Kinkybyname
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sorry if this is posted elsewhere, had a cursory glance but not spotted:
Martin Samuel's latest
Seismic. Well, that’s one way of putting it. “The Premier League’s most seismic season,” was promised in The Times this week. And in a way, yes. In another way, perhaps it will prove the Premier League’s most incomprehensible season, or the Premier League’s most absurd season, even the Premier League’s most pointless season. Mystifying, meaningless, redundant, fatuous. As adjectives go, take your pick.
Hollow? Certainly it could be. Right now, before a ball has been kicked, Ipswich Town and Southampton, of the promoted clubs, could already be safe. It’s just that they don’t know it yet. How? Well, three from Manchester City, Chelsea, Leicester City and Everton could already be as good as relegated. All have that threat over them: the possibility of points deductions or worse, of enormous sanctions, perhaps even banishment.
You, as a paying customer, also haven’t a clue. You no longer know if what you will watch this weekend is significant or not. It could be argued you never did. But, previously, that was down to future results, not legal ramifications. In 2024-25 your club’s best signing could be a firm of accountants. The transfer that didn’t go through could condemn your club to the Sky Bet Championship next season more surely than a leaky defence or a misfiring forward line. The final whistle is just the beginning of a negotiating process now. So seismic, sure. But not in the way that word was once applied to the sporting contest.
Arsenal and Manchester United enjoyed seismic battles in the Premier League’s formative decade, but the seismic contests from this season may only be witnessed by a handful, because they are played out in chambers. Lord Pannick, for Manchester City, versus the Premier League’s Slaughter and May. Leicester or Chelsea versus a KC from Brick Court. And if the champions from five of the past six seasons are demoted and sued further by rival clubs, that is seismic, but not in any way that can be captured by a
Match of the Day
camera. If anything, seismic activity in the modern game is earthquake tremors of terror as clubs submit a balance sheet in the hope of arriving at a number that satisfies the lords of profitability and sustainability.
There is too much that can go wrong now. West Ham United have summered well, according to most observers, because they have added good players to the squad under their new head coach, Julen Lopetegui. Yet, a few days ago, the captain Kurt Zouma failed a medical with the UAE club Shabab Al-Ahli. Time was, that would be a setback, a frustration. Given West Ham’s expenditure, however — and, remember, doing business early is supposed to be the mark of a smartly run club — the immediate worry is that the failure to get the well-paid captain off the wage bill could affect calculations when it comes to the Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).
Think of Everton, writing off a £50million player because of circumstances entirely beyond their control, yet failing to get that factored in when their books were inspected by the Premier League. They could have gone down. Maybe this year a club will go down — maybe some are already down — for the crime of trying too hard to succeed, of not knowing their place, or as the result of a sliver of financial misfortune.
Leicester enter the season in poor form, with a growing injury list, and their hands tied on signings. They already face a potential points deduction and have no wish to make matters worse. Yet is this fair? It is hard enough to stay in the Premier League as it is, without being disadvantaged further on entry.
The counter-argument is that the clubs make the rules. So let’s forget clubs for the moment, because those really on the outside these days are fans. It was their great wish for more transparency inside stadiums around VAR decisions, but that has been vetoed. Now, even if they understand why a goal has been given, they will not know whether it counts, long-term. They won’t know if a win is really a win, or if the table is really the table.
Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive, says he has no wish to see the 20 positions scarred by asterisks, but that is only something that has happened on his watch. Meanwhile, English football is back to selling good players to Spain, Germany, Italy and Saudi Arabia. The domestic market is depressed. The television deal maintains itself only by offering the broadcasters increasing numbers of matches and control of the fixture calendar. Few of the seismic events in the domestic game seem greatly positive.
Take Chelsea. Players that have been at the club since primary-school age are being sold to fund a naked strategy of hedge-fund venture capitalism. Given the financial controls, some of what is propping it up — the sale of two hotels, and the women’s team, to related companies — seems cynical at best. Yet is it legal? We still don’t know. The hotel strategy came to light before the end of last season, yet we are still in the dark about whether a loophole has been successfully exploited, or a reckoning is due. The difference is a loss of £89.9million or £166.4million, potentially earning a points deduction.
Yet Chelsea will play City on Sunday with neither club knowing where they stand. Indeed, one of the reasons City took action against the Premier League over related-party transactions is a commercial deal that was considered for more than a year. Fine, unless a veto could bring draconian sanctions.
Masters implied that he was relaxed about creative accounting, and loopholes, as long as clubs abided by the rules. It is a ridiculous stance. The very nature of creative accounting is that it operates on the outer edge of legality, that it pushes the envelope. Creative accounting and adherence, therefore, do not always go together. So permission, or otherwise, is needed quickly. Yet Premier League cases and judgments drag on and on. And here we are, season starting, and none the wiser on so much of it. Everton, as ever, have no idea where they stand. No wonder the club is proving such a hard sell.
Look, football endures. It is one of the reasons even a World Cup in Qatar can be recalled with fondness. Once the game starts, people forget about the noise outside. And this will be no different. Has anything changed at United? How do Liverpool move on from Jürgen Klopp? Having fallen short twice now, what can Arsenal do to depose City? Can any club follow Aston Villa and dump one of the big six from the Champions League? Brighton & Hove Albion’s new head coach, Fabian Hürzeler, is 31. Ipswich are back among the elite for the first time since 2002. There are not as many new players to excite as in previous campaigns — thank you, once again, PSR — but English football remains vibrant in comparison with many of its moribund rivals.
At least for now. Once the action gets under way and if it is rendered secondary by the seismic decisions of football’s new professionals, we’ll see. For if the common person was truly fascinated by complex legal arguments, surely the viewing galleries in public courtrooms would be the size of football stadiums?
