I’ll start with a confession: this was going to be a good, old-fashioned rant about the proposal to set up a ‘Phoenix League’. But time has been tight and I never quite managed to get the piece finished ahead of developments to the story.
To recap, in case you’ve been taking no interest in football lately, the day after we beat Grimsby at home to maintain our place at the top of the First Division, a story broke that six first division clubs were planning to break away from the Football League and form a two division ‘elite’ league. Burnley were not one of the six clubs. This ‘Phoenix League' would, it was said, comprise Premier League teams, selected teams from the Football League and, bizarrely, Celtic and Rangers.
Clubs were quick to deny all knowledge of the plan, including, amusingly, Kevin Keegan of KK Manchester City, who stated that his club wouldn’t have anything to do with this sort of thing. However, at a stormy meeting of Football League Chairman the following week (where shouts of ‘Judas’ were heard) it emerged that, not only had six clubs indeed had talks about setting up the ‘Phoenix League’, but they had got as far as forming a company to help them do so. The six clubs were Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, KK Manchester City, Sheffield Wednesday and Wolves. At the Football League meeting the six agreed to shelve their discussions and wind up their company, in return for the League carrying out a review of the structure and financing of football.
And that, essentially, is where we are now. The immediate threat, such that it was, would appear to have been removed. The future promises uncertainty. It was always hard to know how much credence to give the latest rumour. It wasn’t the first. More or less since the Premier League was formed there has been speculation about the possible formation of a Premier League ‘division two’. In this instance, it had obviously got as far as talks, at least. And you always need to bear in mind that the greed that led to the formation of the Premier League hasn’t gone away. You can’t help but feel that sometime, somehow, whether out of the review this has led to or later, that greed will force another split.
Make no mistake, the reason for all this is lust for cash. It is driven by greed. Those clubs that want to split from the Football League do so because they want more money than they get now. That was the motivation behind the formation of the Premier League, and it remains the motivation for a further divorce in football.
But what a shower those six clubs are! They have one thing in common: failure. Four of them have recently lost Premier League places. The other two have spent years and millions not getting there. These clubs could hardly be called success stories. It hasn’t worked out for these six, so they call for upheaval, in the hope that they will benefit from upheaval.
Understand, remember at all times, that the 'Phoenix League' proposal was never about principle: it was about clubs that have made a mess trying to dig themselves out of hole. Clubs like Bradford, Coventry and Sheffield Wednesday have fouled up. They spent big. It didn’t work. Now they’ve got problems. They need more cash from somewhere. It just so happened that the method they came up with would wreck the structure of English football, but hey, shit happens.
What the people who run these clubs are asking for is to have their cake and eat it too. They are gamblers who have lost, but want a blameless second go. They have failed, and now they ask to be protected from the consequences of failure. These people are the football equivalent of the Railtrack shareholders.
The most worrying thing in the proposal was the suggestion that clubs might not be selected for the new league on merit. Take that away, and it's over. If football is not a meritocracy, it is only a business, and businesses are boring. We are not going to get out of bed on Saturday morning to cheer on the share price. We are not going to keep turning up and going through the turnstiles in the knowledge that what happens on the pitch is not fundamental. The bedrock principle of any league sport is that clubs rise and fall on their merits. It makes the sport exciting. It’s why we keep going. There are seasons when you hope to go up, and there are years when you’re desperate to avoid the drop. And guess what? Sometimes you can spend a whole load of money, employ a famous manager, play in a massive ground, and it still goes pear shaped. You still finish below small, unfashionable, prudent clubs. It happens. Ask Man City. That's how it is. And it's a good thing.
One of the ideas being bandied around was that some Second Division clubs would be invited in over the heads of some of the perceived ‘lesser’ First Division clubs. The very idea! This would be, plainly, preposterous. Why penalise small clubs that have been well run and out-performed expectations, in favour of perceived bigger clubs that haven't been able to use the advantages they possess to succeed? Equally ridiculous would be the idea of Celtic and Rangers coming to play south of the border. The contempt these clubs show Scottish football is despicable at the best of times. But the annoying fact for them remains that they are Scottish, there is a Scottish League, and therefore they must play in it. Allow them to move and you open up a can of worms. European ‘super’ league, anyone?
