The FA Premier League

There was a very interesting program about the FA on Radio 4 tonight. Did you know that the FA is the only organisation whose members have an older average age than the Chinese communist party? It consists of >92 ‘old people’, according to one contributor.

Just a reminder: The English FA run the national side and the FA cup. The FA Premier League, on the other hand, are a limited company, and its only concern is to secure the vast TV revenue for the Premier League only. No other English leagues are allowed any share of the TV revenue.

Before the TV rights were bought by BSkyB in 1992, TV revenue was shared between all the league clubs. The 1st division clubs received 50% of the revenue, the 2nd division 25%, and the 3rd and 4th received 25% that was shared between the clubs in those divisions.

In 92, the 1st division clubs decided that they wanted the TV revenue in its entirety. They lobbied the FA, eventually gaining their support over the proposal. The FA gave the 1st division clubs the permission to deny clubs outside of the Premier League any entitlement to the money that Sky brought to the newly formed Premier League.

Once the 1st division clubs secured their fortune – thanks to Sky – they formed their own authoritative organisation in opposition to the FA. This organisation served to protect their financial interests without any intervention from the old cronies in the English FA.

The primary motivation for forming the FA Premier League, an organisation outside the financial jurisdiction of the English FA, was to prohibit the clubs that had been excluded from any entitlement to the riches furnished by BSkyB from renegotiating the distribution of TV revenue with the English FA at a later date. The opportunity for smaller clubs to acquire any of the money that they once received was now finished.

It’s an interesting program about how the FA allowed the Premier League clubs to financially screw their lower brethren. Teams in lower divisions had a sporting chance back then. If they had a good manager and used their share of the TV revenue money wisely they could compete with bigger clubs.

So much for the English FA sticking up for the rights of their smaller members!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/whatsthepointof/pip/ues9d/

Cheers, and happy listening.

I was thinking about this again this morning. Incidentally, the inauguration of the Champions League, a competition designed to increase the level of TV revenue and advertising in the premier European competition, occurred concurrently with the advent of the English Premier League. A paradigm shift clearly occurred in football in the early 90s.

I guess 1992 was the start of the modern footballing era. Without these developments, multi-million pound fees and extravagant salaries would not be commonplace.

The CL also discriminates against smaller clubs. And it is worse because it mostly rewards only the clubs who have monopolised their own leagues anyway!

It facilitates a vicious circle: to access the booty UEFA and it sponsors offer for participation in their premier competition, entrants have to win or come highly placed in their own leagues. But this is now only possible - mostly - if a club has a wealthy benefactor, or if it was one of the large, establishment clubs who orchestrated the creation of wealth in the league they participate in.

Consequently, medium sized clubs stand little chance of acquiring the players or management necessary for qualifying for the Champions League. It is even worse for smaller clubs.

It would be interesting to see a list of the clubs who have benefited, financially, from participating in the CL.

In England I guess it is the following:

Man Utd
Arsenal
Liverpool
Chelsea
Leeds

I've excluded Everton since, although they participated in the qualifying rounds of the competition, they didn't reach the group stage of the CL.

Scotland:

Celtic
Rangers

Spain:

Barca
Real
Valencia
Sevilla
Deportivo
Villa

Italy:

Milan
Inter
Juve
Parma
Fiorentina
Roma

Holland:

PSV
Ajax
Feyenoord
Heerenveen

France:

Lyon
Marseille
Lille
PSG
Some others?

Other:

Rosenborg
Dynamo Kiev
Shaktar
Pana
Olympiakos
Fener
Gala
Basiktas

And more I can't think of.

Cheers

Bordeaux?

Also you've completely ignored Portugal!!!!

The great FC Thun.

"Benefitted" is a bit difficult to estimate though...look at Depor for example, they've frittered away the money and European experience and are now languishing near the relegation zone with a mediocre squad and massive financial problems.

Tweedle wrote:Bordeaux?

Also you've completely ignored Portugal!!!!

