Money, Politics and the English game – decline of the National team due to the success of the BPL
Mandatory Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports
Money is the root of all evil, or so they say. Politics, depending on whom you ask, maintains more of a negative influence than a positive one in most circumstances. In the case of the Barclays Premier League, money and politics are indeed evil. For all it’s entertainment, star power, worldwide brand and storied Football Clubs, the level of success of what is arguably the best League in the world is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Ever since the monumental influence of billionaire ownership and the influx of their financial power has taken the English game by storm, the state of the English National team set up as well as youth Football in regards to local talent has taken a sharp decline. Clubs in England now are run more and more as a business corporation, rather than a footballing institution. That is not to say that strong crops of young and talented English footballers are not currently in the Premier League or in the youth pipelines, the problem is the massive buying power that English clubs now have mean they no longer have to rely on their youth systems nearly as much. It is this turn of events that has over time led to the decline of the National team and will continue to do so until the problem is solved.
To look at the current situation in England, one must first look outside of its borders – especially in Holland, Germany and Spain as the prime examples. Firstly, the difference between clubs (big or small) in these countries, is that they are fully aware of their commitments when it comes to domestic player growth as well as the importance that their youth systems/academies must be geared towards not just success at club level, but providing a steady stream of home grown players for the national team pipeline. The size of the club does not factor in, even the biggest clubs in these countries still provide the proper environment for the development of domestic youth regardless of their spending power and economic prowess. Clubs such as Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Ajax Amsterdam, Barcelona and Real Madrid have incredible financial operations behind them however despite this, they do not resort to always spending money as a way to garner success domestically or in European competitions. All of these clubs use their impressive youth systems and their facilities to maximum efficiency to produce talented young footballers as if they were running an assembly line for both themselves and the national team set up. That is not to say that these clubs never spend money, as anyone who follows the sport knows that every transfer window, these clubs are linked with the most talented established players – the difference, is that these clubs (with probably the exception of Real Madrid) only spend money when they have to.
A prime example of this was this summer when Dortmund star Mario Gotze chose to leave for his boyhood club and rival, Bayern Munich. Realizing the impact of losing such an influential player, Dortmund went out and brought in both Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang thus filling the void left by Gotze’s departure. However if you look at Dortmund’s current usual starting XI, at least half of their line up is homegrown German talent from their system (or at least from Germany) and that same statistic holds true for the other clubs I have mentioned if not even more so. This is because clubs in other nations work closely with their national federations with the aim of keeping the national programs supplied with top talent constantly – their primary concern is the sport rather than the money made from it (though they clearly are not upset by the money they make).
Keeping in mind what we have covered so far, let us look at the current state of affairs in England with both the FA and the clubs. English clubs have become financial juggernauts in their own right, with incredible buying power. This plays into the current mindset of most professional athlete’s today, in that they follow the dollar signs. This makes the BPL a very attractive proposition for even the worlds top footballers to consider. The influx of money into the BPL through gigantic television deals, billionaire owners and the creation of the league into a worldwide brand has meant that clubs can now afford to virtually spend money at an incredible rate. It is this buying power that has turned the BPL into a spending league – each transfer window there is an arms race to bring in as many talented players as possible in order to win domestic silverware as well as continental trophies. Since this trend occurred it has signaled the rapid and consistent decline of the National team.
The current state of affairs is that because English clubs have such buying power, the giants of the top flight (Man United, Chelsea, Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham) all now, more often than not, rely on spending to compete and as such, neglect their youth academies when it comes to local English talent. This is also because it is now more financially beneficial to bring in young foreign players on the cheap, rather than paying a higher premium for domestic talent. Why does young domestic talent cost so much? Because the buying power of top clubs means that smaller clubs must raise the price that someone must pay to pry their coveted young players away. There is nothing wrong with this practice as smaller clubs cannot attract big name talent, thus they must rely on their own talent they produce from their youth systems. So how does this effect the national team set up? This is where the politics comes in.
Unlike in England, you can be selected for the national team no matter what club you play for, as long as you are in form at the time the national team call-ups go out. Take Germany as an example again – players like Max Kruse, Sidney Sam, Rene Adler, Marcel Jansen and Heiko Westermann all who play for smaller clubs, are routinely in the national team outlook purely based off domestic form. In England however, the same players are constantly being selected – players from United, Chelsea, City, Liverpool are routinely being selected, regardless of their form always get the call-up. Why is this? The FA certainly has a say in who gets a call-up and why and up until very recently did a players club not matter. For quite a few years now, players at clubs such as Swansea, Villa, Southampton, West Ham, Everton and the like have been over looked, simply because they do not play for a top club who plays in continental competition, regardless of the form they may have been in – simply put, these players were not the popular choice, so they were passed up on selection.
The good news is, recently that narrative has begun to change a little bit. Recently, England manager Roy Hodgson gave call-ups to Ross Barkley, Jay Rodriguez and Adam Lallana – players from clubs who are not part of the elite of the BPL, however their domestic form dictated a look at. But that is not enough, because if you look at the league, there are plenty of other examples of players who are excellent for their clubs but refuse to be looked at – Nathan Dyer, Leon Osman and Fabian Delph come to mind. Politics with the FA usually dictate that players be selected by popularity, which is why players such as Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, Wayne Rooney, Joe Hart and many others always received call-ups regardless of how they were playing for their club sides. If England is to succeed internationally going forward, teams will have to start being selected based off player form and not popularity or name brand (lets face it, people would rather see Rooney than Southampton’s Rickie Lambert). It is not about the popular choice, it is about the right choice.
While the national team selections could very easily be changed almost over night, one thing that cannot change quickly enough is the state of youth development in England. As stated above, English buying power and cheap foreign imports has all put cast aside domestic youth development at the top clubs. Because there is not a large amount of English players currently playing week in and week out at the top clubs, talented English players at smaller clubs are, until recently, routinely overlooked. If England is to get back on track with the national team and having enough domestic players to select from, it must first look to its financial policies and realize that they are in fact in the business of winning football matches and not just winning the financial race. A football club is a sporting team first and foremost, not a corporation. Big players are brought in each year so that they may make more money from selling shirts, season tickets and other merchandise coupled with ever increasing financial gains in other countries with massive television rights deals. If the individual football clubs do not see it fit to stop these practices that are harming English ambitions in international competitions, the responsibility must then fall on the FA and the manager of the national team to make the hard choices when selecting players – after all, the hardest choices are often the right ones.