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Why Greg Dyke's Plan is Bad for Football
Written by User1337 on Friday, 9th May 2014 14:29

There is mixed reaction to Greg Dyke's four-point plan to improve English football, but it is worth examining in a little more detail why those of us who are appalled by it feel that way.

This plan is completely focussed on the Premier League (with all its money and power) and the national team, to the obvious and significant detriment of the wider football community and the hundreds of passionately loved clubs around the country.

This process has been ongoing for some considerable time. It kicked off with Sky and the Premiership and that continues to be a major influence. The money gets bigger each year, and the gap between the top and the rest gets bigger accordingly. With parachute payments, the Champions League, and the huge TV deals, the gap is bigger than it has ever been and the dreams and optimism on which football supporters used to thrive have been well and truly squashed.

An ambitious Championship club now has no realistic ambition beyond getting in to the Premier League, where the cash is, and managing to stay there. The Financial Fair Play rules are going to reinforce that effect by taking away the ability of clubs not currently in the elite to be dragged into the party by a rich owner. For the clubs outside the top few, there is no prospect now of ever joining that party.

The process continued with the Elite Player Performance Plan. The purported aims of that plan (improvement of youth development and coaching, for the benefit of the English national side and game) were laudable, but the collateral effects (which I simply do not believe are accidental or unwitting) feed further into growing the gap and securing the position of the big Premier League clubs at the expense of everyone else.

It is a system in which only the big clubs get to have top academies. It is set up so as to ensure that any decent young players are able to be swiftly and cheaply moved into those top academies, where they benefit the big clubs rather than the smaller clubs. Those smaller clubs used to enjoy the benefit of young talent they found or which was local to them, even if only for a couple of seasons, followed by a decent transfer fee when they moved on. No more.

The new four-point plan by the FA takes this process further still, ensuring that the Premier clubs not only get to pick up all the best talent, but to stockpile and ensure that anyone with potential stays on their books and not those of smaller clubs.

The plan is as follows:

1. A new League Three to be introduced in 2016-17, combining the top half of the Conference and 10 Premier League B sides.

2. A beefed-up home-grown players' rule requiring 13 members of the 25-man squad to have been trained in England as youngsters by 2020-21.

3. A more strictly enforced work permit system that would prevent Premier League sides from having more than two non-EU players.

4. A new loan system that will allow Premier League clubs to loan up to eight players to a strategic partner below the Championship.

So lets take those points one by one.

A New League Three, with B Teams

The first and most obvious point is that this necessitates bumping half of the current Conference sides down to a lower tier, and presumably a knock-on effect on all the tiers below as the regional conference leagues have to accommodate those bumped-down clubs and, in turn, have to push some of their members back down the pyramid.

This is grossly unfair for clubs and their supporters who have worked hard chasing their dreams of promotion, or to stay in a tough league. So much for chasing the dream. The dream used to be what football was all about and still is in the lower reaches where good management, good players and a bit of fortune can still see lowly clubs pulling themselves up to the Conference and beyond.

Mr Dyke, just because that type of dream no longer exists in the upper reaches of the English game, doesn't mean its reasonable to leech it out of the lower reaches. Down in the lower leagues, people still enjoy and love their football away from the clutches of Sky and the Premiership cash-obsessed 'product'.

We then have to ask what a League Three would be like. Those hard-working small clubs, with history, identities, and fans who are at least as loyal and committed as any of those in the Premier League would find themselves playing contrived games against B teams, which would change in composition by the week and have no history or identity of their own beyond that of their parent club.

These games would vary in nature. Some would be against B sides used as training tools only, and others would be stocked with some of the very best youngsters in the country. They would be games against sides in which the players would be playing in the knowledge that they cant get promoted far with the team, are probably going to be protected against relegation with that team, and don't intend or expect to be part of a B team in the long term in any even.

Hardly a level playing field, nor a credible competition. That will inevitably have an effect on the real clubs and their supporters competing with them in an artificial and contrived competition. It will take away the value of that league and the passion which exists for those clubs unfortunate enough to play in it.