Haha! Cheers. I knew I'd missed lots.

Kas

That's a good point. I think some leagues don't preclude smaller teams from progressing to the extent that the SPL and EPL do, for example.

CL qualification seems weighted in favour of certain clubs in England, I think. The probability of teams outside the big four entering the CL is pretty low, for instance. Over the last four or five years have any team, apart from Everton, reached the CL at the expense of Arsenal, Man Utd, Chelsea, or Liverpool?

In the other leagues, apart from Scotland and, possibly, Portugal, smaller teams have a fighting chance of CL qualification. So, in Spain Valencia might qualify one season. The next season, Zaragoza. In Italy, Fiorentina might qualify, then Palermo. And so on.

In the EPL and SPL, however, the CL entrants are practically known before their leagues begin. Or, to put it another way, there is a greater probability of predicting the correct CL qualifiers before the season begins in England than there is of doing the same in Italy or Spain, for example.

Cheers

I got this from another forum. I realise it is a little off-topic and would be better suited in the other forum, but I didn’t want to make another thread. This info shows the teams from each pot who made it to the knockout round of the CL.

From this season's group stages

Pot 1 - All 8 teams made it to the last 16.

Pot 2 - 4 out of 8 made it.

Pot 3 - 2 out of 8 made it.

Pot 4 - 2 out of 8 made it.

For last season

Pot 1 - All 8 teams made it.

Pot 2 - All 8 teams made it.

Pot 3 - 0 out of 8

Pot 4 - 0 out of 8

The season before

Pot 1 - 7 out of 8 made it.

Pot 2 - 6 out of 8 made it.

Pot 3 - 2 out of 6 made it.

Pot 4 - 1 out of 8 made it.

Does this denote that the seeding system aides the progress of large clubs from Spain, England, Italy, France, and Germany. The majority of pot 1 and 2 clubs hail from these countries, I believe.

Should the seeding system be relaxed or, perhaps, discontinued? Of course, teams from the same country should be separated.

The competition might become more open, perhaps mimicking the current events in the FA Cup?

Since its inception only one club that doesn’t belong to the now disbanded G14 has reached the final of the CL...I think! Monaco did well to reach the final that year.

A new organisation whose financial jurisdiction remains outwith UEFAs reach is going to pick up where the G14 left off.

The rich become richer in the CL, if this continues there'll be no unseeded team in the next round for the next decade...

Well done UEFA : football is almost dead

So it might get as big as spain?

I heard on that program that the FA Premier League Ltd received about £2.7 billion for the rights to the EPL games. They gave £50 million to the leagues below them.

The Bulk wrote: Does this denote that the seeding system aides the progress of large clubs from Spain, England, Italy, France, and Germany. The majority of pot 1 and 2 clubs hail from these countries, I believe.

Surely it means that the seeding system works i.e. the higher seeded clubs do better?

Roger Hunt wrote:

The Bulk wrote: Does this denote that the seeding system aides the progress of large clubs from Spain, England, Italy, France, and Germany. The majority of pot 1 and 2 clubs hail from these countries, I believe.

Surely it means that the seeding system works i.e. the higher seeded clubs do better?

Ah, I see. For one reason or another I forgot that the purpose of the seeding system is to help the better teams.

In that case, then, should the seeding system be scrapped? After all, it is, as I said above, like a vicious circle: you can only become a higher seeded team by progressing in the CL. The probability of doing so, however, must, I imagine, be very low for smaller clubs.

Firstly, you have to overcome the inherent barriers to progress in your own domestic competition. Take Everton, for example. Assuming that they finish in a position that allows them to participate in the CL, they then have to overcome a team in the 3rd qualifying round. If they progress to the CL group stage they might be in pot 3 or 4. Accordingly, qualifying from their group will be difficult. After all, the teams in pot 1 and 2 will necessarily be highly experienced in the competition and probably have good squads. And if they get further, then....

