It’s supposed to be a TV column but John Nicholson cannot help but get angry about the financial disparity ignored by broadcasters…
A new seven days of football begins for me on Friday with a glance at the EFL coverage of the Sheffield United v Hull game. Emma Saunders is a comfortable watch with regulars Curtis Davies and Neil Warnock, who is a sometimes garrulous but always warm presence with what feels like genuine affection for all levels of football and a load of anecdotes to share.
But I fancy going German and the Wolfsburg v Holstein Kiel game is buried deep on Sky, which takes the world feed for commentary with Kevin Hatchard and Patrick Owomoyela, a former right-back for Hamburg and Dortmund amongst others. I do like English spoken with a German accent. Ralph Hasenhüttl is the manager of Wolfsburg, who play in two shades of vivid green.
Their commentary style is very conversational and informational, which is just what you need if you’re not a Bundesliga expert. Compared to last week’s Coisty and Rio blether, it’s Masters degree standard and didn’t include any sectarian singing, which went unmentioned at Old Trafford in a bit of a ‘don’t tarnish the product boys’ move.
Kiel are second bottom but take the lead and it occurs to me how much better they are than second bottom of the Premier League Leicester City. It’s a great game, Wolfsburg dominated the second half and took the lead but Keil equalised with just their third shot on target
Saturday starts with the Schalke v Nuremberg game on YouTube in the German second tier. If the away team is resurgent, do they say “..and Nuremberg rally”…? Mark Bevan does the world feed, flying solo, as he often does. It’s nothing fancy, very much your buttered toast as opposed to a fondant fancy. Six years ago, Schalke were the 14th richest club in the world. They still average a huge 61,000 crowd. How fortunes change. They end up winning 3-1.
Purveyor of a special brand of euthanasia football, David Moyes, is interviewed on Soccer Saturday, looking like the manager of a social club in Shettleston, Glasgow, and seems surprised that he’s been given the Everton job.
Speaking of that show, the harrumphing and frankly immature response to the Arsenal red card was irresponsible. Football’s audience contains a fair amount of head-the-balls who will behave terribly at the slightest raised emotional environment. So they did and sent Michael Oliver death threats. Pundits should all be aware of the nutters and shut up, not stir the pot. Are ex-players thinking at all? They’re in a responsible position but behave like they are a pub blowhard who’s four pints in.
It wasn’t even completely not understandable. You’d think it was a human rights crime the way some frot themselves into a lather, feeding off the negativity. Shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre is no way to conduct yourself on TV. Think how your words will be received by the thin-skinned outrage merchants. You’re not just a bloke watching the game. You have more responsibility, so wake up and be responsible. I hope their directors have a word about it. It’d be grossly irresponsible not to.
READ: Arsenal fans and media must share blame for Michael Oliver death threats
Naturally, City v Chelsea didn’t beg mercy for their sins, so I watched Mönchengladbach v Bochum on Sky with Derek Rae, who I remember from Scottish football in the 80s when I lived on the Black Isle, north of Inverness, and when he was the 1987 British Sports Broadcaster of the Year. He was also with Patrick Owomoyela. An amiable broadcast and a strong, enjoyable game in pouring rain ends 3-0 to the home team.
We round off the day in the second tier in Germany for Hertha Berlin v Hamburg from Olympiastadion on YouTube. There are 614,000 subscribers to the Sky Sports football channel. How many people do you think watch this? It rises to an earth-shattering 1520 just before half-time. That is a very niche appeal indeed. Hertha average more than 48,000 for a second division game. Comms are from the world feed by Angus Torode with no co-comm. You never hear the solo commentator in British football and it’s a bit disconcerting at first but I grow to like its uncluttered simplicity. Nice to hear something done differently. The game is tight; Hertha come back from two nil to equalise but Hamburg score a late winner. Great game.
Sunday begins at AC Milan v Parma with Paul Dempsey and Adam Virgo at 11.30am, which is great as Milan come back to score two goals in added time and win 3-2, then crosses to Dundee and then to Crystal Palace – the less said about that game the better.
