PREMIER LEAGUE AT 20
have ramifications well beyond England.
It is not just unbalanced competition Michel Platini,
FFP’s progenitor, wants to avoid. He is also keen to prevent
clubs overreaching themselves as has become commonplace
in England. Swansea City will this season become the 45th
clubtoplayinthe PremierLeague, but if the wealthhas
been spread so has the debt. Since the formation of the
Premier League there have been 54 instances of an English
professional league club being declared insolvent. While all
but one of these were Football League clubs (the exception
being Portsmouth in 2010),13 were former Premier League
clubs (including Crystal Palace, Swindon Town and Bradford
City twice). Others have been damaged by the trickle-down
effect of Premier League wages, or by misjudged attempts
to reach the riches of the top flight.
For supporters of these clubs, the golden age has been
that of Fool’s Gold, the lustre stripped away by concern that
their club would simply cease to exist. FFP may rein in some
of English football’s most masochistic excesses and slow, or
even reverse, wage inflation. Chairmen all the way down to
League Two are hoping so.
What, though, would be the consequence of clubs
such as Chelsea and the Manchester rivals being financially
outstripped by Barcelona and Real Madrid? It is likely their
owners (most of whom have no great interest in the long-
term health of the English game) would agitate for a less
equitable distribution of television rights, one that aped the
situation in Spain. The division of future income from web
streaming and smartphone content will also be drawn into
the debate. The preference of many supporters would be to
move towards the German model rather than the Spanish,
but short of government intervention (which may cause
further problems with FIFA) it is impossible to envisage
the game being returned to its communities.
When the FA and a coterie of big clubs gave birth to the
Premier League they changed the game worldwide – and
the first 20 years are just the beginning of the process.asisthecasein
most US sports
Pushing the
boundaries...Arsenal’s
Jack Wilshere during
a pre-season friendly
against Hangzhou
Greentown of China
on his club’s tour
of the Far East
these problems first, presents a lead to many European
countries. In this, and many other areas, the Premier League
has been an influential voice in the Association of European
Professional Football Leagues (EPFL), whose chairman is
the Premier League’s chairman, David Richards.
The audience is, however, also wealthier – and it has to
be, for ticket prices have risen exponentially. Admission fees
have long been an emotive subject. Even in the opening year
of the Premier League, 61 British members of parliament
signed an early day motion supporting the Stop Fleecing
our Fans campaign and calling for clubs to “bring inrealistic ticket prices”. Back then, a seat to watch
Manchester United from the side (the ends were still
standing) cost £12-£14. Twenty years on, a seat in
the same position costs £44-£55. These increases
have squeezed many supporters out of the market,
especially young working-class men, formerly the
bedrock of support. However, with seat occupancy
exceeding 90 per cent for14 successive seasons,
price cuts are unlikely.
Ticket prices are one reason the British exchequer
will take £1 billion from football this season, but they have
not prevented clubs developing mountains of debt. The
Premier League’s cumulative debt is around £2.5bn with
annual losses running at around £500m. If the debt is partly
due to the financing methods employed by the Glazers at
Manchester United it is only sustained because of the
largesse of men like Roman Abramovich at Chelsea
and Sheikh Mansour at Manchester City.
Such investment, and the impact it has on Europe-wide
competition, has been one of the main driving forces behind
UEFA’s introduction of Financial Fair Play (FFP), which willprompt moves towards a closed shop,