If, however, no seeding system existed, would the competition become more competitive? That is, would the probability of Everton progressing increase owing to the absence of a ranking system?

Of course, the absence of a ranking system entails that a small team might receive a favourable draw throughout the competition. Whereas another small team might draw Barca in the first-round. And yet another scenario entails that Man Utd play Milan in the first-round.

Isn’t the seeding system implemented to ensure that bigger clubs receive a larger cut of the booty that the competition offers by progressing at the expense of smaller, less wealthy clubs? Is the seeding system the mechanism by which the wealthy clubs retain possession of their wealth and suppress the needy hand of their poorer brethren?

Or is it used for the purposes of competitiveness?

Thanks for clearing that up, Roger.

Is it 'fair'? I don't know. Is it fair that Barcelona have more money and better players than Levante? League competitions have no seeding but the same small group of teams tend to end up winning them...

The object of the seeding is to create an environment where teams with the most supporters will get through to the final stages. This maximises revenue for the large clubs, UEFA, and the sponsors, because it generates the most viewing interest in the competition. Allegedly these are the clubs that play the best football and so it's the best for the neutral viewer.

If you're really interested in fairness:

All clubs should have a fixed maximum stadium capacity (say 50,000)
All clubs should have fixed ticket prices
All clubs should have caps on sponsorship income, shirt sales etc
All clubs should have no cash injections from owners
All clubs should have the same wage cap
All players should only be able to sign a one season contract

That would make all clubs equally able to compete.

Hmmm. The picture you paint, Roger, isn’t very alluring. I don’t think I fancy communist football.

Perhaps there is another way by which to make domestic and European competitions equitable for smaller, less wealthy clubs?

Thanks

UEFA could do 2 relatively simple things without having a significant impact on the conduct of its tournaments.

1) The UEFA cup winners get automatically get a spot in the next year's Champions League. This would make the UEFA Cup a more valuable, and therefore sought-after, trophy.
2) A proportion of CL revenues should be allocated to the UEFA Cup prize pot, as trickle-down or development funding.

But they won't because the CL is seen as the crown jewels, to be protected at all costs.

Those are two very good ideas. They should implement the first as it doesn't redirect any of the revenue away from the CL, and fans might be excited to see how well the holders of the lesser European competition fare in the premier version.

And I agree with your last point.

Cheers

The Bulk,you sound as if you are surprised at all your findings about the PL and the CL,I don't know if you are or not,but everybody in England has known for years what the PL is for,to protect the interests of a few teams in that league in order to pacify these teams in case they decided to form a break away European League.These teams can then ride the money go round with virtually no fear that anyone from outside their elite circle can challenge them.Most of the rest of the PL are quite happy to live within the borders of this organisation,safe in the knowledge that the money it generates for them will keep them within its borders,as the teams from divisions below are at such a financial disadvantage.The only teams that are at risk are the ones being promoted,or the established PL teams that make 'mistakes' in the people they employ.This creates a safe and virtually unchallanged atmosphere for these teams to get richer and richer,while the rest are left to struggle onwards.
On to the CL,which really is just an extension of the way the PL operates with the seeding' safety net' it provides for its wealthy entrants to get even wealthier,especially after the way these teams set their domestic leagues up, rewarding 2nd, 3rd,and even 4th place teams with a place on the money go round.These teams operate almost a closed shop in the CL,the seeding system ensuring that they cannot fail to progress,and any outsiders attempting to progress have a virtually impossible task.Even the CL losers have the safety net of UEFA Cup qualification,so putting genuine UEFA Cup entrants at a disadvantage.The fact that these teams are given the seeding safety net,rather than relying entirely on there own good play to progress from round to round just shows how these teams,aided by the organisations they are in have effectively stitched up football for their own financial greed,and are determined that no other teams from outside their circle will ever get the chance to challenge them,and the only two words to describe the happenings of the last 20years in football are GREED and MONEY. RIP football,except for the priveliged few.

Good stuff, thanks for sharing. Keep on with your contribution!

Says I.