Owners make a pitch

While there have been some superb matches this weekend in the Premier League, there has been just as much excitement off the pitch.

The first piece of news was the stunning revelation by the League Managers Association (LMA) that there have been requests from some of the American and Asian owners of Premier League clubs to abandon relegation to the Championship and, therefore, promotion from it.

The second related to the amendments made relating to the signing of junior and youth players and the corresponding remuneration received from the ‘selling’ club.

The Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) has been revamped this past week with the aim of increasing the amount of hours young players get to practice and enhancing the surroundings in which this occurs.
But first things first.

Claims earlier in the week by Richard Bevan, chief executive of the LMA, that some of the Premier League owners wanted to introduce an American-style franchise system, preventing promotion and relegation to and from the highest level of English football, brought immediate condemnation from several leading clubs.

Any formal proposal would be hugely controversial and would require the support of 14 of the Premier League clubs and the Football Association.
 
The top clubs that have occupied the leading positions and qualified for Europe, while having the most to lose, have little to fear from the threat of relegation. Indeed, by ensuring a regular influx of new and poorer teams they effectively strengthen their position.

However, would it be so difficult to generate the support of a sufficient number of teams?
 
The teams currently lying in fifth and sixth position, Liverpool (with American owners) and Tottenham, have both flirted with the relegation positions in recent years and could benefit from securing their position amongst the UK’s elite clubs. Newcastle, who lie fourth, are hardly a leading example of stability and could certainly sign-up perhaps?

“I understand there have been (discussions),” Bevan said. “Certainly you will find that with American owners and some of the Asian owners as well. I haven’t really got any more comment about where that came from.

“If I was an American owner and owned a football club, or if I was an Indian owner, I might be thinking that I would like to get rid of promotion and relegation because my shares would go up. That’s why the role the FA plays has to be a much stronger one than it has in the past.”

It could be fun to hypothesise as to how exactly they would reach a decision as to the make-up of their final 20 clubs. 

Would it be done in a single season when the bottom three at that time push through such a proposal to avoid relegation and potential financial meltdown? Imagine the legal proceedings at that time, recalling the situation when West Ham United benefitted at the ultimate expense of Sheffield United (look at what has happened to them ever since) after the ‘illegal’ contractual wrangling concerning Carlos Tevez.

An alternative could be to operate a transitional period over a number of years, similar to countries in South America, whereby there is a rolling accumulation period of points that determines the league in which teams play.

Bearing in mind the confusion this causes, it is pleasing to see so many fans demand the current promotion-relegation mechanism be retained.

After all, it is the interest of the fans that drives the television companies to pay the fantastic sums for the rights to show the matches around the world, which, in turn, is behind the majority of the income derived by the owners of these football clubs. 

So may the fans continue to remind these American owners just what it is that drives the football clubs forward. Otherwise, the next proposed change could be to rename it ‘soccer’! Now that would cause a stir!
Onto the new regulations surrounding the recruitment of and training for young players.
 
Gone are the stipulations that a club can only recruit a player living within 90 minutes of the training ground and are only permitted to provide a paltry five hours training per week.

All well and good. Unfortunately, only clubs operating an Academy accredited with Level 1 status will be able to operate under these regulations. In order to achieve this, clubs must employ a minimum of 18 staff and spend £2.3 million (BD1.36 million) annually. Furthermore, the compensation payable to clubs that have been nurturing them prior to them departing for stardom will be capped at £100,000, a far cry from the millions that has been available to date for elite performers.

This smacks of a policy that will make the rich richer. Personally, I am amazed that this proposal was approved by a majority of the Football League clubs. While certain aspects of the proposals make sense, each component could be approved in isolation.

To me it would be more logical to rank clubs based on performance both on the pitch and in the number of players they produce that go on to perform at an elite level, assuming you need to place them into brackets at all.
 
I would much prefer a single rule to which all clubs adhere. Even then, compensation available to the lower clubs should be far higher.

The aim with the new regulations is to allow England to produce the next Messi or Iniesta. The fear is that younger players will simply not get the chance as lower-league clubs are no longer able to benefit sufficiently from selling the products of their own youth academies and that these will now be disbanded.
I am sure that, over a period of time, the dust will settle and that English youngsters will still get opportunities, particularly if the FA provides more coaches. However, I am sure that it will not be within the current framework.

One possible positive that could come from the new youth regulations is that players could be given their taste of first-team experience at a much younger age.
 
Just ask Derby County who, last weekend, fielded their youngest ever player in the starting line-up.

Mason Bennett, aged just 15 years and 99 days, eclipsed the previous record set by Lee Holmes when he played in Derby’s 2-0 defeat at Middlesborough. Remarkably, he was due to be picked earlier by manager Nigel Clough in the midweek fixture against Reading, but was unable to as he had to attend school the following morning and was not given permission!