December 23, 2019 by stuartnoel - 10 Comments

The most passionate football nation in Europe

This article was first written back in 2011 but is one of the top five viewed posts I’ve ever published – if you view it in terms of population of the highest ranked country, then everyone there would have read it….twice. Below was the original article and ranking back then with an update today to see how things have changed in the last eight years.

Two weeks ago I met a chap from Iceland at Copenhagen airport. His first words to me were “I’m the most passionate football fan in the world”. He had seen my Lewes FC Owners badge and knew exactly who the Rooks were, what league they were in and where they were in the league. In fact when I randomly fired obscure non league teams at it he could answer every single question on location, league and position. Curzon Ashton, Lincoln Moorlands Railways, Quorn. You name it, he knew the answer. He told me he watched about twenty games a week on the TV and Online, and devoted his whole life to following the beautiful game. He showed me his list of “favourite” teams from across Europe. His main team was KR Reykjavik back at home but also he avidly followed (deep breath here):-

Celtic, Rosenborg, Basel, Benfica, Helsingborgs, Rapid Wien, Olympiakos, Liverpool, AC Milan, Barcelona, Brondby, HJK Helsinki, Skendija Tetovo, Buducnost Podgorica, Hadjuk Split and BATE Borisov.

But this meeting got me thinking. Which nation are the most passionate about their own domestic league? My new “friend” in the thumbs up Inbetweeners way had claimed the Icelanders were – with just 12 clubs and a population of 328,000 he thought that more people watched top flight football in Iceland as a percentage than any other nation.

So in a spare moment (OK, hour) last week I fed all the relevant information into the TBIR super computer to see what the results were. Now, it is hard to be very exact and so I had to make a couple of assumptions.

Population figures were taken from the CIA database
To calculate the attendance of the league I took the league average attendance per game from 2010/11 (or 2011 in case of summer leagues) and multiplied by the teams in the league – this would roughly show the number of people who went to top flight football in a two week period (i.e a home game for each club). The bible for any statistical world is of course European Football Statistics.
Obviously there is a small amount of overlap with away fans attending games so I took off 10% from the total to avoid double counting.
I was unable to find league attendances for Andorra, San Marino or Malta. In addition there isn’t a league in Liechtenstein as their teams play in the Swiss league. However, the remaining 49 UEFA-affiliated Leagues were included.

The results were indeed very surprising. The top ten “most passionate” countries about their own domestic league have an average FIFA ranking of 53 (and a UEFA one of 23). There is only three countries in the top ten that are in the FIFA top ten, and the top three are all ranked by FIFA at over 118, and over 44 in Europe. So in true TBIR Top of the Pops style lets countdown from 10 to 1.

10th place – Switzerland (1.32% of the population watch a top flight match in 2010/11 season – Average attendance was 11,365 – Top supported club FC Basel who averaged 29,044)
Despite its peaceful aspect of mountains, cow bells and lakes, football in Switzerland is a passionate affair that often boils over into violence. The best supported team, FC Basel are now a regular in the Champions League Group Stages which has seen their average attendance rise to nearly 30,000. Their average attendance for the Axpo Super League would be better if the two teams from Zürich realised their potential. One cloud on the horizon in Switzerland is the financial stability of clubs – we have this season seen Neuchâtel Xamax go to the wall and several others are in a precarious position. However, football is still seen as the number one sport, and with top flight clubs distributed across the country it is clear to see the appeal of the domestic game, especially as on the national side they have had a good few years.

2019 update – Switzerland has now dropped out of the top ten, falling to 11th place as of the end of the 2018/19 season, replaced by Sweden. Average attendance was 11,273 but for the first time in nearly 20 years, the best supported club wasn’t FC Basel. Champions Young Boys of Berne averaged 25,781 last season perhaps indicating a shift in power in the Alps? Oh, and Neuchâtel Xamax FCS have been born out of the ashes of the original club and are now playing in the Super League, whilst neither team from Zurich has finished in top spot.

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August 5, 2019 by stuartnoel - 2 Comments

Notts County facing uphill battle to regain EFL place

Anyone thinking that Notts County would breeze straight back into the Football League received a major wake-up call on Saturday afternoon.

County’s long history counted for little as a physical Eastleigh side sent the Midlands outfit tumbling to a 1-0 defeat on the opening day of the National League season.

Neil Ardley’s side failed to muster a single effort on target and their misery was compounded as Michael Doyle and Damien McCrory were both shown straight red cards late in the game.

