February 3, 2017 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Economic Theory explained by Football 22 – The Public Choice Theory

It’s quite probable that when James M Buchanan Jnr created is Public Choice Theory he didn’t expect to win a Nobel Prize. But that’s what he did. He probably also didn’t think it would be used to explain why certain players strike up natural partnerships with each other that delivers significant benefits for their club.

Buchanan was almost certainly a fan of the great Rapid Vienna side of the early Eighties who won back to back Austrian Bundesliga titles whilst he was teaching at the Austrian School of Economics. They won the1982-83 title on goal difference from city rivals Austria Vienna thanks in no part to the goal-scoring partnership of Hans Krankl and Antonín Panenka. Krankl was a goal-scoring legend for the club, scoring 267 goals in 350 games but he rarely found a striking partner who he worked well with. Enter Czechoslovakian Panenka in 1981 and the rest is history and he averaged a goal every other game in his four years at the club.

So what’s a Nobel-winning Economic theory got to do with the scoring exploits of Krankl and Panenka? Good question to ask and one that Buchanan could have taken to his grave if it wasn’t for his study, Buchanan lays out his award-winning theory in a book he co-authored with Gordon Tullock called, “The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy.”

Buchanan brought together insights from political science and economics to explain how public-sector individuals, such as politicians and civil servants make decisions. He showed that, contrary to the conventional wisdom that the public-sector acts in the public’s best interest, unless there is a clear win-win situation. In footballing terms, players, especially strikers, are inherently selfish, wanting all the glory for themselves.

However, once in a while a club will stumble of a partnership where both players work in unison, understanding that the sum of the two talents is greater than their individual efforts and thus debunking Buchanan’s work. Shearer and Sutton, Sheringham and Cole, Cottee and McAvennie and now Smith and Okoh for the mighty Rooks have proved that mutual interest is stronger than self-interest.

Since our dynamic duo were paired together against Sittingbourne, they’ve scored six between them, of which five have been laid on by each other. Last weekend’s opening goal against Godalming Town was a classic example with Jonté Smith holding the ball up and drawing defenders to him before playing Stephen into space behind the defence to slot home. For us Rooks fans the partnership is getting better game by game although would have had Buchanan tutting into his Apple Strudl. He would have enjoyed Okoh’s solo effort in Guernsey though where he appeared to take on the whole Guernsey side without a care in the world for the Rooks players (including Jonté himself) in support before curling it home.

So next time you see a player decide he’s going go it alone and ignore his team mates in better positions rest assured it’s not through self-interest but rather conforming to a Nobel-prize winning theory.

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.

December 27, 2016 by stuartnoel - 1 Comment

Who benefits from Stadium naming rights?

There’s a fantastic new book that’s been published by Leon Gladwell called “Beyond the turnstile” which is full of oustanding pictures from his quest to capture the beauty of the game around the world. Leon contacted me about 18 months ago and asked me to write the forward for his book, which I was absolutely honoured to do. I focused on the comparison between football and religion and how the stadium had become the modern day place of worship, the new age cathedral.

But is football the new religion? And are football stadiums the cathedrals for the new common man? These are two questions that people have asked for years. Whilst the questions may be fanciful to some, belittling to others, there is some truth in the statements. Based on the continued growth in the commercialisation of the game I would suggest that some football clubs have a cult-like approach to fan engagement. Get them in as young as possible, ram emails down their throats as often as you can and then brainwash them to come and spend ridiculous sums of money on things like branded toasters, branded bottles of water and even branded vodka. There is certainly no end to what a football club will slap an advert on these days for cash – in some cases even the club themselves such as Red Bull Salzburg. However, apart from shirt sponsorship, stadium naming rights are the biggest asset a club has that they could monetise. In some countries, such as Germany, it is the norm to sell the naming rights on a regular basis but elsewhere in Europe where many grounds are not owned by the clubs, but by local authorities it is not as common, such as in Italy or Spain.

