Culture

Going global -- football in the new millennium

February 09, 2008
Placeholder image!

A little while ago I suggested that the big Premiership clubs would defect to form a European super-league. I clearly underestimated their ambition. Europe isn't enough. They want to go global.

What we are witnessing is a moment of transition from British football as we know it to something new and very different. As Michel Platini said: 'Soon you will have in England no English presidents [i.e. club owners], you already have no English coach and maybe now you will have no clubs playing in England. It's a joke.' He could have added that come May we will have Premier League champions with virtually no English players. But Platini is right. It is a joke. Except, of course, that it's not and no one's laughing.

What is going on is a shift from local crowds who come to the game, week in, week out, and global TV audiences. What these audiences want is big name clubs (perhaps half a dozen in England count as such) and big name players. Derby? Sunderland? Reading? Forget it. No one in India, China or South America has heard of you. The global herd doesn't care about Brian Clough or Jacky Milburn. 100+ years of history? No one in Shanghai or Mumbai is interested. Do you seriously think that broadcasters are going to pay the kinds of sums that hard-nosed club owners want in order to watch the games that were played today (Saturday February 9)?

The only choice left, and we may be talking about five years, ten or twenty, is this: will British football go European or global? Either 12-20 'super-teams' from Europe will form a European super-league (AC Milan, Inter Milan, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, perhaps Celtic and Rangers, maybe a French tea or two, perhaps a Dutch club and/or one form Portugal). Everyone else will be playing for peanuts because guess who the broadcasters will be paying to see? Or perhaps that's not grand enough, not enough money. Because the alternative is to go global. Top English clubs will play top European, South American and perhaps even Asian and African clubs in some kind of league, watched all over the world, in every bar and shanty town from Sao Paulo to Hong Kong. One of these will happen because there's so much money out there and today what the money wants, the money gets. Traditional ties of national or cultural loyalty don't matter to today's club-owners. What matters is the franchise and who owns the image rights. The only question left is how do we get the Americans in on this and how do we create some top clubs in Asia and Africa?

A minute's silence to remember Munich? Cue the ad break -- we've got viewers in Tokyo to think about.