Read on as we look at the Magpies’ fall from grace and their chances of bouncing back into the EFL at the first time of asking.

Hardy folly leaves County in a pickle

Notts County went into the 2018/19 season strongly fancied to win promotion from League Two having missed out in the play-offs the previous year.

Fans inclined towards betting used the Coral promo code to sign-up and back County into favouritism, but the campaign turned into an unmitigated disaster.

Alan Hardy’s calamitous ownership of the club ultimately cost County their place in the league, but also nearly saw them go out of business.

Staff went unpaid for two months, while a transfer embargo left Ardley working with one hand tied behind his back after he replaced Harry Kewell.

Hardy’s antics on social media brought further shame on the club and supporters breathed a collective sigh of relief when he put County up for sale.

New owners bring a fresh approach

Danish brothers Christoffer and Alexander Reedtz have promised fans a brighter future after taking over from Hardy at Meadow Lane.

The pair, who own analysis company Football Radar, say they will use similar techniques to the ones that saw Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion rise up the leagues.

The Reedtz brothers plan to use an analysis team of over 160 people to aid County’s bid to climb back out of the National League as quickly as possible.

Brentford’s data model has helped them find players who have sparked a jump from League Two to establish themselves as a solid Championship club.

Brighton have also used data analysis to enhance their traditional scouting methods and now find themselves in the Premier League.

Ardley the right man to take County forward

The National League is littered with clubs who have struggled to make it back into the league and County will be eager to avoid a similar fate.

However, in Ardley they have a manager whose experience around the lower leagues should stand the club in good stead this season.

Ardley saved AFC Wimbledon from relegation to the National League on the final day of the 2012/13 season, before guiding them into League One via the play-offs three years later.

He was sacked after a poor run of form at the higher level, but the job he did at Kingsmeadow with limited resources should not be underestimated.

County are unlikely to find things easy in the National League, but if the new owners back Ardley he is undoubtedly shrewd enough to guide the club back into the EFL.

December 30, 2017 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Whatever happened to the likely to be very good lads?

July 2014 and Germany have just demolished Brazil on home turf in the World Cup Semi-Final. The vast majority of their squad have come through their Under21s yet we still question what’s gone wrong in England as we are already back at home, watching on the TV.

There has been millions of words written about the most remarkable game in the history of the World Cup Finals. The six or so first half minutes when Germany scored four goals in Belo Horizonte stunned 60,000 fans in the Estadio Mineirao, the 200 million Brazilians watching on TV and hundreds of millions more around the world. The Germans showed little mercy for some appalling defensive play, yet they came into the tournament not even favourites to win Group G, let alone progress to the latter stages. Their opening game thrashing of Portugal made people sit up but nobody expected the utter domination of the Brazilians. Irrespective of if they go on and beat Argentina today in the World Cup Final, that one game has re-defined the notion of Brazil as one of the best teams in the world.

The records came tumbling down in just an hour and a half of football. Brazil’s first competitive defeat at home for 39 years, their biggest ever defeat, the biggest margin of victory in a World Cup Semi-Final, Germany’s biggest away win outside Europe and so on. Is our shock at the result due to the strength and ruthlessness of the German side or the lack-lustre performance of the Brazilians? A bit of both I’d say, although the home nations weak performance in the 3-0 defeat to the Netherlands four days later would suggest that they were rabbits caught in the headlights of 200 million fans. The Brazilian media have naturally focused on the weaknesses of their squad and team management rather than the German performance. Is that fair? Perhaps not.

Ten years ago the English media waxed lyrically about our “Golden Generation”, the core of players who would go on to dominate world football. Beckham, Ferdinand, Lampard, Owen and Rooney. We went into the 2004 European Championships in Portugal full of hope that this time we would get it right, finally delivering some glory after nearly forty years of wasted effort. Unfortunately injuries once again were our undoing (as well as penalties) as we crashed out in the Quarter-Finals to the host nation on penalties after Rooney, the 19 year old talisman of the England team, was injured early in the game. Two years later in Germany it was déjà vu as Rooney was sent off in the repeat performance against Portugal in Gelsenkirchen and England crashed out on penalties once again. The Golden generation slowly faded as age caught up with them and off the field issues became distractions.

So who would replace these potential world class stars? In theory they should have been already moving up through the ranks, gaining experience in the England Under 18’s, 20’s and finally Under 21’s. Stuart Pearce was working very closely with Fabio Capello in nurturing the young talent. In June 2009 Pearce took his young squad to Sweden for the UEFA European Championships, full of confidence that they would come home with the title.

