk of skulduggery flying even before the process starts. It is argued that teams will find ways of hiding their real spending and that the cap, which comes with greater technical freedom than is allowed to uncapped teams, will create a two-tier system. Certainly it leaves some frozen in time, with much expensive work still to do, but punished by technical restrictions if they choose to do it. The free market is far from perfect but it is the only way forward for sport. Spend what you can afford and, if you misjudge, suffer the consequences. Artificial restrictions create artificial competitions and that cannot be right. AND WHILE WE'RE AT IT... Carlos Tevez has played 1,671 minutes of Premier League football for Manchester United this season and scored three goals. That equates to one every 557 minutes or one every 6.18 games. His hard work is acknowledged but managers want craft, not graft, for £32m which is why, unless the price is renegotiated, Tevez will be allowed to leave. Tumbling world records at the French national swimming championships have been linked to another innovation in swimsuit technology, this time from a company called Arena and featuring polyurethane plates to boost buoyancy. There is an answer to this: briefs. How has such an uncomplicated sport been allowed to stray so far from its essence? The most ill-conceived proposal of the season involves limiting to 1,000 the number of away fans allowed to travel to the play-off games between Millwall and Leeds United. There can be 50 nutters in a crowd of 1,000 just as there can in one of 5,000. What is the difference? Despite installing an Italian coffee bar, a scenic patio and a children's play area, Jurgen Klinsmann has been sacked as coach of Bayern Munich. Apparently, when you are 4-0 down to Barcelona at half-time, invitingFranz Beckenbauer up to the new roof terrace to check out the froth onyour cappuccino doesn't really cut it.   It is believed that Fabio Capello, the England manager, believes he already has enough ordinary goalkeepers from these shores without adding one from Spain, Manuel Almunia of Arsenal, to his squad as well. Nevertheless, times change and attitudes soften. Capello knows this is a problem position for England, where hopes rest on David James, who will celebrate his 40th birthday within three weeks of the final of the 2010 World Cup. Although matches with Kazakhstan and Andorra bear little comparison to the trials that await. England in South Africa, Capello will be looking at James closely this summer to see if he can maintain levels of form, concentration and fitness after a testing Premier League campaign with Portsmouth. Ben Foster, seen as his main rival, has been limited to eight appearances by Manchester United this season but only one in the Premier League. Robert Green and Paul Robinson have been in good club form but Capello is yet to be convinced of their international pedigree. Meanwhile, Almunia, from Pamplona, can apply to be English from July 14, having spent five seasons at Arsenal. Capello has not been tempted by this prospect before; then again, it has never been his World Cup year before. A welcome Neil-nilConspiracy theories were doing the rounds before the game but Sheffield United's match at Crystal Palace proved no fix. Neil Warnock did not do his former club any favours, nor was he ever likely to. If anything, he has been one of the key figures in thwarting their promotion bid, having marshalled an inexperienced Palace team to earn draws at Bramall Lane and Selhurst Park this season. When Warnock raged at rogue results after Sheffield United's relegation two years ago, his targets were Liverpool and Manchester United, who fielded under-strength teams against Fulham and West Ham United, and lost against all expectations. Palace, as underdogs, were never in this position of control and victory was regarded as unlikely, even at full stretch. A draw was therefore a creditable result and Warnock made sure they maintained the integrity of the competition. Had he not chosen this weekend to reveal he is a big fan of saxophonist Kenny Gee it would almost be possible to warm to him.

Source: Daily_Mail