The season has ended; it was one of the most memorable seasons in recent history with a finale that will never be forgotten. Villa fans, however, will be looking back at this season trying to erase all from memory as if Alex Mcleish was just a bad dream. We will be looking forward to the new campaign with a new hope that the new manager will turn the club around and good football will make a comeback at Villa Park. However, as time goes on I find it harder and harder to be excited about the football season ahead. And the reason for that is not because my love for Villa has diminished in any way shape or form. The reason for that… is all about the money.
We live in an era in which money is king. In an era where the small minority have a huge and overpowering influence on the vast majority. As ever, football imitates life, and we find ourselves in a position whereby the few Champions League clubs have a huge anti-competitive advantage over the rest of the clubs all over Europe.
It’s not as if all clubs were on an even footing before the advent of the Champions League as we know it; the traditional big clubs have always had a financial advantage due to fan base and status, both domestically and internationally. But the Champions League is the vehicle by which these clubs have emphasized and consolidated their advantage. The fact that the clubs that qualify for the Champions League group stages will earn at least £30m extra revenue from it is a disadvantage. The fact that it’s usually the same clubs that finish top 4 year in year out is a huge disadvantage. Man City, throwing close to £1bn at the problem, have gatecrashed the traditional top four and by doing so ejected Liverpool…and you only need to look at their situation to see the club have been on a downward spiral ever since. Everton and Spurs are the only other clubs who have gatecrashed the top 4 but they weren’t able to keep their momentum going: Everton crashed out in the qualification stages and Spurs weren’t able to replicate their success the next season. When they did manage it this season, the football gods conspired to help the 6th-best team in this country win the premier competition in Europe. How Chelsea managed to win the European Cup I will never know. Completely outplayed by Napoli, Barcelona, and Bayern Munich…and still manage to win.
The Chelsea victory was a defeat for football; more important, it was a victory for money. It was a defeat for those who say money can’t buy you success, a defeat for the idealist, a defeat for those who want to keep the soul of their club and not sell it for greed and success. It leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I’d go so far as to say Chelsea 2011/12 are the most undeserved winners of the competition in memory.
The way things are at the moment, Villa can not expect to be anywhere near title contenders for the foreseeable future. And by that I mean the next 10 years or even longer. Unless we find another billionaire backer to throw huge sums of money at it—which I’m sure most Villa fans would accept if it happened, but it would be selling the soul of the club. FFP is to take effect after the next two seasons, but since FFP is based on the revenue a club generates, it is essentially still geared toward the clubs that achieve Champions League football as they generate the most revenue. It is not a redistribution of wealth, it’s a way to ensure clubs don’t overspend their means. I think what Randy Lerner is banking on with the balancing of our books is that a club or two falls foul of FFP regulations and Villa could enter the Champions League through the back door by finishing 5th or 6th. But who knows if UEFA will uphold FFP policies and prevent the clubs that fail from entering european competition. In my mind, the only way to keep the rich from getting richer and the poor from getting (relatively) poorer is to revamp the whole system of European competition.
What I would do—Two options:
Option 1) Take the Champions League back to a format similar to its original one in which only the champions of a particular league, or the previous year’s winners, can take part. Add a knockout stage at the start for the smaller leagues based on UEFA co-efficients, a main group stage of 32 teams in 8 groups of 4, and a knockout stage home and away to the final as we have nowadays. Expand the UEFA cup/Europa league from the start so that it has a certain number of teams from each league, again dependent on UEFA co-efficients. Each league can determine how the places are allocated and the competition would be in a league/knockout format.
Option 2) Get rid of the Europa league altogether and expand the Champions League, so that the leagues with the highest co-efficients (England, Spain, Germany) would have 8 places up for grabs. Leagues with lower co-efficients will have proportionally less places. However, only the top 2 from a league would be guaranteed a place in the group stages, the rest would have to go through increasing amounts of qualification rounds depending on where they finish in the league. The group and knockout stages would be kept as is.
Option 1 would basically be taking us back to the old system of European football. The fact that there would be so many huge teams in the UEFA cup competition ensures that competition will have a much higher status than it has now and there would be a lot more interest in it worldwide than there is currently, therefore more money. But most people don’t like looking to the past to solve problems. They only like looking to the future so that brings us to Option 2.
Only the top 2 qualify for the group stages automatically, but anyone as low down as 8th can qualify. Looking at the premier league as it is, the top 6 are pretty much set in stone (Newcastle is an anomaly) but it leaves 7th or 8th up for grabs. This means that all the teams that are not looking over their shoulder at relegation can aspire to achieve these places. It would be hard to qualify for the group stages of the Champions League but at least it is possible, and through hard work and endeavour a team could achieve it. It would also mean that the teams finishing 3rd and 4th will be looking over their shoulders, and would be much harder for them to get through to the group stages. So they cannot take it for granted they will get that Champions League cash and therefore would have to be more careful with their budgeting.
It’s not a perfect solution and some might say this is one step away from a European Super League, but in my opinion every club would want to be competing in their own domestic leagues: the fans would demand it. The money men and the owners would have no problem with taking a club out of the domestic leagues but the fans definitely would. Who knows what the landscape of football will be in 10 years time. All I know is that the way things are going, there is no chance for Aston Villa to achieve what Aston Villa did in 1981/82. And its not just Aston Villa, its the same situation for so many teams throughout the premiership and europe. Something has to be done and there’s no point saying that in 10 years’ time.
There are so many other issues in football, like the gulf between the premiership and the lower leagues. It’s so big that the championship playoff final is the richest club game! Similarly, the difference in TV revenue in Spain between Real Madrid/Barcelona and the rest. The system gives the biggest clubs in football an even bigger advantage over the rest. The money men and associates of the bigger clubs will only want change that benefits them, so there would be much opposition to change that would benefit most clubs. To be brutally honest, I don’t see a situation in which real change will occur.
And this is the crux of the matter, this is the reason many say the game is dying. The question is what can we do to resuscitate it?
The Author