Martin Samuel's latest
Seismic. Well, that’s one way of putting it. “The Premier League’s most seismic season,” was promised in The Times this week. And in a way, yes. In another way, perhaps it will prove the Premier League’s most incomprehensible season, or the Premier League’s most absurd season, even the Premier League’s most pointless season. Mystifying, meaningless, redundant, fatuous. As adjectives go, take your pick.
Hollow? Certainly it could be. Right now, before a ball has been kicked, Ipswich Town and Southampton, of the promoted clubs, could already be safe. It’s just that they don’t know it yet. How? Well, three from Manchester City, Chelsea, Leicester City and Everton could already be as good as relegated. All have that threat over them: the possibility of points deductions or worse, of enormous sanctions, perhaps even banishment.
You, as a paying customer, also haven’t a clue. You no longer know if what you will watch this weekend is significant or not. It could be argued you never did. But, previously, that was down to future results, not legal ramifications. In 2024-25 your club’s best signing could be a firm of accountants. The transfer that didn’t go through could condemn your club to the Sky Bet Championship next season more surely than a leaky defence or a misfiring forward line. The final whistle is just the beginning of a negotiating process now. So seismic, sure. But not in the way that word was once applied to the sporting contest.
Arsenal and Manchester United enjoyed seismic battles in the Premier League’s formative decade, but the seismic contests from this season may only be witnessed by a handful, because they are played out in chambers. Lord Pannick, for Manchester City, versus the Premier League’s Slaughter and May. Leicester or Chelsea versus a KC from Brick Court. And if the champions from five of the past six seasons are demoted and sued further by rival clubs, that is seismic, but not in any way that can be captured by a
Match of the Day
camera. If anything, seismic activity in the modern game is earthquake tremors of terror as clubs submit a balance sheet in the hope of arriving at a number that satisfies the lords of profitability and sustainability.
There is too much that can go wrong now. West Ham United have summered well, according to most observers, because they have added good players to the squad under their new head coach, Julen Lopetegui. Yet, a few days ago, the captain Kurt Zouma failed a medical with the UAE club Shabab Al-Ahli. Time was, that would be a setback, a frustration. Given West Ham’s expenditure, however — and, remember, doing business early is supposed to be the mark of a smartly run club — the immediate worry is that the failure to get the well-paid captain off the wage bill could affect calculations when it comes to the Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR).
Think of Everton, writing off a £50million player because of circumstances entirely beyond their control, yet failing to get that factored in when their books were inspected by the Premier League. They could have gone down. Maybe this year a club will go down — maybe some are already down — for the crime of trying too hard to succeed, of not knowing their place, or as the result of a sliver of financial misfortune.
Leicester enter the season in poor form, with a growing injury list, and their hands tied on signings. They already face a potential points deduction and have no wish to make matters worse. Yet is this fair? It is hard enough to stay in the Premier League as it is, without being disadvantaged further on entry.
The counter-argument is that the clubs make the rules. So let’s forget clubs for the moment, because those really on the outside these days are fans. It was their great wish for more transparency inside stadiums around VAR decisions, but that has been vetoed. Now, even if they understand why a goal has been given, they will not know whether it counts, long-term. They won’t know if a win is really a win, or if the table is really the table.
Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive, says he has no wish to see the 20 positions scarred by asterisks, but that is only something that has happened on his watch. Meanwhile, English football is back to selling good players to Spain, Germany, Italy and Saudi Arabia. The domestic market is depressed. The television deal maintains itself only by offering the broadcasters increasing numbers of matches and control of the fixture calendar. Few of the seismic events in the domestic game seem greatly positive.
Take Chelsea. Players that have been at the club since primary-school age are being sold to fund a naked strategy of hedge-fund venture capitalism. Given the financial controls, some of what is propping it up — the sale of two hotels, and the women’s team, to related companies — seems cynical at best. Yet is it legal? We still don’t know. The hotel strategy came to light before the end of last season, yet we are still in the dark about whether a loophole has been successfully exploited, or a reckoning is due. The difference is a loss of £89.9million or £166.4million, potentially earning a points deduction.
Yet Chelsea will play City on Sunday with neither club knowing where they stand. Indeed, one of the reasons City took action against the Premier League over related-party transactions is a commercial deal that was considered for more than a year. Fine, unless a veto could bring draconian sanctions.
Masters implied that he was relaxed about creative accounting, and loopholes, as long as clubs abided by the rules. It is a ridiculous stance. The very nature of creative accounting is that it operates on the outer edge of legality, that it pushes the envelope. Creative accounting and adherence, therefore, do not always go together. So permission, or otherwise, is needed quickly. Yet Premier League cases and judgments drag on and on. And here we are, season starting, and none the wiser on so much of it. Everton, as ever, have no idea where they stand. No wonder the club is proving such a hard sell.
Look, football endures. It is one of the reasons even a World Cup in Qatar can be recalled with fondness. Once the game starts, people forget about the noise outside. And this will be no different. Has anything changed at United? How do Liverpool move on from Jürgen Klopp? Having fallen short twice now, what can Arsenal do to depose City? Can any club follow Aston Villa and dump one of the big six from the Champions League? Brighton & Hove Albion’s new head coach, Fabian Hürzeler, is 31. Ipswich are back among the elite for the first time since 2002. There are not as many new players to excite as in previous campaigns — thank you, once again, PSR — but English football remains vibrant in comparison with many of its moribund rivals.
At least for now. Once the action gets under way and if it is rendered secondary by the seismic decisions of football’s new professionals, we’ll see. For if the common person was truly fascinated by complex legal arguments, surely the viewing galleries in public courtrooms would be the size of football stadiums?
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