Protectionism is what those clubs that proposed a split seek: protection from their own mistakes. It’s odd, isn’t it, that these people, free-marketeers one and all, now seek special protection from failure. The idea that, in sport, you may rise and fall on your merits looks too risky for them now. You can’t spend all that cash and risk the chance of ending up in the lower divisions! The idea that success on the pitch will determine what division their clubs will play in is too old fashioned for them! Sure, it’s the entire basis of a competitive sport, but we’re talking business here. We will have to rig it somehow so the big clubs come out on top.
This points to something that ought to be acknowledged, but often isn’t. In the long run, there is no such thing as a first division side. Since I started going to Burnley matches in the late 1980s, every single member of today’s first division has spent time in another division. Whether it be Burnley and Wolves playing in the old Fourth Division or Coventry hanging on in the Premier League year after year, we’ve all moved up and down. And that’s the beauty of the competition. Teams go up and down. It’s like the shifting sands of the dessert. No one should have a permanent place. Now, for example, as a side consistently in one of the top positions in the First Division, Burnley might find themselves welcomed into any new league. But two and a half years ago, we were fighting against relegation to the Third Division. If a new league had been proposed then, would we have been invited in? We wouldn’t have deserved to be.
Clearly, the Phoenix proposals were absurd, and they duly got short shrift. Perhaps the sheer thickheadeness of the plan offers one explanation as to why those clubs that proposed it have struggled. They just haven't got the brainpower on board. But if that’s been shelved, the idea of splitting the Football League has not gone away.
Why? Because fewer clubs want more of the money. Premier League II would not differ from the original in that respect. The ‘bigger’ Football League clubs want more of the dosh for themselves, and that has to come from somewhere. If the TV deals have peaked, as most people think, then the scramble for a bigger piece of a shrinking pie is going to be quite unedifying.
Those who support a split claim that its aim would be to close the gap between the Premier League and the rest. Bollocks. The only way that could happen is for the clubs at the top to agree to give some of their money away. They’d have to consent to share their fortunes more evenly. I think we can rule this out. Remember, the TV money is likely to go down. It’s going to get tougher. Clubs in the Football League can only hope to get more money by grabbing a bigger share of the League cash for themselves. It isn't the pockets of Man Utd or Arsenal that will be raided. Look instead to Hull and Halifax being told to go to hell. This isn't about closing a gap; it's about opening another.
The creation of a second 'elite' league would represent a further division between the football haves and the football have-nots. Stripped of its biggest clubs, what would a rump Football League be left with? Not much. No big TV deals for them. Even less media attention. Cue the lame attempts to manage decline: regionalisation, nursery relationships with the big clubs, part time status. There would be no way back for many from that. Finally, the sands would cease shifting. This wouldn't be an accident. It is what the people who propose this want. They can’t stand the thought of flux that doesn’t go in their favour. They seek a permanent separation between the haves and have-nots. In seeking to close the gap with the Premier League, they aim to jettison the smaller clubs. The principles of solidarity and equality on which the Football League was based would finally, from repeated blows, die. They aim not only to cut themselves free of the smaller clubs, but to snatch what pieces they can of their pie. More money for the elite means less for those that remain. And less will mean the end for many.
We don't, fundamentally, need a new league. There are lots of things wrong with football, but the reality is that, for most clubs, the Football League works well. Attendances are good, the three divisions of the League are exciting - they're certainly more competitive than the Premier League - and, of course, the Football League is still the majority competition. More people go to games in this league than any other. It might not suit badly managed, failed clubs like Sheffield Wednesday and Bradford, but for most of the clubs in the league, it works well. Well-run, sensible clubs, can rise up the leagues and succeed. Why change it to suit a minority, again?
Sure, there are problems in football, big problems. The gap between the Premier League and First Division is a problem, but then, so is the gap between the 'elite' Premier League clubs and the rest that are just hanging on. This change wouldn't solve that. It would merely give another chance to blow it to some badly run clubs. The huge national brands - Man U, Liverpool, etc - are going to get bigger and ever more dominant, but that is an expression of the market society we live in. It isn't just in football that a few big players are getting bigger and ever more global. Changes to the leagues aren't going to stop that.
Our hope of salvation may come with the next TV deal, if it brings some reality into the game. Simply, at some point clubs are going to have to stop spending too much money. This will mean players must stop earning too much money, but I can't see the PFA putting posters on busses about that.
The main problem with English football is that resources are inadequately shared. The distribution of rewards is skewed towards the few. The creation of a second elite division would not address this. It would involve a further concentration of resources, and mean casting half of football into darkness. It would not solve any serious problems.
We don't need a new league. Greed is destroying football. More greed is not the answer.
