The Collapse of the Premier League Football Empire

What is going on in the Premier League? Just as the Roman Empire spread itself too thin on the ground and collapsed amid much corruption and double crossing it seems that the English Premier League is awash with dirty deeds and mis-appropriated funds.

Many of the top Football Clubs have been snapped up by mega-rich billionaires, with the appeal and prosperity of Europes wealthiest league dependent upon it's ability to reach further into the corners of the world, just as the Roman Empire did, to fund the ever increasing salaries (£200,000/week anyone?) and dreams of the clubs.

It seems to me that Football in England is now falling under the same hype and copycat behaviour as the crazy Dot-com boom and bust or the Californian Gold Rush. Why on earth are wealthy benefactors buying into the Premier League Football teams.

After Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool have been snapped up, Arsenal are sure to follow. After that though reports of other teams being bought are appearing all over the news.

West Ham have been bought and are being accused of driving Premier League wages sky high, reaching an all time high of £1.1 Million Average Salary for a Premier League Football player. West Ham are a long way from being a top 4 club and the investment needed to reach this plateau is enormous. Yet the hammers are not alone. Blackburn Rovers are reported to be in talks with an anonymous US investor, Manchester City are being courted by the former Thai Prime Minister and Birmingham City are thought to be in talks with Lakshmi Mittal, the worlds 5th richest man.

With all due respect to all these teams, there can only be one Premiership winner and only a few clubs who will make it into Europe where they can boost their Broadcasting Revenues. Manchester City, Blackburn and Birmingham City are not going to leapfrog Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal in the near future unless the worlds 5th richest man does decide to duke out, head to head with Abramovich. That would be a battle worth watching. Maybe Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft could join the battle also after his reported interest in buying Southampton. He is Americas 5th richest man and between them these 3 could fight a great Premiership Cash match, pushing the salaries of the premier league football gladiators closer to the £200,000/week mark.

A book about the Leeds United fall from grace should be posted to all prospective Football Club purchasers, with West Ham and Newcastle United surely the most vulnerable.

Newcastle United Football Club in constant crisis and flux is destined for a choppy future, with millions wasted on players, and manager after manager coming through the door. Jean Alain Boumsong, signed from Rangers for an incredible fee of £8 Million seems to sum up the ludicrous amounts of money flowing through and out of the game into the pockets of the Premiership Emperors. Quite incredibly this £8 Million player was signed by Rangers for NOTHING and sold to Newcastle for a handsome profit.

United, a club that attracts a massive fan base is caught up to its neck in the corruption scandal, with one of its former managers (Graeme Souness) and its current manager (Sam Allardyce) both implicated deeply in the corruption and the club itself guilty of inconsistencies in its evidence to the report. Mike Ashleys continued purchasing of Newcastles shares must be seen as very risky.

And the agents who have played a pivotal role in this upward spiral of benevolent behaviour are now being pulled up by the independent report from Lord Stevens, targeting numerous mis-handling of transfer by Football Clubs, Managers and Agents alike.

It seems that the foundations for the fall of the Premier League Empire, although not imminent yet are being laid and the "House of Premiership" is on shaky grounds.

When the dust settles on this latest round of inflated cash incentives for the clubs, we will see a lot of losers and I fear business as usual for Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. Many successful businessman will be licking their wounds over bad Premier League investments ruing the day they joined the 2006/2007/2008 Premiership Boom.

Football Wives, Agents, Corruption and Bungs

Agents roles in the game of football are coming under more scrutiny and quite rightly so. How would you possibly regulate this industry when it is part and parcel of the “fabric” of football, whereby fans, media and teams constantly speculate about who should and shouldn’t be playing for the team. Agents fill a niche in this market by connecting the dots between rumour, media, fans, managers, chairman and players.

The problem is that many agents are un-skilled, “del-boy” characters, who provide very little in the way of advice to players, feeding players, managers and clubs the information they want to hear, manipulating the system so that they receive their silver for their services.

Footballers egos are notoriously fragile, and for many young players it is easy to be overawed by the flash characters that continually prowl the halls of football clubs and the surrounding scene around a club. Although I would be hesitant to put the game of football in the same bracket as Footballers Wives it does not fall far short. There really are characters of this sort lurking around every corner and it is in the interests of everyone concerned to protect young players from these people.

Agents receive large sums of money for their services, although as mentioned in my previous post about old and new media in football and sport, their services are questionable in what is actually provided for players. A successful, wealthy young player needs a lot of solid advice from his advisors including

· Contract Advice
· Financial advice. Where to invest his money.
· Personal Guidance.
· Honest Advice on his career. Not lip service.
· Media Advice.
· Advice for when the final whistle blows on their Football Career.

Unfortunately in my opinion, most Agents simply are not equipped to provide this service. They have no training in what is a lucrative and extremely specialised form of work.

The Players Football Association offers a service to players, whereby they receive representation in contract negotiations, financial advice and post career advice. They do this for a modest fee and quite often in a more professional manner. However when I was a player it took me until the later stages of my career to understand the role the PFA plays in football and I am quite sure, most players these days are unaware of how much assistance they can receive from the PFA.

I am not against Agents, just the clueless ones. Clubs are always looking for players, players are looking for clubs and Agents do provide a handy link between the two.

For various reasons a player may want to leave a club and he needs someone to assist in finding a new team for him. This is no easy task for most footballers as they are focused on playing and usually unaware of any interest. Football Clubs are typically selfish in that they will not tell a player of another clubs interest, unless it is in the interest of the selling club. This is where an agent can come in handy.

Bungs and Corruption

It surprises me that Mike Newell’s allegations have caused such a stir in football as anyone in the game will freely acknowledge (off the record of course) that “bungs”, “back-handers” and “tapping players” up are not uncommon.

Put it this way : If you were Jose Mourinho and you wanted to sign Ashley Cole how would you do it? You have to talk to the player somehow to find out if he wanted to play for Chelsea, otherwise what’s the point of starting contract negotiations with Arsenal? So you use your network of resources to contact Ashley Cole and find out if he is interested. Is it ethical – Probably not. But it works and Mourinho got his man, got fined, but do you think he cares? £200,000 might be a lot of money for most people, but not for Abramovich and his billions. And this goes on, all the way down to the grassroots level in football in lesser and lesser degrees of un-ethical behaviour. But of course who cares what happens at crapbag united in the bargain basement leagues.

I hope that after all the turmoil and attention of the current Agents scandal that the regulations will get ever tighter, pushing the quick buck agent out of Football and forcing players advisors to improve the services they offer to their players.