The situation in England is confused to say the least. If you look at the twenty biggest stadiums in England, only five are sponsored. The Emirates, The Etihad, The Ipro, The Ricoh Arena and The King Power Stadium. Interestingly there are a couple of other stadiums in the list that used to be “named” but have now dropped the convention. Middlesborough’s The Riverside started off life as the Cellnet and then the BT Cellnet stadium before reverting back to its proper name in 2003. Southampton’s St Mary’s Stadium was originally known as the Friends Provident St Mary’s Stadium, quite a mouthful before they withdrew their support in 2006. Oh, and who can forget the ridiculous situation at Newcastle United when St James’ Park was renamed the SportsDirect@St.James’ Park or something else ridiculous for a period of time. At number four on the list of stadiums based on capacity is the London Stadium, aka The Olympic Stadium where it is only a matter of time before some random name is added to the title (Mahindra or Tesco’s were the front runners a few months ago).

Stadium rebranding his hardly the religious approach akin to the “cathedrals for the common man” is it? For whose purpose is the naming of a stadium? The players? Will the team be more likely to turn performances up by 10% if they have a new name above their heads. The fans? Look at the situation in Dortmund. Do the Borussia fans bedecked in their yellow and black say, obviously translated from our German cousins “Are you going down the Westfalonstadion today” or “Shall we head off to the Signal Iduna Park”?

Even down in the Ryman League South we come across clubs who have sold the naming rights to their ground which leads to some confusion with the fans. Whilst the Shepherds Neame Stadium resonates with the town of Faversham and thus the football team, the Heards Renault Stadium is a grand name for Molesey’s Walton Road ground and the GAC Stadium is perhaps unknown to those outside of East Grinstead.

I have no issues with stadium naming rights as long as they are done for the right reasons. A long term commercial partnership for instance. You cannot have a better example than the Reebok. Most football fans will still consider it the name of Bolton Wanderer’s stadium despite the fact it has actually been sponsored by Macron since 2014. That’s the danger that could impact Arsenal when the naming rights of the Emirates comes up for renegotiation in 2028 – it will be hard for any brand to gain any commercial traction after twenty four years of sponsorship – which actually puts the airline in a strong negotiating position, knowing that few other organisations would be willing to invest in the brand.

Possibly the least successful example of stadium naming rights has to belong to Darlington FC. For 120 years of their history they played in the town centre at Feethams until the club were taken over by millionnaire George Reynolds who moved them in 2003 to the out of town, 25,000 capacity Reynolds Arena, complete with gold taps in the toilets and marble throughout. The club averaged 3,500 during their time in the stadium and fell out of the Football League in 2010. During that period the ground was known as the Northern Echo Darlington Arena, Williamson Motors, 96.6 TFM and Balfour Webnet before Darlington folded and reformed as Darlington 1883, moving to the more homely Blackwell Meadows. Today the stadium is owned by Darlington Mowden Park rugby club.

August 20, 2016 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Economic Theory Explained by Football – 16. The Moral Hazard

Back by popular demand (well, at least from one person) for the new season is the continuation of our series on trying to explain Economic Theory by applying the principals to football. The first in series 2 is concerning the Moral Hazard Theory and how a player’s behaviour changes once he has a new contract.

In the 2014 film The Big Short, the real reasons behind the start of the Global Economic Crisis were explored. To many of us, the years between 2007 and 2010 saw unprecedented financial pressure, driven by trusted establishments as well as our own need to budget based on our circumstances. Few people really understood how our boom had suddenly been the biggest bust in history, so the film aimed to explain what really happened, using examples such as chefs making fish stew or actress Selena Gomez playing poker to explain some of the more complex terms such as synthetic derivatives and the concept of sub-prime lending. Whilst these were good examples that helped us understand, it would have been much better if they would have used an example relating to the beautiful game.

Moral Hazard not Micky Hazard

The basic premise of the film and the core compelling event behind the Global Economic Crisis was that of Moral Hazard. The theory of the Moral Hazard is originally attributed by some back to the 17th century, but economists Allard Dembe and Leslie Boden created the current theory when trying to explain the situation of Winston Bogarde wasting away in Chelsea’s reserves*, happy to do the bare contractual minimum to earn his substantial weekly wage. The Moral Hazard Theory related to a situation where the behaviour of one person or party may change to the detriment of another after a transaction or contract has been completed. Insurance policies are a more conventional example where the insured party may take more risks knowing that there’s a financial safety net should things go wrong. But how did Dembe and Boden apply the theory to Non-League football?

