If City were a team in Everton's position I'd be pissed off as well. No team has a hope of breaking this top 6 dominance for the foreseeable future. But for so many years we were one of those underdog teams. It's hard not to be glad and relieved that we're one of the elite now. I still think we're some way behind the rags and dippers in terms of a global brand but you can see us getting there eventually. It's bittersweet in some ways. I know Ricky Hatton has said in the past that he misses the pre-money City and I sort of know what he means.
I miss the pre-money Ricky Hatton. Oh wait, I don't miss him at all!!
Look at the Top Six and ask yourself what they all have in common. Large, deep pocketed, benefactors. Everton have been trying to sell out to one for years now, but they are considered to be undesirable, so far. The minute a Billionaire fancies them, they will be all over it!
As usual in these situations, it is all a matter of timing, and when the snapshot is taken. As has been rightly stated, English football, indeed Sky's stranglehold on it worldwide, was designed to cash in on the "Big 4" who felt they were running the game. Each one of them has a Billionaire backer, or backers, and all of them are based overseas. City found a Billionaire backer from overseas at a time when the club was in complete disarray and having to sell players to make ends meet (a selling club, if you will).
That changed with the stroke of a pen, and thereafter City have been on a upward trajectory. Up steps UEFA, to stop the likes of a City and PSG crashing the UEFA money orgy with FFP, and all of a sudden, NEW billionaires from overseas are "ruining the game!" Well, we are not Germany, where one club collects all the local national talent and supplements it with top Euro talent, because they have a virtual monopoly on their domestic league and cup every year, and the top sponsors in their country. We are not Spain, where financial shenanigans somehow get them transfer bans every few years and claims of poverty, yet they cultivate their own TV and sponsorship deals for the most money in the world, and pay record fees for players they poach from the rest of the world...even while they have those transfer bans! Oh, and they simply trade who will win what every year in their proverbial 2 1/2 horse race! Or, how about France...yes, France, where the same thing is happening, with PSG and Monaco the only teams who seem to be perennially in the CL!
It is "Johnny come lately" hypocrisy to deny MONEY has always been at the root of the business of football. Yes, always! Best teams have always been able to afford best players, because they had more money, and that meant they were always winning something to keep the coffers full. Fast forward to the PL, and the only thing that has happened is what is happening everywhere...the rich are getting richer, because the rich make the rules to the fucking game, so that they can keep it happening that way! What is new is the old rich don't like the new rich grabbing a piece of their action!
Well, fuck them all!
In Britain, if we really want to try to level the playing field, we should have COMPLETE TV REVENUE SHARING across the ENTIRE FOOTBALL LEAGUE, and let teams grow based on gate receipts, merchandising and commercial activities. Everything doesn't have to be exactly equal, but sharing the TV revenues deeper into the game would revitalize the lower leagues, allow stadia to be updated to modern standards, and the grass roots ENGLISH game to survive and hopefully prosper.