Two wins and a draw from the group stages took England into the Semi-Finals where they raced into a 3-0 first-half lead against the host nation. The English media in the stadium couldn’t dream up enough superlatives for the team, already pencilling a number in for Capello’s World Cup squad the following year in South Africa. In an all too familiar story, England then conceded three second half goals and had to rely on penalties, winning for once, to progress to the final where Germany would be waiting. The only black mark was that keeper Joe Hart would miss the final having picked up a second tournament booking needlessly in the penalty shoot-out.

Hart’s absence would be crucial. On the 29^th June in the impressive Swedbank Arena in Malmö, nearly 19,000 fans saw the unfancied Germans destroy England. The final score was 4-0 but it could have easily been double that, mustering 17 shots to England’s 6. The star of the game was a small midfielder of Turkish descent, Mezut Özil.

Fast forward five years and six of the starting line-up from that game in Malmötook the field in Belo Horizonte. A seventh, Thomas Müller, scorer of four World Cup goals already in Brazil wasn’t deemed good enough to make the squad back in 2009. From that same Swedish night, only James Milner had made the squad for England’s squad in Brazil.

Whilst the likes of Martin Cranie, Nedum Onuoha, Mark Noble and Michael Mancienne have failed to progress further than the Under 21’s, the Germans have continued to produce young talent, constantly pushing them into the national team if they are deemed good enough. In the squad that got on the plane for Brazil, nine were aged 24 or less. Some players, such as the Bayern Munich trio of Müller, Kroos and Götze with an average age of 22 have over 30 caps.

So why have the Germans got it so right? The whole issue of the number of coaches has been discussed before, with Germany having over 30,000 qualified coaches to England’s less than 5,000. But that doesn’t tell the whole story. We have some decent young players in England. The issue is that they simply do not get enough game time to progress and develop.

Many Premier League teams have simply abandoned the principals and process of bringing young players through their Academies. The chances of ever seeing anything like the Class of ’92 at Old Trafford is about as likely as Arjen Robben staying on his feet for more than five minutes. Today, Premier League clubs seem more likely to invest in overseas players rather than investing in the development of their home-grown youth players. Consequently promising youngsters often ending up with a career moving from club to club on loan. Look at the example of Michael Mancienne, still a Chelsea player when he took the field as a second half substitute in the Under 21’s final back in 2009. He went on to play just four times for the Blues, including two cup games where they fielded weakened teams. He was forced to go on loan into the Championship to get game time, finally leaving Chelsea in the summer of 2011 for a fee of £1.7 million to Hamburg. Since then he has played 40 times in the Bundesliga, but is nowhere near an England call up.

Compare that to the likes of Kroos and midfield anchor man Bastian Schweinsteiger. They have Bundesliga and Champions League medals to their names despite their relatively young age. The German model of building their teams around young home developed talent is now reaping rewards for the national side. Seven of the squad have been regulars for champions Bayern Munich over the past two seasons, with an eight, Marcus Reus only denied a place through injury. Just over a year ago Germany’s two biggest clubs faced each other at Wembley in the Champions League Final. Seven of the German squad played in that game.

The introduction of the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) is supposed to ensure that the best young players have access to the best facilities, although many see it another way for the big clubs to simply hoover up the best young talent at an early age, stockpiling them to stop anyone else getting them.

We have a number of promising youngsters playing at the top level, with the likes of Jordan Henderson, Daniel Sturridge, Jack Wilshere and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain playing regularly at the highest level of the Premier League. If English clubs can realise the error of their ways then there is hope for us yet. Could the next “Golden Generation” be waiting in the Premier League wings already?

December 29, 2017 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Best Song Ever

Back to January 2014 when Danny Last and I decided to see whether the words really do live up to scrutiny as we decide what the best football song ever is.

“And we danced all night to the best song ever.
We knew every line. Now I can’t remember
How it goes but I know that I won’t forget her
‘Cause we danced all night to the best song ever.”

No, I haven’t gone all One Direction on you, my opening lines are simple an aide memoire to a top night out and a heated discussion on what the Best Song Ever in the footballing world. For those who haven’t yet read the story behind the weekend (yes, I know we are all busy) then let me set the scene. After an afternoon of football in New York, Rotherham, we had made our way down the A6178 to Sheffield (not Sheffield Pennsylvania, Alabama or Missouri mind). An evening on Kelham Island beckoned with a host of football’s finest from Twitter. Our main objective of the evening? Well apart from trying a bucket load of local ales, it was to decide whether The Greasy Chip Butty song is the best football song ever, and what other pretenders to the thrown there were.