For example, let’s say a Non-League club sign a promising centre forward on a year’s contract. The day after the ink dries on the contract the player damages his knee in a non-football related incident (such as falling off a table whilst dancing in a Crawley nightclub, drunk at 2am) but hides the injury until the first pre-season training session where he goes down in real pain after an innocuous challenge in the first minute of the practice match. The injury keeps the player out for the rest of the season. The club would be liable to continue to pay his wages despite having no liability in terms of the injury because the player’s behaviour changed once the security of the contract had been completed. Would he have still claimed he was injured in pre-season training if he wasn’t under contract? Probably not.

The reason why is that the Moral Hazard Theory works under the premise of information asymmetry, in other words where one party in the transaction having more information and acts or behaves inappropriately than the other party, normally the one who has to pay the consequences of the risk, which in the above example is the player knowing about his injury but not revealing it to the club.

So that is the Moral Theory and how it influences our thinking today and in the future.

*Probably

July 31, 2015 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail

Two weeks ago I wrote about the lack of tactics and what appeared to be a naivety in the way West Ham approached their first leg Europa League tie against the Maltese team Birkirkara. With an injury time, fortuitous goal being the only thing that separated the two teams as they headed for Malta, there was an assumption that The Hammers would raise their game on the night and comfortably progress. After all, no English team had ever lost to a Maltese side in European competition, and the odds on a West Ham defeat were still as long as South Eastern Trains running my train on time for a week. But West Ham once again showed their lack of discipline, and what appeared to be once again a lack of preparation. Tomkins became the second West Ham player in this season’s competition to be sent off for an “off the ball” incident, with Noble incredibly lucky not to follow him for some pathetic, childish behaviour, mocking Birkirkara’s Fabrizio Miccoli for his weight (all captured on camera)…Miccoli’s response was to score the only goal of the game.

Fortunately, the only credit (bar the support from the fans) The Hammers could take from the game was their ability to take penalties meaning they progressed into the Third Qualifying Round by the skin of their teeth. Drawn to play Romanian side FC Astra Giurgui you would expect Bilic to have learnt his lesson, prepared correctly and told the team to keep their discipline..right.

Once again the fans took advantage of the £10 tickets. There is a lesson here for all clubs. Whilst it has been nearly a decade since the fans tasted European football, it is clearly the right thing to do to bring in potential new fans or those simply priced out of the Premier League games. Two interesting side points to this. Despite marketing the fact (to death already) that this is the Club’s last season at The Boleyn, the first two home games have not yet sold out despite being on general sale. Perhaps it is the fact that the cheapest ticket is £42 (and £25 for an Under16), or that potentially the games may move from their 3pm on a Saturday slot due to progress in the Europa League. The second will be the crowd for the friendly game on Sunday versus Werder Bremen. The last pre-season friendly has traditionally been played at The Boleyn, always versus a foreign side and nearly always for some strange-named cup. This Sunday it is the Betway Cup (Last season West Ham beat Sampdoria in the Marathonbet Cup) with ticket prices £20 for Adults (£15 for STH) – it will be interesting to see how many will come to that game.

Bilic shuffled his team around for this game against FC Astra with new signings Angelo Ogbonna and Dimitri Payet coming in for their home debuts, whilst James Collins replaced the suspended James Tomkins. In midfield youngster Reece Oxford was given another chance after performing so well in the first round against the Andorrans. The Romanians had filled their section of the stadium, their number boosted by locals from London. They are on an upward trajectory thanks to the investment in the club by owner Ioan Niculae, who bought the club in 2010 and moved them from Ploiești to Giurgiu in 2012. Whilst this was potentially the biggest game in their history, they weren’t coming to London just to make up the numbers.

West Ham United 2 FC Astra Giurgui 2 – The Boleyn Ground – Thursday 30th July 2015
It was as if West Ham had learnt nothing from the four games already played in this competition in the end and the boos that echoed around the stadium at full-time suggested that the fans felt the same. Yes you could put it down to a “bad day in the office” but that would be the third bad day in a row with no idea how to make it better. The icing on the cake was Bilic’s dismissal from the technical area near the end. Quite why he got himself is a mystery in a game which wasn’t dirty nor did the officials get much wrong. Worrying early signs of a temperament issue?

