•Editorial
•Fan Profile – Steven Spencer
•The Premiership, Another Planet
•A View from The West Stand
•Fans Forum – #2
•Book Review – 'Soccer Czars'

THE PREMIERSHIP, ANOTHER PLANET?

As every season goes by, the Premiership seems to distance itself from the rest of the Football League. Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood warns that Premiership wages are spiralling out of control. His club’s annual report reveals salaries of players at Highbury soared from £8.7 million to £13.3 million in 12 months – a trend that could plunge even a hugely wealthy club like Arsenal into a financial crisis.

Dennis Bergkamp has recently agreed an extension that is believed to have boosted his wages from around £15,000 a week to more than £20,000. Ian Wright, David Seaman and Tony Adams are all earning in excess of £12,000 a week.

These pay deals are quite moderate compared to what some players are receiving at Old Trafford and Anfield of course. But what is most interesting is Hill-Wood’s answer to this problem, “We must unearth more home-grown talent to ease the financial burden. The need for the club to continue to produce its own players is ever more essential.”

Quite so, Mr Hill-Wood, but is your club going to be the first to say we are not buying any more foreign players. We are going to rely on our own home based footballers? I don’t think so, as long as other top clubs are spending small fortunes to bring foreign players to this country (Incidentally there are over 150 players from 43 different countries playing in Great Britain now!) – Arsenal will do the same. With each Premiership club pocketing £7 million apiece from Sky Television, the big clubs cannot now afford NOT to compete in the transfer market, in order to stay in the Premiership.

I was intrigued to hear that at Stamford Bridge, Chelseas’s ticket sales for a full-house doesn’t even cover the wage bill. They are totally reliant on sponsorship, merchandising etc., to make up the difference. Can this kind of existence continue?. I don’t think so. Middlesbrough’s season in the First Division might give some kind of indication of how to manage in the lower leagues and still carry on paying the likes of £42,000 per week to Ravanelli. I personally think that with what supporters are expected to pay to watch Premiership matches, that we are nearing a limit of what they will pay and no more.

I fully expect that, unless something drastic happens in the meantime, that in about five to ten years’ time the English soccer scene will mirror Scotland’s plight. There will be only a handful of clubs in the Big Club League. The rest will be also rans. The only real interest in Scottish football is when Rangers meet Celtic – which happens about six times a season.

Do we really want a scenario where Man United play Liverpool six times a year?

Let’s be honest, these Premiership clubs don’t give a toss about the smaller clubs. Some of the big ones are already talking about dropping out of the Coca Cola Cup. Something must be done now, and yet I can’t see any of them being so radical as to change now. They all seem blind to the fact that they are all bound for hell in a hand cart!

Chris Courtney-Williams