The further collateral effect, will be to increase the ability (again) of big Premier League clubs to stockpile talent and ensure that other middle ranking clubs (Championship/Div 1/bigger clubs in Div 2) do not get the benefit of good young players. It helps ensure that mid-level clubs cannot piece together a team to take them further up the league and perhaps, one day, with some good talent spotting get themselves pushing up towards those elite clubs.

Currently, those smaller clubs get to enjoy some young talent. Often it is only for a short period before the players are sold on, but that is better than nothing, and the ability to sell on is also crucial. Those profits help fund the clubs, and the supporters get to enjoy and feel part of the development of a young player, especially when that player has connections to the club or area.

Currently, good young players who do not make it onto the books of elite clubs straight away, or who are released by them, will find their way to smaller clubs. Sometimes they build themselves back up and make it to the elite clubs. Other times they will be solid players for those smaller clubs. Under this plan, the elite clubs get to hold on to them for much longer, just in case they develop, and ensure that the small clubs don't profit from players they release who turn out to be late developers. The supporters of those clubs will never get to enjoy a good young player who is one of their own.

Beefed-Up Home-Grown Players Rule

This may well not be a bad thing, albeit the EU will doubtless have a say. There is a risk, of course, that the current trend of good British players being overpriced will be exacerbated, further increasing the gap and damaging smaller clubs' ability to compete.

Work Permit System

OK, fine. No more than two non-EU players? I can see how that could benefit the game and the development of English players. The telling detail however, is that this is only for the benefit of Premier League clubs. According to the FA, all those tinpot unworthy clubs outside of the PL should not have non EU players at all. The justification is that if a player is exceptional enough to warrant a work permit, then he must be a Premier League level player.

The reality, of course, is that this once again feeds into growing the gap and to ensuring the lower league clubs cannot compete on equal terms. In a league system with full promotion and relegation, on merit, the idea that lower league clubs should be restricted in a way not applicable to the top league is simply anti competitive. It's an obnoxious idea which illustrates perfectly the Premiership-centric mindset which clearly exists in Dyke and his panel.

How dare those upstart worthless clubs outside of the PL have international players? They might help those awful little riff raff clubs drag themselves up and intrude on the PL party.

Worse still, the players might turn out to be good and those horrible little oik clubs could demand a fee of the PL clubs who want to sign them. How awful. Clearly PL clubs should get first dibs on every decent player available and we can't have these snotty little clubs bypassing the EPPP and B team system...

This stinks.

Strategic Loan System

In short, this is a feeder club system by another name. It has two key effects:

Firstly, it simply extends the impact of the B team system by allowing elite teams to hoard talent, farm it out en masse to a club over which it has a good deal of control, lean on that club as to the extent and manner in which the players should be used, and then take them straight back if they look any good.

The second, far more invidious problem, is the further damage it does to the credibility of the leagues those feeder clubs operate in, and the identity and competitiveness of those clubs over time.

Many complain that the soul of football has gone. Players are mercenaries, and the teams we support never have stalwart players any more. To an extent that’s rose tinted glasses and wishful thinking However, any supporter of a lower league club which has packed its side with short-term loans knows that feeling of being unconnected with players which are not theirs, players who are not interested in staying with the club, and who will be off the moment they start to show some form.

The identity and history of a football club means a huge amount to supporters in this country. Often more than winning or losing, or watching nice football being played. What becomes of the identity of a club which is bolstered each season by five strategic loan players, they are required to develop for Man Utd?

The elite clubs have the financial clout to impose this upon those smaller clubs and it is most unlikely to be a situation those clubs can resist. Five years down the line, how many passionate supporters will that feeder club have left?

Conclusions

I can see how some of these measures may assist in developing players for a future national side. Far more apparent however is the way in which it will further bolster the advantages enjoyed by the elite clubs, at the expense of the rest. The drawbridge is very much up, and that rips the heart out of what makes our football pyramid special. What's the point in dreaming when the odds are so carefully and cynically stacked?

These cynical and short-sighted proposals must, I suggest, have been heavily influenced by Premier League clubs, ideas and cash and the whole thing is simply sickening. It should be resisted vigorously, but how can that actually be done?