Like so many Premier League matches, it’s competitive but played at 100mph and littered with mistakes and as a result, exceptional or even basic skill is absent. I’d say it looks inseparable from a fourth-tier game but a fourth-tier game would be more exciting. The typical game in Italy and Germany and probably Spain too is far more enjoyable. Just many fewer tedious games like this. No one at Sky would admit this, obviously. Don’t diss the product. Annoying but understandable dishonesty.
The first half is such poor entertainment I don’t want to see anymore. Dreadful. As it finished 2-1 to Brentford, maybe it got better. So I make some spicy tomato soup and jump to Hoffenheim v Eintracht Frankfurt for some actual football, immediately noticing that everyone is less manic and faces are less twisted in stroppiness and angst. I don’t know why. My missus says it’s because they aren’t big pampered kidults. VAR is just as pathetic though.
There’s a nice half-time package about Frankfurt’s ever-changing forward line, in light of Omar Marmoush’s departure, with Frenchman Hugo Ekitike a double scorer here, the next likely to be mined by the Premier League. They play some good stuff but in a tense finish, Hoffenheim deservedly score and it ends 2-2.
I ignored Villa v West Ham on the grounds of taste but my missus notes that Jamie looked like he’s just woken up, which is probably true. The Fulham v Man United late game hardly says ‘watch me’. Stroke fatigue means I have to have a nap but I’m back in the saddle for kick-off.
Darren Fletcher is the commentator and his non-hysterical enthusiasm is welcome, as are Lucy Ward’s flat tones. They converse well as the football goes through a really dull, boring, uneventful phase and it’s actually too uneventful to hold my attention and if it improves, it’s already lost me. How do the players get so much money for this? Why do broadcasters pay so much for it?
READ: Premier League broadcasters think we will watch any old sh*te…
I succumb to the charms of Lazio v Fiorentina and a sizzling atmosphere compared to Fulham at the Stadio Olimpico. Ex-Leeds man Tony Dorigo is with Adam Summerton and I like him. Very chatty and informative, as is the commentator. They sound like two pals talking over a pint while watching the game. David De Gea is in goal for La Viola.
They started brilliantly and took a two-goal lead in 15 minutes but Lazio scored in added time, making for a great frantic, chaotic last four minutes and a goal-saving save from De Gea. Both managers were sent off and with the last kick of the game, Lazio hit the inside of the post. Absolutely thrilling stuff, everything Fulham wasn’t.
Tuesday’s Soccer Special features more pointless wrangling over the Arsenal red card, more tedious arguing to absolutely no point or conclusion. Someone had obviously had a word. Merse has been allowed out at night and tries to make a point of not blaming Michael Oliver but that horse has bolted and should have been said immediately. He calls the Europa League the Europa Cup for some reason. He must know that’s not its name. Dean Ashton seems to be a rational human.
On Wednesday we’re on TNT for the Goals Show and the last round of Champions League games, which they’re trying to whip up into a frenzy. They seem to think the inclusion of Coisty is some sort of magic bullet for popularity, so heavily is it trailed in the preceding week. All games were broadcast live to literally some people who waited with bated breath to see who would suffer the jeopardy of not being knocked out quite yet and would have to play two more games. Nine clubs were already out and were just playing for positional prize money. The Corinthian spirit, eh.
And who would fail to qualify for the play-offs? Turns out exactly who you thought would. UEFA will have breathed a sigh of relief. We all wanted the gurning zombie that is City and the nation state of PSG to fail, but of course they didn’t. So the much vaunted jeopardy didn’t manifest itself. But look! Man City or Real Madrid won’t get past the play-offs! Don’t mention that if it was a knockout tournament from the start, every match would have jeopardy, but less money, and that’s much more important to the rich, who can never earn enough.
Still, some of the league had something to play for, even if it was to avoid the threat of having to play more football. How odd that we’ve arrived at a format that punishes or rewards a level of success by playing twice more. Oh no, not more football, we don’t want that. Or maybe we do? Which is it? It’s not clear as some delight in a top-24 place yet for others it’s a humiliation. What do you mean, you don’t care? Not even if Coisty tells you? No? TNT and UEFA will be disappointed you haven’t bought their lies about it being thrilling.