Two-nil up and in control of the game and we f@#k it up…royally. It could have been worse I suppose. We could have lost. But the complete lack of discipline, tactical awareness and reliance on a striker that gives us all hope we could still play in the Premier League lays bare the fact the Hammers simply got this all wrong, again.

The first half domination was plain to see as corner after corner was delivered into the box. It wasn’t a question of if but when they would score. Valencia finally broke the deadlock with a smart header before departing on a stretcher after a nasty fall. With Carroll on permanent sick leave and Sakho still suspended from his lack of discipline in Andorra, the only real option was Maiga. That is worrying for the season ahead. Still, if we need an attacking midfielder we are fine – we can field a full XI of those at the moment as the club seem reluctant to sell any of them.

The second half started well with Zarate dancing through the defence before slotting home a fine second goal for The Hammers. Then it all went wrong. Yellow’s for Noble (no surprise), Payat and Collins as the West Ham domination failed to materialise into any further changes. Then Collins picked up a second yellow and off he went. Three red cards in five games. Whilst there is irony in the fact of how we got into the competition, it more importantly shows the lack of discipline and awareness of how playing European opponents differs from Premier League teams.

Within minutes the Romanians were back in the game when Boldrin’s stunning strike from distance cannoned off Adrian’s bar and over the line. Many of the West Ham fans could not help applauding – it was a superb strike. The visitors grew in confidence, forcing corner after corner before Ogbonna headed into his own net ten minutes later to level the tie.

Despite having over 66% of possession, 15 shots on target and 15 corners West Ham travel to deepest, darkest Romania in a week’s time knowing they have to out score their opponents. A draw will see The Hammers exit the competition and potentially the last chance to play in Europe for a very long time. That regret may take a while to sink in.

So how do they prepare for next week? For starters, watch this game time and time again. Look at how the Romanians exposed the defensive weaknesses after the loss of O’Brien in the first half and Collins in the second. Fortunately Sakho will be available but unless he gets the service from the midfield it will be tough. Payat showed some promise but he is a player used to playing with more intelligent footballers around him. And please, no more red cards!

June 1, 2015 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Will the Europa League be a distraction for West Ham’s most important season?

Like most football clubs, West Ham United fans can be divided into a number of groups. Those who wanted Allardyce to stay (a few), those who wanted him to go (a few thousand); those who think Upton Park is perfectly adequate for us, to those who can’t wait for the move to the Olympic Stadium (about 50/50 I’d say) and those who think Andy Carroll was worth every penny of the £15m (John, from Hornchurch) to those who think we paid over the odds by £14.9m (the rest of the world). But the news that the Hammers had been allocated a place in the Europa League has seriously divided the fans.

Let’s wind back to start with before we get too excited about potential trips to San Marino, Moldova and the Faroes. What happened on the pitch at Upton Park, and the other Premier League stadium is for the most part irrelevant in the Hammers getting their sun towels and beach balls out. Firstly, Fair Play is a mixture of what happens on the pitch but also the behaviour of the fans. West Ham’s travelling support, which continues to be superb have been accused in the media in the past of creating issues at White Hart Lane in the past two seasons surrounding the use of the “Y” word. This would count against them. The official criteria, as assessed by a “Fair Play Delegate” would penalise a club if their fans engaged in:-

– Persistent foul and abusive language
– Persistent abuse of the officials’ decisions
– Aggressive and threatening conduct towards opposing fans

Whilst West Ham finished top of the Fair Play table from the Premier League, they still had to rely on the rest of the Premier League sides to behave themselves so that the overall English score was one of the top 3 out of the 54 UEFA associations. So potentially, a mass brawl involving the two Manchester clubs, or Mourinho punching Wenger’s lights out in the press conference could have impacted West Ham’s position.

England will finish in second place once the official cut off point arrives on the 30th May, behind the Netherlands and just in front of Republic of Ireland which meant the Golden Ticket landed on the doormat of Upton Park today, much to the delight of the fans. What makes it even sweeter is that this is the last time Europa League places will be given to the Fair Play winners. As of next season, the three winning national associations will get a pot of cash towards “fair play or respect-themed projects”. Enough said.

