The changing face of English football
Peter Hoskin 1:30pm
As Fraser said earlier, we've got a great piece by Mihir Bose in the latest issue of the mag on British football's debt crisis. I would normally say that non-football fans should look away now, but the story is so redolent of the entire financial crisis that it's worth any CoffeeHouser's time. What you'll find is a tale of big clubs, big egos and even bigger debts – the latter running into billions of pounds.
Much of this debt has been down to financial brinkmanship on the part of football club owners and chairmen. Even though money has been pouring into the English game from global television deals and the like, they've been spending money to buy players, and fund wage structures, that they simply can't afford. This has left many clubs close to ruin. But it has also limited opportunities for young, British players. Why wait for national talent to develop when a few £million will buy a finished article from the Continent?
This point has been apparent to football fans for years now. But The Spectator has put some numbers on it. Our analysis shows that 44 percent of the footballers who actually played (or appeared on the bench) in the opening season of the English Premier League (1992-93) were British under-25s. Now, that number has dropped to 17 percent. Here is the table which spells it out:
| 1992-93 | 2009-10 (so far) | |
| Total number of footballers who played in the Premier League |
569 | 604 |
| Number of British footballers who played in the Premier League | 500 | 262 |
| Of which, aged under-25 | 254 | 104 |
| British ratio, all ages | 87% | 43% |
| British ratio, aged under-25 | 44% | 17% |
Now, this doesn't mean the influx of foreign players has been a bad thing in itself. From Eric Cantona to Cristiano Ronaldo, we British football fans have had the pleasure of witnessing, at first-hand, some of the greatest players in the international game. And those English players who have broken through into the highest levels of the British leagues – the Rooneys, Ferdinands and Gerrards – will have benefitted from playing against and alongside them. But it does leave some massive concerns for the national side. Foremost among them: where is the next generation of English players coming from?
Of course, football's financial crisis could change things. It could encourage clubs to spend less money abroad, and rely more on homegrown talent. But, as Mihir writes, the huge debts that clubs are facing is likely to make them even more reliant on billionaire backers – who will effectively write off the debts before using their cheque books in the international transfer markets again. In which case, the opportunities for homegrown players may have dried up for some time to come.
P.S. We'll try and get a pdf of more detailed tables, with team-by-team breakdowns, up on the site later. In the meantime, do fire me an email on phoskin @ spectator.co.uk if you'd like a copy.
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Bob Dixon
February 18th, 2010 2:19pm Report this commentSo if we do not win the World Cup this year I personally will have to live on the memories of 66.
Simon G
February 18th, 2010 2:41pm Report this commentThe link between debt and expensive foreign players doesn't hold in all cases. I support Crystal Palace, a club with an excellent academy whose graduates make up a fair proportion of the first team. However, many of those players have left over the years for minimal amounts because of the way youth contracts work. Now the club is in administration and has had to sell its best academy product, Victor Moses, for £2.5 million, much less than he would have been sold for in normal circumstances.
Thus, Palace's financial situation has been exacerbated by the exploitation of its academy by other clubs and, in turn, its financial situation has led to further exploitation of the academy.
What is the incentive for a club to have a good academy if it doesn't see a return on its investment?
Simon Maynard
February 18th, 2010 2:45pm Report this commentI had been under the impression that, at least amongst the big clubs, Arsenal had largely bucked this trend by consistently nurturing young (not necessarily English) talent and thus maintaining a sustainable, profitable business model. Does your research bear this out?
Yam Yam
February 18th, 2010 3:04pm Report this commentSo Britain's national game has been unmasked as a veritable mirage of spin, constructed upon a mountain of debt, run up by titanic egos who thought they were immune to the laws of economics, all greased on its way by an influx of foreigners that has left the country's indigenous working class talent increasingly marginalised.
Why, it could almost be New Labour in microcosm.
welease woger
February 18th, 2010 3:32pm Report this comment"We've got a great piece by Mihir Bose".
Sorry, that's an oxymoron.
Bose is rubbish and well known for being rubbish. Making him your main attraction this week is unlikely to help the edition fly off the newsstands.
Beer Moth
February 18th, 2010 5:01pm Report this commentDon't overlook the fact that footballers are not just sportsmen, they are doing a job of work for pay.
A young footballer, no matter how talented, needs a period at the start of his career, during which he is supported until his natural abilities can gain a foothold in the game.
Yes, this crucial period has been largely thrown out by the expedient of trawling the globe for 'readymades'.
Redolent indeed of wider concerns: as with footballers, so it is also with surgeons, carpenters, dentists, plumbers, bank staff...........the workforce of the UK.
Jamjar77
February 18th, 2010 5:15pm Report this commentI didn't think I'd see the day when the Spectator would stoop so low as to slip into full football speak - yer Rooneys, Gerrards, Ferdinands etc.
Rhoda Klapp
February 18th, 2010 5:59pm Report this commentClearly they are doing the jobs British people just won't do.
strapworld
February 18th, 2010 6:17pm Report this commentwelease woger you are boring.
As you appear to be capable of only expressing a negative, perhaps you may wish to read what I have written under your last negative against an excellent sports journalist and correspondent Mihir Bose.
Noa Zrk
February 18th, 2010 7:38pm Report this commentIs there any data on the decline in spectators since the formation of the Premier league? The Football league has been trading on the loyalty and wallets and hence the stupidity,of supporters to prop up the rotten crumbling edifice of professional football since then.
Which I suspect means that football supporters form a sizeable element of that 30% hardcore of voters that still think the sun shines out of Gordon and Labour.
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