Dark Days For English Football

The apparent death of Bury Football Club (and with a very close squeak for Bolton, this week), this week, shouldn't come as much of a surprise. ....

Bury Football Club - Dead If Not Buried - But No Angel Appeared On Tuesday.

... the English Football Leagues (EFL), which had boasted three full time divisions below the English Premier League, has been something of an anachronism for at least a decade, if not longer.

Thai Takeaway Fans

The unexpected rise of English footballs Leicester City Football Club, from almost certain relegation candidates, to Champions of England, has also created fans for the club around the world.

Fair Weather Leicester City Fans?

 

None more so than in Thailand, the home country of the current owner of Leicester City FC (and King Power duty free company .... as if you could miss it) …… fair weather fans? You betcha.

Whose the Football Daddy ?

I can't claim to have had an original thought on this subject ..... and perhaps the phrase "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" covers the subject succinctly, but most fans of most sports, especially the league table based sports, whether it be Association Football (Soccer to US visitors), Cricket, Rugby (either code), Baseball, American Football, or even god help us the 'Basketball' (Sorry US visitors, but this just isn't a sport .... its a lot of physical freaks racking up err, well racking up 'basketball scores' as the saying goes), will have wondered who the greatest team is.

Normally we all then set about discussing this with friends or colleagues (who usually are fellow 'aficionados' of the sport), probably over considerably more beers than actual facts, and pleasurably debated or occasionally (when the aforementioned beer count has exceed ability of some participants to handle), argued over the merits of each team.

Now in most countries, and in some sports, those that can actually even be considered for the title 'the best', or 'the biggest', or the 'most successful' are limited. So for example, in Spanish soccer, there are just two teams under any category looked at, "Real Madrid" or "Barcelona" (It's Real Madrid with 32 titles to 21 in case your wondering), and where you can only look at the merits of the other clubs by excluding these two giants. The same goes for Scotland, where its only the 'auld firm' of Glasgow Rangers and Glasgow Celtic (It's Rangers in case your wondering again, with 54 titles to Celtic's 43), who can realistically be considered (even with Rangers exiled to the third division for a couple of seasons).

However in England, such is our rich sporting heritage that, no matter which league determined sport you pick, there are multiple teams available to argue over ...... so its maybe its some surprise that the BBC has only this week, decided to address the question of who is the Premier football Leagues 'Biggest Club' .... and the argument still rages!

Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Depending on the criteria you can suggest two or more teams, so for example counting only the total number of cups and leagues won you can argue Liverpool at 41, to Man Utd's 38 makes them the biggest team - but if you exclude the minor domestic cup (we, unusually in Europe, have two, not one, domestic cup competitions), then this becomes Liverpool 33 vrs Man Utd 34 ... and so on and so on.

Other teams are available for discussion, but only by excluding historical records. So for instance if you look only at the period since the formation of the Premier League in 1992/93, a tendency amongst kids brought up only with the Premier League, then Liverpool drop back from first or second place, having to then rely on cup successes (much like Man Utd in the later period of the old first division era), and its firstly Arsenal, then Chelsea, and latterly Manchester City who are Manchester United's main rivals.

The BBC article linked, gives you the various considerations in far more detail .... but the fact that you can make a case for more than just two teams, shows how competitive the top English football league is, and that the argument about 'Whose the Daddy' will not be dead for quite some while yet.

Moral Uncertainties

Now I don't know what its like in the rest of  the world, but in the UK and increasingly in Western Europe, many of the football franchise have been bought up by foreign owners .... they then pump millions (or even billions) of pounds into the clubs in the chase for glory. The latest of this breed are the Arabs who have bought Manchester City FC, and another group who apparently have done the same to Paris St Germain (PSG) in France.

My question, isn't whether having wealthy owners, who then pump money into a club is right or wrong ... its whether its right or wrong where the money originally comes from. Up until now these oligarchs were usually from Eastern Europe or Asia, and were maybe a little bit dodgy, but if they were allowed to make their money in their own countries, who was anyone here to complain about that?

Now though, we are increasingly seeing Sheiks or Princes from Arab countries, whose wealth is arguably stolen from the citizens of those lands .... these Princes were nothing more than the leaders of tribal bands before the first world war ... and little better between the wars. So the question has to be asked, who 'gave them' the oil wealth of nations, to spend as they wished? Sadly the answer was the British and French, who failed to give these countries democracies, but just handed them out to Arabs that they 'could work with' i.e. puppet leaders.

But is it morally correct that a bunch of appointed hereditary rulers can pump a billion pounds into a Western sports franchise such as a football club? Surely, the money should be pumped into the education and welfare systems in those countries, and not frittered away on baubles and playthings?


                                 From owning this to owning this in sixty years

Well maybe that's what the inhabitants in those benighted lands think as well. The recent 'Arab Spring', which has seen pro-democracy protests across most of these lands, may not have been directly created by the wilful misuse of state funds on football clubs, but its surely more than coincidence that this unrest and complaints about the rampant corruption of these Arab states, started after the Sheiks started spending big on high profile 'vanity purchases'?

Sometimes the wheels of history are turned by the smallest of engines ......