As I sat reading the paper on Saturday, I came across an article regarding Jose Mourinho’s most recent analysis of Financial Fair Play. Strangely, Mourinho was making strong criticisms of unnamed-but-easy-to-work-out clubs – Manchester City, Monaco, and Paris St Germain to name three – regarding their extravagant levels of spending.
For those with any degree of knowledge of the Premier League’s recent history, such a statement may well sound almost laughable given Chelsea’s well-renowned loose purse strings. However, Mourinho did have a strong point, even if its delivery did make him sound like a spoilt rich kid outdone by a new lottery winning neighbour – that Financial Fair Play is, if you forgive the obviousness of the statement, supposed to be making things fairer in financial terms.
Some laud Financial Fair Play as the panacea for the Premier League’s issues regarding competitiveness rather than pure financial fairness. Logically, in the eyes of the aforementioned people, restricting spending should stop foreign investors from overhauling a club with endless pockets garnered from oil fields. Ergo, the teams above Aston Villa will be closer then than they are now.
The reality, however, is quite different. The league, even with Financial Fair Play restrictions in place, is an unbalanced entity. Clubs that have managed to flourish since the game became awash with money have built revenue figures that give them more money which they can spend, leaving the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, and Arsenal as intrinsically more able to compete than the likes of recently promoted Hull City, Crystal Palace, and Cardiff City.
Of course, the fate of other clubs is unlikely to be on the minds of our fans who will likely feel upset because there are teams who will be locked in – for the short term at least – as finishing above our beloved club. “Another few seasons of winning nothing!” being the most likely narrative.
Whilst the statement regarding a lack of trophies is most likely set to be true – barring a cup win – Villa can, and should, feel somewhat more privileged than certain narratives suggests. As ever presents in the Premier League, the club sit above 72 professional football teams and are far closer to winning than the vast majority of the professional teams in England.
In these instances, there at past giants of the game languishing in the leagues below meaning, as Ian Gibson’s piece touched upon at the weekend, history means nothing, zero, squat – all it is is a place we once were and, like our own youths, is but a mere memory.
Getting back to Mourinho’s narrative, his underlying concept, biased as it was to Chelsea, was fundamentally sound. Football, often seen as a business that shouldn’t follow the rules, is being pulled into financial order. Sure, there will still be inherent inequality in the league – just as there is elsewhere in life – but the platform will be there to operate assuming clubs can build revenue fairly.
There are, of course, many ways to improve the revenue of a football club. Top clubs will look to tap into lucrative (and enormous) foreign markets, generating increased revenue from fans who live closer to Bahrain or Boston than Birmingham.
Other clubs will increase revenues as a result of slower progress – of buying and selling assets. Whilst I am not the biggest fan of the concept of paying transfer fees, Villa most certainly can take advantage of the increased values that come from discovering young players before they become well known.
I know that this approach sticks in the craw of many as the tag of being a “selling club” brings derision from many fans, especially if it is being applied to one’s own team. The reality, however, is that most clubs in the world are “selling clubs” and will continue to be so until the end of time – Tottenham Hotspur, often lauded as a paragon of virtue when it comes to how a club can buy and sell, look set to lose their best player, albeit at a highly inflated price.
In today’s game, we have come to realise that much of the system is broken. Contracts seem to be ontologically applicable depending on the current form of a player.
If their form is great and a bigger club comes along, they want their contract to be non-binding. However, if they don’t play – like our own “bomb squad” – they want the contract to be inherently watertight.
For the most part, this player power has been an unsettling influence of many football clubs from top to bottom of the game. Villa have had players poached from their ranks, and have poached players from other teams under the same premise – it has been part of the club’s fabric of existence, and it will continue to be going forwards.
This season, Paul Lambert managed to break from expectation as Christian Benteke was told he was going nowhere unless the club were remunerated appropriately. Whilst the step was a small one, the resonance of the club being in control has significant ramifications for whether Villa can build a team on the terms of the club, not the terms of the individuals they employ.
Lambert’s plan of breaking the “normal” ways of progressing – through endless financial outlay – is moving forwards slowly too. Whilst it is far too early in the Lambert era to qualify such a strategy as ultimately successful, the early signs are positive, at least in his ability to find players at a far cheaper rate whilst doing no worse than his predecessors.
As stated previously, some fans are going to find this approach as wrong – selling players for profit – because it implies that the best individuals are constantly moving on, even if the reality isn’t as clear.
However, as Financial Fair Play kicks in, Villa will have to resort to the generation of revenue in a fundamentally business-driven manner – it won’t make any odds whether Lerner is worth a billion dollars or ten times that because he wouldn’t be able to invest his money if he had it.
At that point, Lambert’s philosophy, slow as it is, becomes one of a finite number of options available. Villa are already seeking partnerships with companies outside of the UK, are playing games in other countries during pre-season, and are trying to expand the brand. Short of Lerner ploughing money into the system – something that isn’t sustainable – there are no other options available in order to progress besides selling players.
I know it is frustrating as a fan to be told that progress won’t be happening quickly, if at all, especially if, like me, you pay every season for a season ticket. However, as I’ve stated previously, my attendance at games isn’t about some kind of cost/benefit analysis on results – I will be at the games untill my finances or health stops me from doing so.
Do I wish we were at our destination already? Of course, and Mourinho’s comments echo that in part as his anger came solely from the idea that Manchester City might have an advantage of his side, but the underlying sentiment is simple jealousy, an emotion reflected heavily amongst many clubs and fans alike who aren’t at the top at present.
So as we start a week without a game at Villa Park, perhaps it is time to reflect that Randy Lerner isn’t taking a wrong route forwards, but the only one, and one that will take an unpredictable amount of time to reach the destination. It may not be quick, it may not be flash, but Villa as a sustainable entity is infinitely preferable compared to the other option – footballing oblivion.
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