To watch the English Premier League, or EPL, is to witness atelevised existential crisis. There’s a soul-searching tug-of-war going on, andnowhere is that best reflected than in the difference between the teams Arsenaland Manchester City. What’s happening now is the logical result of twoantithetical managerial styles that matured in the 1990s and set the stage fortoday’s "buy it" or "build it" wars.
In 1995, Louis van Gaal, manager of the Dutch team Ajax, wonEurope’s Champions League by acquiring talented young players and training themto superstardom. That same year, Blackburn, an EPL team infused with steeltycoon Jack Walker’s millions, won their league by purchasing ready-made stars.Then a legal battle by Belgian football player Jean-Marc Bosman changedeverything. The Bosman ruling, as it’s now known, opened the transfer market,allowing teams unrestricted access to foreign players who joyfully jumped ship.Ajax and Blackburn lost their best players and neither has won a championshipsince. The Greeks called it tragedy, which brings us back to Arsenal vsManchester City and the conflicted soul of the EPL.
Today, Arsenal has enough money to satisfy every superstar’soversized ego. But its manager Arsene Wenger won’t accumulate debt fortrophies. “I felt it would be an interesting experiment to see players growtogether with these qualities, and with a love for the club,” he said a fewyears back. But this approach, he soon admitted, is “an idealistic vision ofthe world of football," one where styles and philosophies compete insteadof bank accounts.
Arsenal has won more than its fair share of championships,but that was before a financially motivated exodus began on August 31, 2006,when Ashley Cole was sold to Chelsea, the day the term “feeder club” began tohaunt the dreams of Arsenal fans. Since 2005, all Arsenal has seen in itstrophy case is its own reflection. Last year’s EPL champion, Manchester City,was also the biggest financial loser, purging itself of $313.4 million dollars.Since 2008, its owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nayan has spent over abillion dollars on the club, a lot of it signing 22 new players, many who usedto play for Wenger.
They have a term for all that ails Arsenal. They call itfinancial doping. Salary caps, while imperfect, at least make sports a littleless about whose sugar daddy has more liquidity. But the UK’s FootballAssociation (FA), an increasingly meek regulatory body, says it won’t instituteanything like a cap because (in your best mock-baby voice) the Italians, Frenchand Spanish won’t.
The Union of European Football Associations is trying tocurb financial doping with financial fair play regulations, but so far realaction on that front seems tenuous. Ok, they've made a little progress, but notmuch. One thing keeping the EPL competitive is shared TV rights income ” moneyteams get from allowing networks to televise their games. Every team gets apiece of the multi-billion dollar pie. But in Spain’s league, La Liga, teamsnegotiate TV rights separately, which perpetuates inequity.
The problem is that in a 20-team league, only Real Madridand Barcelona have a chance of winning. It stands to reason that if the trendcontinues and La Liga becomes increasingly top-heavy, people might stopwatching. Who wants to watch Goliath win every time?
The EPL needs to decide if it will stay its schizophrenicself, become La Liga or grow into something better. The integrity of thecompetition is at stake, and in a way, so is peoples’ belief in a world that,if it won’t stand at moral attention, should at least slouch a little towardthe ethical.
Manchester City play Arsenal this Sunday,September 23 at the City of Manchester stadium. Check your local listings formatch timings