The genius of the song, adapted from John Denver’s Annie Song (rumour has it when Denver died, the Yorkshire version was played at his funeral) is the simplicity of the words, deconstructed in true Masterchef style below by Danny, Blades fan Ian Rands and myself.

You Fill Up My Senses
Well, for senses, read stomach, our special beer stomachs. Kelham Island is a former industrial area in Sheffield that is now best known for its brilliant pubs. First up was the Fat Cat, a tiny pub adjoining the Kelham Island Brewery which had the smallest bar I had ever seen, with 4 (FOUR!) bar staff multi-tasking to keep us in beer of the year, Pale Rider, Kelham Island Bitter and my personal favourite (read “I had at least three of them”) a Chocolate Digestive Ale. Oh, and a pork pie…and some Jalapeno pretzel pieces. Senses filled up. I know I am biased but Bubbles surely has to be up there? Under the lights at The Boleyn Ground, with the South Bank in full voice? Who needs Opera when you had that.

Like a Gallon of Magnet
Note to Danny Last – it is MAGNET not MAGNERS. Stop two, no more than a stumble away was the Kelham Island Tavern where we met Eddie the Shoe. Those who travel in horse racing circles need no introduction to Eddie, who had kindly provided a tip earlier in the week that provided the financial assistance for my round of Deception. Eddie is a big Fulham fan – at 7 foot something there is no other word for him. An hour later we had just about consumed the gallon (8 pints for those who didn’t do O-Level Maths) and onwards we went. You’ll Never Walk Alone? Spine-tingling from The Kop but is it too long?

Like a Packet of Woodbines
Tricky one this as neither of us smoke. Where is Cynical Dave when you need him. But as we headed up the hill to the Shakespeare we were puffing for air like a pair of very unfit, middle age men that we were. A couple of Aecht Schlenker Rauchiber Marzen’s later, with its distinct aroma of smoked sausages and bacon, and an aftertaste of banana (tastes better than it sounds). Talk was now getting serious. Danny’s adamant that Sussex by the Sea is a contender. The panel aren’t so sure as he can’t remember anything past the third line of the song.

Like a Good Pinch of Snuff
The younger generation today would look at you very strangely if you said “I’m going out to enjoy some snuff”, as its meaning has taken on a whole new, dark web vibe, but back in the day we all enjoyed a bit of ground tobacco that you shoved up your nose, didn’t we? Gave you strange hallucinations apparently, which was similar to our next stop at DaDa’s. It was if we had walked into a set of Ashes to Ashes albeit with beer prices from the year 2525 (80’s based music joke there). I had some very dark, very thick and very sickly Thornbridge Wild Raven. A continental chap suggests that Barca, Barca, Barca sung by 100,000 fans in the Camp Nou has to be on our list, but we can’t take him seriously as he is wearing a scarf inside a room that is hotter than Greece.

Like a Night Out in Sheffield
We have one more stop. One more song for debate and could there be any better place or any better beer than we have for our final destination. A pint of Thornbridge Jaipur in the Cutters Arms, a bar opened in honour of Sheffield FC, the founding fathers of football as we know it today. Yes it may have been midnight, yes it may have taken us a good few pints and lively debate but we had an answer. Without a doubt the best song ever was The Greasy Chip Butty song, anthem of the Blades. And what was the luck that they were playing on the following day? Unbelievable Jeff. It was as if the whole weekend had been planned in minute detail.

Sunday morning and any plans of a leisurely stroll around the city were dashed by sheeting rain. Sheeting turned to monsoon over breakfast and by 11am it was biblical. We had headed south to visit the real home of footballing merchandise, Goal Soul, in their fantastic shop. Three limited edition T-Shirts later and we were back in a pub close to Bramall Lane, hearing news that the game could be in doubt. A brief flicker of concern passed across Danny’s brow before we were given the news that despite the conditions, the game would at least start. There was even time to do a quick interview on the Barry Glendenning and Max Rushden show for Talksport, from a phone box outside a take away, where off course we’d ordered the Greasy Chip Butty (the owner took offence at first, rebuking me for suggesting his chips were greasy).

Sheffield United 1 Fulham 1 – Bramall Lane – Sunday 26th January 2014
I’m going to make myself very unpopular by saying that Sheffield United has always been a favourite away trip for me. Actually, Wednesday fans, I’d put a trip to Hillsborough near the top of my list too. But I have always had a soft spot for Bramall Lane. I used to be a regular visitor here for work purposes and was always given a warm welcome, and even today the facilities could grace the Premier League without every looking out-of-place.