I note people saying teams up to 24th have ‘qualified’. Yes, qualified to play a two-legged play-off game, which sounds less of an achievement. They’re trying to make out it’s complicated, I don’t know why – possibly to aggrandise it – A Night Like No Other is their milky tagline, notably avoiding any hostages to fortune. It’s actually really straightforward if you can add up.
Needless to say, the financial disparity between teams is dishonestly not mentioned by anyone but it seems important when it’s so extreme; quite often one whole team costs less than one other team’s player. It’s an important aspect, whatever the result. There’s no point in pretending these are even match-ups. Unfairness is baked in. Still, ignore that, feel the tension, eh. Despite zero tension, it was fun to see all the teams going up and down, even if it did all end up as predicted.
That said, when you discount all the false ‘tension’ in most matches, flicking around 18 games is a lot of fun. I enjoyed James Horncastle’s half-time ‘there’s blood in the water at the Etihad’ comment. Seemed just right. One thing it accidentally proves is that Our League doesn’t have a monopoly on good football and great goals, despite what some would have you believe. Forget that, the Premier League blinkers will be back on at the weekend.
READ: Man City won’t win the Champions League; they’ve had their time like Novak Djokovic
Thursday saw them do it all again for the Europa League, which is so warped by Premier League finances, it’s barely a competition at all and relies on the Premier League team having a meltdown, when they are enjoying ten times the resources to make it competitive. The jeopardy, such as it is, is whether someone will blow their massive advantage. Or in common parlance, ‘do a Spurs’.
Obviously this isn’t mentioned at all and everyone pretends the Premier League hasn’t brought a tactical nuclear weapon to a knife fight. In fact, my sense is it would be regarded as sour miserablism to do so, so endemic is the English dishonesty.
For example Spurs are playing IF Elfsborg whose total market value Transfermrket puts at 26.85 million Euro while Spurs’ market value is 794.10 million. It’s about resources, even if the players actually cost less than that, even allowing for injuries. I’d wager Spurs academy spends more than the Swedish first team.
Their financial dominance affects everything from depth of playing resources to quality and extent of physiotherapy. Unless Spurs are drunk or have been eating tequila worms, the Swedes don’t even have a puncher’s chance; if they did, money means less than nothing.
Their most highly valued player is Timothy Noor Ouma who is a central midfielder valued at three million Euro. Even with all the injuries, Spurs players are valued more highly than that by some measure.
The anti-competitive nature built into the competitions can’t be ignored. It isn’t a marginal issue. Man Utd play FCSB – that’s 774 million v 40. In the Conference, Chelsea are top with a one billion valuation, the second place is Vitória S.C valued at 48 million. Even Athletic Bilbao, the next most valuable team in the Europa, is only valued at 354 million Euros, under half of a Premier League team. The gap in resources available is unfathomably vast. Whichever figures you want to judge it by, their dominance is huge.
It’s a sign of how overvalued the Premier League is that they don’t win every game 8-0. Seriously, if you were any of the other clubs, it must seem ridiculous even being asked to compete. But shut up about it, eh. Pretend they’re all quite equal. It also shows how poor our teams are if they don’t always win the Europa or Conference or even find it difficult to beat a side valued at 750 million less.
Don Hutchison, Joe Cole and James Horncastle are with Matt Smith and provide decent game talk. It seems strange for no one to even go near any financial issues at all. Why ignore it so comprehensively? Is it too political? But if not here, then where? I mean it is obviously a factor in the performance of teams. Disappointing but predictable.
There are some superb goals. Anderlecht v Hoffenheim was especially good. And watching them all go in was great. Interesting to see Robbie Keane as the boss of Hungary’s Ferencváros win 4-3. Teams fall in and out of positions. Rangers did well. Of course were it the UEFA Cup and knockout from the start, tension and jeopardy would be innate all the time, in every game, not just on one day. But we don’t mention that. I enjoyed it though, not sure overall if it was better than before, plenty of issues need addressing, but the last day was undeniably fun.
READ: Europa League reputation takes hit as joke clubs Man Utd, Spurs, Rangers progress
