English Government Wants the Big Four to Share the Wealth.

By: Laurie | May 9th, 2009

It’s the perennial discussion, still going on: Can “competitive balance” be enforced by government decree?

Andy Burnham, British Culture Secretary, thinks it can.

Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, is calling for Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool to share their winnings in Europe with other Premier League teams.

Mr Burnham, an Everton fan, is pressing for several measures to redistribute the wealth of the richest league in the world to its lower reaches. He wants the league’s £1 billion revenue from television and sponsorship rights to be shared out more evenly among its 20 clubs. He also wants smaller squads and compulsory quotas of English players in team line-ups.

So how has the FA responded to the calls? Not well. After Burnham met with Richard Scudamore, Chief Executive of the F.A. this week,

Early indications are that Burnham received little encouragement. Premier League clubs are private companies who are only likely to share more of their income if forced to, and which they know is very unlikely.

The Premier League rules state that 14 out of 20 clubs have to vote for change. If the big four, plus three well-off clubs who aspire to join them, vote against proposals then nothing happens.

Which is kind of like asking a two-year-old to share his toys. Why should he? He’s perfectly happy with the way things are.

One of the main points in the argument against is that it would weaken English clubs’ ability to compete in Europe, where most of the world has gotten used to having at least one English Club in the Champions League final.

But is that the only goal of the league? Or even the most pressing one? The Independent offers up some different thoughts:

Maybe, though, we should have other priorities. In Germany’s Bundesliga, fans watch a competitive league drinking beer on the terraces having paid as little as £10 for a ticket. Their teams may not get to the final stages of the Champions League, but domestic honours are spread around.

The other end of the Premier League can seem just as fatalistic. Newly promoted clubs have a mountain to climb. Those who go down are (with honourable exceptions) predictable. Relegation is particularly painful. Looking at what has happened to clubs relegated since 1992 we can see that if clubs do not return within two years they face a 66 per cent chance of never returning. Serious financial troubles loom.

But this leads to the question: What should government’s role be in regulating football? Here’s an interesting take from the Times’ Patrick Barclay:

Naturally the Premier League, which claims bouncing health despite being led by two American-owned clubs with vast and growing debts (Manchester United and Liverpool), whom only two others (Chelsea and Arsenal) can seriously challenge, says that it wants no intervention. But, if English football were a proud flagship of free enterprise, it would not have come to the public purse for £120 million to buy Wembley Stadium — or at least would insist on paying it back. [...]

Burnham and Platini seem to be on the same wavelength. They want to make football less of a business and more of a sport, while retaining both aspects. They are old-fashioned only in that they realise things have gone too far. They have taken a look at the free market and maybe are not entirely comfortable with the thought that the sheikh who owns Manchester City could, if he woke up one morning and felt like it, buy out the Glazers, close down United and use Old Trafford as a training ground.

So here’s the question: Does the disparity matter in the grander scheme of things? And if so, should the government have a role in fixing it?