Did we enjoy our afternoon? Too right. It was a classic cup tie where league positions went out of the window. The final twenty minutes where the United team never gave up running at the Fulham defence despite the leaden conditions under foot were edge of the seat stuff and the Blades fans can be mighty proud of their side, and have every confidence that they could go to Craven Cottage next week and still get a result. Fulham had nearly 75% of the possession and 31 shots compared to 13 from the home side but nobody who saw the game would have been surprised if United had won.

The weather at kick off was damp to say the least but as the teams lined up for kick off the opening cords of Annie’s Song started up and we were lost in a ten thousand-strong choir encouraging us to fill up our senses. Chris Porter took his chance in the first half just as the rain stopped and the bright sunshine came out to give the home fans hope that they would be in the draw for the last 16 of the cup and could put aside their league woes for a few weeks. Half time and all was well with the world in Yorkshire.

The turning point came just after the break when Sheffield’s captain Doyle was sent off for an off-the-ball incident. Despite a quick change in formation, Fulham took some time to realise they could start passing the ball forward – although with Messers Wilkins and Curbishley now part of the coaching set up, the words “forward” and “passing” are as alien as Mr. Spock. Darren Bent and Adal Taarabt were introduced to little effect apart from to amuse the home fans with a couple of astonishing misses. Sandra knows best after all it seems.

Alas it was Rodallega who broke the Blades when he fired home near the end. They should have gone on to win the game when Senderos saw his header hit the bar but Sheffield United hung on to live another day and make sure their number was in the draw for Round Five.

We faced a 200 mile trip home in more rain, emotionally drained by the occasion. We couldn’t help hum THAT song all the way home. Sheffield – Come Fill Me Again….OOOOHH!

January 20, 2017 by stuartnoel - 3 Comments

Is the Chinese cash a bad thing for English football?

So it is official. World football has gone mad. Oscar’s transfer to Chinese side Shanghai SIPG ratified on the 1^st January meaning he left these shores to become the richest player in the world, with an estimated salary of £400k. And for Chelsea? Well they will get £60 million as “compensation”, £35 million more than they paid for the 25 year old Brazilian or in terms of games played, a profit of £172,414 for every game he played for the Blues.

Oscar kept the “richest player” in the world for almost an hour as Carlos Tevez agreed to join cross-city rivals Shanghai Shenhua on a weekly wage of £615,000, or in layman’s terms, £1 per SECOND.

This is a very similar conversation to what we were having a year ago when the likes of Ramires and Alex Teixeira joined the league for tens of millions of dollars yet that hasn’t destabilised world football has it? So the scaremongering about this being the beginning of the end is pure hyperbole.

In the history of football in England there have been five clear compelling events that have shaped our game today. Whilst some people may consider other events in a similar vein, football is today a global business rather than a game of the people. How have we got to this point?

Back in 1888, William McGregor, a director at Aston Villa wrote to a small number of other football clubs and suggested the creation of a league competition, based on the structure of “football” in the United States college system. The league kicked off in September of that year, the first organised football league-based competition in the world.

At the turn of the century, the Football Association passed a rule at its AGM that set the maximum wage of professional footballers playing in the Football League at £4 a week, and banning any payment of match bonuses. The concept of the maximum wage stayed in place for sixty years until it was abolishing it in January 1961, the second compelling event in British football.

Money has been the root of all evil in our game and the third tipping point came in 1990 after the publication of the Football Association’s “Blueprint for the Future of Football” which essentially laid out the concept of the Premier League. There’s little debate that the Premier League was created to ensure that the clubs at the top of English football were able to maximise revenues potentially on offer of the next TV deal. The heads of terms agreement was signed in July 1991, with the First Division clubs giving notice to resign from the Football League a few weeks later.

Hot on the heels of the formation of the Premier League came the next compelling event – the first BSkyB Television deal, signed in May 1992, for £191 million paid over five years. Five years later that amount more than trebled to £670 million. Now, twenty five years later that amount is over £5 billion.

The huge amounts being offered by the TV companies also had a knock-on effect, one that today is still the most emotive subject for the fans and the media alike. Overseas ownership of clubs. Whilst some may point the finger for the huge sums paid for players today at the door of Blackburn Rovers, and what owner and life-long fan Jack Walker did in the early years of the Premier League by buying the best of British and delivering an unlikely Premier League title to the Lancashire club. Walker invested nearly £100 million of his own fortune to bring a redeveloped, modern stadium to Rovers along with the league title for the first time in 80 years.