The Hammers will join 103 other teams in the draw on the 22nd June. There are some very good teams who are also going to have to try and battle through 22 games to reach the final in May in Basel. Brøndby, Slovan Bratislava, Aberdeen, Hadjuk Split and Red Star Belgrade will all be cutting short their time on the sun loungers, whilst Champions League stalwarts Rosenborg, IFK Göteborg and AIK will be slap-bang in the middle of their season. The good news is West Ham are actually the highest ranked team in the draw and as such will be drawn against an unranked team, which could mean a trip into unchartered territories such as Gibraltar, Cyprus and Faroe Islands. The longest potential trip is to Almaty, where the Kazakhstan Cup winners Kairat play, a 6,960 mile round trip.

So whilst the fans will be rubbing their hands at the thought of a visit to somewhere new, what will the impact be on preparations for the most important season in the club’s history? It’s fair to say that it would be a financial disaster to start the next chapter in the club’s history in the Olympic Stadium in the Championship. That’s one of the reasons why the club have been very forthcoming in announcing season ticket pricing for that first season, a very commendable and unusually significant price reduction. Most clubs would be coming back for pre-season in the second week of July, with friendlies kicking off a week or so later. So with the first tie due to be played on the 2nd July, the players will need to be back in the next few weeks – hardly a break at all for the West Ham players.

If the timescales weren’t tight enough, there’s the added issue of the club not yet having a manager. Whilst the board will move quickly to find a successor, setting out clear criteria for the successful candidate such as “the candidate will be expected to understand the club, its fans and culture, and can encourage the ‘West Ham way’ of playing attacking football”. The new manager, if they have been appointed, will probably go into that first leg without having seen anything of his new side. By the time the Premier League season kicks off in mid-August, West Ham could have played six games in the Europa League. That throws the whole pre-season schedule up in the air.

How seriously will the club take the competition? Bar Hull City’s gamble last season, which nine months later seriously back-fired on them after they put out a weakened side for their tie against Lokeren in the Play-Off round, English clubs have faired quite well in the Europa League. The furthest that a team has progressed from a fair-play entry is the quarter-finals, achieved by Aston Villa in 1998, Rayo Vallecano in 2001 and Manchester City 2009. City also progressed beyond the Group Stages in 2005. Changes to the competition from next season mean we will never see the romantic notion of a plucky FA Cup runner up such as Portsmouth playing in the competition, with the place instead going to the next placed team in the league. Whilst the timing is poor, I’d expect West Ham to take the tournament more seriously as the rounds progress. On the 2nd July I wouldn’t expect many of the first team to be involved. Whilst it’s a risk, especially if they are drawn against a team who are half-way through their summer season such as one from Finland, Sweden or Norway, they cannot risk bringing players back too early and thus compromising the Premier League season.

It’s not the first time West Ham have agreed to enter European football early. Sixteen years ago the club accepted an invite to play in the now-defunct Intertoto Cup, which meant that the Hammers kicked off the season on the 17th July at Upton Park against the Finns Jokerit. Paul Kitson’s goal in front of a respectable 11,000 crowd kicked the season off. Come August and the start of the Premier League, the Hammers had already tested themselves against Heerenveen and FC Metz before anyone else had kicked a ball in earnest, giving them the momentum to get a flying start, sitting in third after five games, with four wins. Alas the squad side and momentum faded at Christmas, although the final position of ninth was still commendable.

Despite the poor second half of the season form (16 points from 19 games) and uncertainty around who will accept the manager’s role, the news that the club has been given a free airplane ticket certainly raised spirits and for some fans, the revelation of where they will be heading in early July is as important as who will be next manager. That’s the nature of football.

May 27, 2015 by stuartnoel - 0 comments

Post-season Blues….and Citizens and Spurs

A weeks after the end of the season used to be the reserve of testimonials for long-serving players and club officials. Football has moved on, and the likelihood of a player staying at one club for 5 years, let alone a decade is very rare. Look at the final top four in the Premier League – John Terry at Chelsea (11 years since debut) is the stand out exception to this; Man City could boast Micah Richards (10 years) although 179 appearances in ten years and spending the last season on loan to Fiorentina, whilst Arsenal of course have the £2m a year forgotten man (by most outside of the Emirates anyway) Abou Diaby who made his debut in 2006.

