If nothing else, the final day of the transfer window yesterday confirmed what we already know: that football as we know it has changed forever and the dream that your team can actually make it to the top, even with a tax dodging benefactor, has all but gone.
Something like a billion quid changed hands in the Premier League during the window, almost all of it spent on ready-made foreign players. Only the clubs managed by British managers bought home grown players, the rest spent the Sky money – and our subscriptions – on overseas talent. English football is on its way to hell in a handcart and the greedy Premier League is in the frame as the major suspect. Meanwhile, smaller clubs like my old club Bristol Rovers were reduced to signing a player who was released from his parent club ages ago and even the Lansdown money at local rivals Bristol City saw nothing more than a couple of mid division Premier League reserves arriving on a season long loan.
As we have said before, the situation will get considerably worse in the coming years as still more billions flow into the top end of the game. It may make the Premier League more competitive from time to time but the usual suspects will always win the league and for everyone else it will get much harder.
Take Southampton, for example. They splashed out £13m on a little known Dutch centre half called Virgil van Dijk who may or may not turn out to be a good signing. A bigger issue for them though is hanging on to the talent they have, much of it came through the ranks. In recent years, they have lost Walcott, Chambers and Oxlade Chamberlain to Arsenal, Lambert, Lallana, Lovren and Clyne to Liverpool plus Schneiderlin and Shaw to Manchester United. Oh – and Gareth Bale. Remember him? That they have remained competitive in the Premier League is a tribute to their manager Ronald Koeman. Some day, surely, their luck and good judgement will run out. They invested so much money in bringing through their own players purely to sell them. It would break my heart if it happened to my club.
Southampton illustrate why most top clubs no longer bother to nurture their own talent. What’s the point, unless the whole aim of your academy is to make money?
Louis van Gaal is the first Manchester United manager I can remember who regularly picks a team bereft of any academy talent. But then, he’s not a manager like Sir Alex Ferguson who became far more than a bloke who picked the team. van Gaal is a professional who is at Old Trafford for a few years in order to make money for the owners and win things.
Bristol Rovers have no such luck. Whilst they have a board of directors who probably have tens of millions between them, they can’t even afford to pay for a legal team to fight the Sainsbury’s court case so they have had to use venture capital. Even after a wonderful promotion from the Conference last season, spending on players has been extremely frugal. Individual Premier League players earn far more than entire lower league clubs. How on earth do you square that circle? Well, you don’t.
In 1990, Bristol Rovers, whilst playing at a non league ground, were within a division of what we now know as the Premier League. They never troubled the top flight – now that would have been a miracle – but the achievement of getting as far as the Championship was far more likely in those days than it would be now that Rovers own their own ground.
And what happened to Southampton would also happen to Rovers. If Rovers brought through talent, they would sell them, as they have always had to do before. It can be done, though, in an ethical way, as Swansea City have shown, but the preferred ownership model these days is someone foreign, someone who doesn’t give a toss about the club they have bought. It’s merely a potential cash cow and an ego trip for many.
I was, in a way, sustained at the Rovers by the dream of one day making it to the top. That dream has died now and when the dream has died, what’s left? There is still pleasure in watching the odd year of success, but they are few and far between. I cannot foresee a situation whereby the club could ever go beyond League One and stay in the Championship for very long. Is that really enough?
Still no one cares though. Sky will be rubbing its hands together counting the subscription money, the England team will grow ever weaker and Peter Scudamore will be laughing his way to the bank. If the Premier League was a political party, it would be the Tory Party under Margaret Thatcher, the “I’m all right Jack, I can buy anything I want and I can buy it now and you can all go to hell” football league.
I’m falling out of love with football, the way it has become and the way it is going. It’s not a meritocracy, it’s not a sport in which you can succeed by hard work alone, the upper echelons are like Eton and Harrow from where the lower orders are barred. The oddest thing is the football Bullingdon Boys are the likes of Wayne Rooney.
