What's really damaging football in England?
Saturday, 16 December 06, 01:54 PM · Comments (9)
One of my Arsenal supporting friends recently claimed Chelsea were "spoiling football". It set me thinking and the conclusions are set out below.
Newcastle United are close to being bought by another foreign consortium to add to Liverpool, Manchester United, Portsmouth, Aston Villa, West Ham United and, obviously, our beloved Blues, and yet it is Chelsea who are cast as the pantomime villains, slandered in the media, sniped at by certain rival managers and hated by the non-Chelsea supporting public at large.
So what is really wrong with our national game and why do the Fourth Estate ignore the real problem and focus their bile on the most charismatic and colourful manager in British football and his financial backers? Beyond jealousy it’s a question I don’t have an answer to but let's examine the only member of the “big four” still in domestic ownership and ask ourselves why we tolerate a club who routinely field eleven foreign players and sport a manager who is contributing little or nothing to the future of domestic football.
The simple fact of Premiership football is it is the best product available in a crowded market and, as a result, has a global appeal in the same way that Formula 1 or the NFL (to a lesser extent) generate interest from armchair spectators around the world. The natural result of this global appeal will be to attract foreign investment and foreign owners who view English football as an investment opportunity.
Chelsea is arguably the exception amongst the foreign owned clubs as our backer has a different agenda from the private equity companies owning Manchester United, West Ham United, Liverpool and possibly Newcastle United. Our backer has invested in Chelsea partly as a hobby, partly as a tax write off and partly as a way of weaving himself in the fabric of our society but nevertheless with the objective of turning the club into the biggest in the world. We as supporters have benefited both in terms of success on the field and because we get to watch half the England team play for us week in, week out, and let's hope that, going forward, the club's academy will spawn more John Terrys and Joe Coles (Cole was originally involved with Chelsea’s youth programme before joining West Ham). You have to believe it will given the amount of money Roman Abramovich is pouring into the youth set-up.
But what of Arsenal, whose manager appears able to attack people on the touchline and the press seem to think he must have been provoked and examine the motivation for the attack by “such a thoughtful an articulate” man — imagine if it had been a certain Portuguese individual? This is the man who claims he sees his team as an “international club” allowing him to field no domestic players week after week (yet when Claudio Ranieri was the first manager to field an all foreign team Arsene Wenger was the first to state that it would damage the game in this country). Theo Walcott is their solitary domestic offering and a product of Saints' youth academy. Which ever way you look at it, the real long term danger to football is in a system that allows clubs to be able to invest their money in multiple players from the Ivory Coast and other African banana republics at the expense of our home grown players.
I want to know why the press focus their bile on Mourinho and Chelsea and let this arrogant condescending tosspot get away with risking the future of our national game - no questions asked?
Contribution by Peter H. Visit the Publish page for more information about contributing.
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and some of your comment has an undercurrent of xenophobia about them. banana republic. with the fund for peerage scandal in your country you one to talk
Good points Peter H. And it's a little hard to get to the bottom of it unless you factor in that, of all the foreign managers and investors, it is Jose and Roman who are proving to be the ones who pose the long-term serious threat to the dominance of the old 'big three' of Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. This riles the old-guard loyalties that have been built up over decades of sycophantic graving-train riding. Add in that our first team squad has many English (even London-born) players, making the team essentially local at its core, which really must hurt the old romantics with their pre-lapsarian visions of a perfect football when local lads played for the love of the community (jumpers for goalposts etc). Add also the fact that we combine the manly virtues of hard work and toughing it out, with the essentially feminine ones of flair and skill, and you have a package that is both traditional and English, while at the same time being modern and European. It must really hurt. But remember, they never liked Wenger so much before the new Chelsea appeared. And Ferguson had his critics too. Their rise in press/media affections is in direct proportion to our rise as an object of fear for them. That fear has bred a hatred that has no logical basis, and is an irrational and infantile response to the fact that an old-guard dominance is being denied. We do not threaten their traditions. We do not threaten the identity of their clubs. In fact, all we do is provide them with a sterner test with which to test the strength of their traditions. So, it is about a denial of their right to totally dominate the English game. I'm afraid it has to come down to envy.
Maybe because they actually play nice football instead of cheating, fouling and conning their way to victories. With all that money you play a sour game
For the few fans that you actually have, fair play to them for watching cos you should really should get better football with all that talent you bought
I see the myopic hypocrites from Liverpool have arrived
Actually it was Luca Vialli who fielded that all foreign team (early 2000 v Sheffield wednesday??)
I was reading and understanding this text until it became really unpleasant. Banana Republic....
Stupid sord
9 Comments · Add yours
Agree with you and always thought that Wenger is and has been depleting our beloved game of it's natural resources since he came. I particularly liked the 'We were in for SWP but could not compete financially' comment. Also the way in which Wenger bought Walcott for a huge fee and the untried youngster got to the World Cup? There has been more power and underhand dealings with this lot from North London for decades, the reason why the media, UEFA and The FA dislike us, is because now we have the resources and standing to end the cosy and corrupt empire that a certain few clubs had bought themselves long before we became a threat.
but are you not doing the same thing by attacking wenger