Arrogance to blame for Premier League European failings

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  • Feeling Blue: It has not been a good fortnight for English Premier League teams in Europe.

    And so it begins. The post-mortem. As Manchester City crashed out of the Champions League with a 1-0 defeat to Barcelona at the Nou Camp, the discussion which seems to have become an annual event rampages. Panic abounds as the British media looks to solve the issue of not having any Premier League teams in the Champions League quarter-finals for the second time in three years.

    Everton’s Europa League exit on Thursday further compounded English misery, with no sides left in European competition. Whether it be a blip or a trend, outward-looking comparisons to other leagues are again being made in a desperate attempt to search for the truth. The usual solutions are flitted around. Should the Premier League introduce a winter break? Is the away goals rule still appropriate in the modern context of European football? 

    In reality, though, the solution is more inward-facing.

    A figure of Dh27.84 billion (£5.14bn) was the price agreed by domestic broadcasters Sky and BT Sport to show live Premier League action from 2016 for a period three years. Strutting up and down the catwalk of European football, flaunting the outrageous cash they now have at their disposal to the gawping on-lookers from the Bundesliga and Serie A, you would think everything was rosy – the Premier League now holds the record for the largest TV deal ever signed outside of the United States.

    “It is not [obscene]”, defended Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore recently. “It is market forces. It is unscripted drama, the show the clubs put on. People want to see the top stars here. Look at the excitement of deadline day.”

    The Premier League brand made a colossal leap with this latest deal but claims that the EPL will match the dominance of the NBA and the tiresome ‘Greatest League In The World™’ tagline (which every pundit seems contractually obliged to say each week) are proving drastically inaccurate. Scudamore may have filled a Jacuzzi full of £50 notes and invited all the Premier League clubs to come and join, but is it possible that this very image has created an arrogance that British clubs are struggling to overcome, and explains their failings in Europe.

    The self-analysis is truly relentless, as the constant, never-ceasing obsession with what the Premier League represents seemingly on show everywhere you look. ‘The league that can attract the biggest stars’. ‘The league that can pay the biggest wages’. ‘The league that can splash the highest transfer fees’. As Scudamore said, Burnley are now economically larger than Ajax – a “surprise” he claims, with a smug look dominating his face.

    Ajax: A storied European giant, but poorer than Burnley.

    Whether it be TV deals or ‘Transfer Window Totalisers’ during each window, the UK and Premier League’s obsession with money is all part of the problem. We believe our own hype. Money is now the solution to everything.

    Slipping up in the league? Finishing fifth when you should be finishing fourth? You had better spend some money. Here’s a few hundred million  – let’s go get some of those Monaco players that beat us the other day. What’s that? We could just coach the players we already have and improve them? Don’t be ridiculous! What about Premier League? What about ‘The Brand’?

    Coaching is old hat. Buying players is the new coaching. The solution is never what’s occurring on the training field; it’s a never-ending process of looking forward to the next window to see what they can purchase and fill the gaps. Pasting over the cracks of the crumbling Premier League brand with cold hard cash.

    Europe? Nah, you don’t want to worry about that. You’ll just be playing against teams who aren’t even part of The Greatest League In The World™.   Europe is old hat. The Premier League is the new Europe. Finishing 11th is the new Europa League semi-final. If you don’t finish 11th, you can’t go out and frivolously over-pay for that that over-hyped Croatian striker sensation.

    It’s all part of it. Fetishising about the incredible spending power the EPL has without ever considering the problems that exist as part of it. If English football really thinks this is the way forward, it is no wonder things aren’t going to plan, as we continue to arrogantly assume that this is the only path. It’s not just a phase; it’s a cultural phenomenon in English football.

    It is not just the money. It is the accepted truths that people go along with, believing it is part of what the Premier League represents.

    Ex-players actually waxed lyrical about England’s top flight after Chelsea’s loss to PSG. You see, any team can beat any other team on its day in the EPL while PSG hand “cruise through their league”, leaving them fresh for Europe. These ‘pundits’ seemingly blissfully unaware that Les Parisiens are currently second in Ligue 1 having lost to the mighty Guingamp and Bastia already this season.

    The Premier League is sick. It is self-obsessed and refuses to change the vulgar things that form its identity. Constantly looking at itself in the mirror, analysing every angle of its face to see how pretty it is, desperately reaffirming its beauty at every opportunity.  

    There needs to be more awareness of the wider implications of this arrogance. The Premier League cannot cosmetically repair its problems with expensive transfer quick-fixes or copying winter break-type ideas. It needs to go deeper. Start with the coaching, start with the basics. Then perhaps Scudamore & Co will no longer stand there, naked, claiming to the world that the Premier League wears the world’s greatest robes. 

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