We know, from the EPPP fiasco, that the lower league clubs when faced with massive financial pressure, will be the proverbial turkeys voting for Christmas. A chairman struggling to get the club through another financial year, offered a big payout by the FA in return for accepting the proposals which in the long-term will wreck the league they play in, faces an impossible dilemma.

And that is what will happen - the FA are already talking in terms of a financial settlement in return for the B team scheme being imposed on Conference sides. Money rules.

It is difficult to see how this can actually be stopped. Dyke's mind is plainly made up, and he will have the support of the rich elite clubs who have all the power and cash, and who stand to benefit enormously.

I fear the only way of effectively opposing this would be for supporters, nationwide, to protest, petition and most importantly BOYCOTT ENGLAND GAMES AT WEMBLEY AND CANCEL THEIR SKY SUBSCRIPTIONS.

It won't happen, because so very many of those supporters have long since been suckered into the the Premier League dream and can't see beyond what Sky and the media tell them that football is all about.




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gazzmac4 added 17:13 - May 9
The ridiculous thing is that European Leagues which have utilized the "B" team leagues did so purely because they did not have a football pyramid that inspired such competition as the one we are able to show off to the world. Our lower leagues are as competitive as the Prem and that is a thing to be admired and adored, not ripped apart for the sake of the rich.

Dyke is right in some aspects. A more competitive "B" type league is certainly needed for those young players who cant break into the first team and havent been loaned out because that void has not been filled since the old reserve league was done away with. However that league should in no way interfere with the first team pyramid as it currently exists.

As you point out, most of the players in the B teams will be focused on the short term and a place in the first 11 and it is in no way fair to pit these youth team prospects on £10k+ a week against teams who have much smaller budgets. The competition will dry up and noone would care about who finishes where. Its like asking your companies MD who gets paid £200k a year to work in your team and go for the same promotion as the one you on £25k are going for.

Strange that a man who has been so heavily involved in funding the Prem through his TV involvement suddenly comes up with ideas that continue the growth of these big teams but ignores the rest of us....
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Premierbluez added 17:20 - May 9
I agree with allowing teams to have B teams. However this should be done as a completely seperate structure set up rather than placed in as League 3. This seperate structure could have A primership B league and a Championship B league and each season the 3 promoted A teams would have their clubs moved from Championship into Premiership and 3 clubs relegated would replace them. This structure would not interefere with the current football leagues and would be a far fairer system.
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Blue041273 added 21:01 - May 9
It's been clear for a number of seasons now that a competitive reserve league is an absolute imperitive. We need football to be played competitively at all levels. First team football can only function properly if the support (reserve) system works efficiently. At the moment this is not the case. Until players in our squad who are not getting game time get competitive football we will struggle to get any kind of development. The current reserve team system/structure is useless. Why not just set up a B team league involving Premier League teams and the teams in the FL with category A academy status. Given that premier league teams have to name a 25 man squad anyway, and that most premier league teams protect their players from over playing, few of the top line players would be involved anyway but there would still be enough fringe players in the mix to make this a viable competition.
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AndrewPC added 06:13 - May 11
User 1337

Excellent analysis. Well done !

You have accurately demonstrated the unintended consequences on the Football League and Conference clubs of Dyke's proposals.

Or, indeed, are they unintended ?

They reinforce the power, reach and interests of the EPL clubs. They will not provide any demonstrable direct effect on the England national team.

They will debilitate the 92 clubs in the Football League many of which are struggling financially. Yet this is the real strength in depth of English football. Where players break through from non-league to get to the top: examples: Grant Holt and Kevin Philips.

You are correct in seeing these proposals are securing further control over the young emerging talent by the EPL clubs. The costs of tier one academies are prohibitive for most FL clubs and the en masse lending out of players to FL "feeder" clubs will be a process of rising dependency and falling integrity at those FL clubs that indulge it.
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Pessimistic added 13:36 - May 18
This is a very well researched piece and many of the points raised are serious cause for concern, not just to Ipswich but also to all the clubs sitting outside the elite league.
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