This week Crystal Palace honoured the service of their long-serving keeper Julián Speroni who had made over 350 appearances since joining the club in 2004 with a testimonial against former club Dundee. However, Palace appeared to be the exception rather than the rule of playing post-season games with any altruistic meaning.

Yet twenty four hours after Palace honoured their keeper, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur were due to play games of their own. This time it wasn’t to honour a particular player, or reward any member of the club for long service. In fact it is hard to think of any reason apart from a commercial obligation why they would be heading to Canada and Malaysia respectively.

The clubs will argue it is all about building a fan base in new markets, but does that really stack up? With the Premier League season done and dusted less than 72 hours previous, why would Manchester City decide it was a good idea for their squad to fly 3,500 miles to Toronto? Assuming they left on Monday, that’s quite a strain on the players having just completed a full season, and one that was proceeded for many of the players by the World Cup in Brazil and also included a mid-season game in Abu Dhabi against Hamburg. Straight after the game in Toronto they then head to Texas (a mere 1,500 miles) where 24 hours later they take on Houston.

Tottenham Hotspur haven’t exactly been brimming with joy at the prospect of another Europa League campaign next season. Back in April Mauricio Pochettino admitted the Europa League is a hindrance to a Premier League club’s domestic aspirations, yet the club have already headed East for a game in Malaysia on Wednesday before flying onto Australia to take on Sydney on Saturday. They will be joined down under by Chelsea who also take on Sydney on Tuesday night after a stop in Thailand to play the”All Stars XI” on Saturday. It’s hard to have sympathy with the clubs when they complain about fixture congestion then take off on such trips.

What makes these trips even more strange in terms of their timing is a number of the players will be included in International squads for friendlies being played on the 6th and 7th June. England, Republic of Ireland, Brazil, France, Argentina and Ghana are all due to play that weekend, putting further strain on the players.

These post season games seem to be a growing trend. Not that it detracts from their pre-season games – Manchester City will be heading to Australia to take part in the newly expanded International Champions Cup, taking on Roma and Barcelona in Melbourne, whilst Chelsea play in the North American edition against New York RedBulls, PSG and Barcelona. Spurs will be one of the other four current Premier League sides heading Stateside as they take on the MLS All-Stars at the wonderfully named Dick’s Sporting Goods Store Stadium in he equally brilliantly named Commerce City in Colorado.

Football is a highly competitive global game on and off the pitch, but do these post-season games really help the players, who are the profit generators when viewed with commercial glasses on? Do you think Mourinho, Pellegrini and Pochettino have the same enthusiasm for these trips as adidas, Samsung, Nike, Etihad, Armour and AIA have? In some instances the club’s have to perform based on clauses in hugely profitable commercial partnerships, underlining the shift from the people’s game to a game dominated by money. That’s not a surprise. Tomorrow’s avid Chelsea or Man City fan is just as likely to live in Shanghai as he is in Streatham or Stretford, snapping up all the club have to offer in a digital format such as the ability to watch these games exclusively in the club’s online TV channel.

Tickets for the games in Thailand and Malaysia aren’t cheap. When Chelsea play in the Rajamangala National Stadium on Saturday in the Singha Celebration Match (Chelsea’s Global Beer Partner), tickets range from around £10 to close to £80, which is almost a third of the average monthly income in Thailand. Even Arsenal cannot boast that price to income ratio yet! Meanwhile over in Selangor where the average Malaysian earns approximately £900 per month, tickets for the AIA Cup (Spurs shirt sponsor) game will cost between £10 and £75 although there are no concessions at all.

I’m sure the fans who are following their teams across the world will enjoy the opportunity to visit some new cities, whilst the marketing officials and PR companies will do their best to get players to look happy at choreographed public appearances. The clubs will stand firmly behind the pretext of building their brand in new markets, but does this simply add more weight to the stealth plans of Game 39 once more?

Postscript – 28/5 – Man City’s game at the BBVA stadium in Houston was postponed after the team arrived in Texas due to issues with the pitch. Well, that was worth it then.