However, it was the arrival of Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in West London that really changed football as we knew it. It’s not public knowledge how much exactly Abramovich has invested into the club but it will have run into hundreds of millions. What his investment has proved is that money does buy success and it is will some irony that Blues current manager Antonio Conte has issued a stark warning about the impact of the cash being spent on players in China could have on the rest of football.

To me, they are the five moments in the history of English football that have shaped our game more than any other events. Like it or not, the TV deals now dictate how our football clubs think and act, with managerial careers now at the mercy of the riches on offer for simply keeping a team one place above the Premier League relegation zone.

But let’s assume for one minute that the transfer market in China does accelerate and they start making serious offers for the most talented players in the Premier League. What are the potential ramifications for our game should we start leaving these shores?

Scenario 1 – Investment into Premier League clubs from foreign ownership comes to an end

In this case, the growth in Supporter-owned clubs would increase. Is that a bad thing? We only have to look at the Bundesliga, often used as the ‘model’ for successful leagues. In Germany all clubs in the Bundesliga are issued with a licence which is based on financial criteria as well as the fact that no one individual can own more than 49% of the shares in a club. Football clubs are incredibly resilient. Out of the 88 clubs that played in the Football League ninety years ago in the 1926/27 season, only two of the clubs completely cease to exist today (Aberdare Athletic and New Brighton). In that same period, huge numbers of companies have gone to the wall. Football does have a Teflon coating and any withdrawal of funds from one source will be replaced from elsewhere.

Scenario 2 – Clubs are forced to play home-grown talent

With Chinese clubs happy to raid the Premier League on a regular basis perhaps the clubs will invest more in the pathway for the development of their players. Instead of simply stockpiling young players who are loaned out until their value drops to a point where they are simply released, clubs will give the youngsters a chance. The more young English players that are given the opportunity to play in the Premier League, the better it will be for our National side. In addition, clubs will be more willing to work with grassroots clubs in the development of players through that channel. With potentially less cash available for wages, hopefully the players that come through will be more “balanced” and more in touch with the fans. Again, look at the situation in Germany where the majority of the team that won the 2009 UEFA Under21 Championship were also part of the 2014 World Cup winning squad – all of whom bar one (Mesut Özil) plied their trade in the Bundesliga.

Scenario 3 – Premier League TV rights are devalued

With an exodus of the “best” players, the Premier League is no longer seen as the best league in the world and when the parties sit round the table in 2018 to renegotiate the three year deal due to expire in 2019 the offer will be significantly less than we saw in 2016. Bear in mind that initial viewing figures for this Premier League season have seen a decline by nearly 19% in the first two months, hardly the result the winning bidders expected for the record TV deal. If the product is devalued by the exodus of players then what bargaining chips will the Premier League clubs have? Less TV revenues coming in will reduce the level of commercial agreements and thus clubs will once again have to look at alternative revenues or cost-cutting measures. Fans may then start to see the value of the grassroots game, and attendances may will rise in the Non-League game.

Scenario 4 – Absolutely nothing changes

In all honesty, it would take a massive investment within the Chinese league to make an impact on English, Spanish, German or Italian football. The whole reason for the increase in investment by the Chinese clubs is to increase their talent pool. The concept is that you bring in overseas coaches to help develop Chinese coaches, you bring in world-class players that will also hopefully increase the skill levels of home-grown players which in turn strengthen the Chinese national team. That’s the ultimate aim. Having played in just one World Cup (back in 2002 where they lost every game and failed to score a goal), they are significantly behind the countries who they would consider rivals. Japan have qualified for the last five World Cup Finals, reaching the knock-out stages twice, whilst South Korea have qualified for the last eight and finished fourth in 2002. If they cannot improve their performance on the world stage then this whole phase will go down in history alongside the ultimately failed North American Soccer League in the 1970/80s where some of the best players were tempted for one last hurrah.

Of course there may be other consequences but I think scenario 4 is the most likely to play out. Whilst the headline numbers are all round how much some of these players will be paid, the pressure and media scrutiny they will be under to perform will be intense. Footballers such as Tevez are already millionaires multiple times over. They could retire tomorrow and never have to worry about money every again. So what is their motivation to move? Only they can answer that but I do not feel a small handful of players heading east is the next compelling event in our beautiful game.