In England these days, sounds of gnashing of teeth, of wailing and whingeing permeate any discussion of the Premiership, of money in football, of the futility of England’s attempt to be a part of next year’s European Championships. Given a reprieve when Israel beat Russia, England had their feet on their own destiny, but they lost to Croatia at Wembley. For the first time since 1994, the national team failed to qualify for a major tournament. Why? Oh, why? all the voices say. What can we do?

An island people, English folk have a reserved attitude to strangers, and so the first instinct might be to blame the troubles of the national team on foreigners. That is exactly what happened. Football pundits called for a restriction on the number of foreign players on each team in the Premiership. Sepp Blatter, the head of FIFA, called for restrictions; his European counterpart and sometime pet poodle Michel Platini said it was impossible, even though he favors it. He has made the point that “There are 95 registered Brazilian players in the Champions League, 94 French players and 45 English players”, which puts England at a disadvantage.

Even politicians plunged into the fray. George Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and his culture secretary urged protection (from imports) for English players in order to maintain the quality of the national team. But the knowing football people, Arsène Wenger of Arsenal, for instance, did not agree. “Do you really think that if I regularly started with five average English players, England would win the World Cup?” he scoffed. “I have only been here since 1996 but between 1966 (when England won the World Cup) and 1996 you had 30 years without foreign players and you still didn’t win anything.”

It comes down to Brits wanting to protect the national team, and Wenger, a Frenchman, wanting to protect the quality of the game by getting the best players, wherever they are from. And he has the law on his side. Within the European Union since 1995, laws allow players to move freely back and forth, just as any skilled craftsman or professional can. If there are no quotas for plumbers, there can be none for soccer-players.

For many, many years before the sixties and seventies, British clubs foreswore formal coaching of players and youth. There is a telling story of a former manager of England giving his players complex instructions before an international match to “…watch out for the tall blond fellow at corners.” Good advice, since they were playing Norway, but hardly sophisticated tactical planning!

Many observers believe that the fundamental problem with English soccer is that the Football Association has a poor foundation for training players, especially young players. If that be the case, then no amount of restrictions and quotas in the Premiership are going to help the problem. In fact, any English player playing against the best in the world in that competition will benefit from it, and theoretically, so will the national team.

And as for me, if I am going to lay out the money to watch a Premiership game, I want to see the best, not some journeymen struggling. As Wenger says: “The purpose is to push the level up as high as possible and to entertain.” I agree.

In an e-mail to me a short time ago, a friend of mine from England (we met as undergraduates forty-eight years ago!) made a few comments about the state of soccer in Britain, and he set me thinking and reading about it in a way I hadn’t, despite my devotion to this game for more than 55 years. As I wrote a short time ago (May 28, 2007 in the archive, it’s a simple game no more.

Billions of dollars from TV and sponsorships cascade into the Premiership, gorgeous new stadia have appeared in city after city, players can earn more than $250K per week, and foreign stars wishing to play in one of the best, if not the best, leagues in the world have agents busy touting their qualities, with hefty “bungs” (incentives) changing hands during some, but not all, negotiations with clubs. It’s more a business—a profitable, and sometimes unsavoury one—than a sport these days, whetting the appetites of foreign investors from the U.S., Russia, Thailand and elsewhere for a meal of British soccer-money.

So why would anyone in an irredeemably capitalist society want things to change? Do we want to return to the days (which I remember very well) of impoverished clubs saved by the charity of occasional benefactors, to dilapidated stadia, to exploited players unable to find prosperity? Is that the alternative to the excesses of the modern game?

Inevitably, I suppose, the situation is more complicated, because as in any society, human emotions take over and determine—perhaps more than reason—whatever progress is made. In the case of England and the Premiership: envy, fear, nationalism, disgust and class-struggle all play a part in the discussion.

The envy is obvious, for who wouldn’t want to earn more than $200,000 a week? It become sickeningly so when just twelve days ago a government minister Gerry Sutcliffe, (for sport, no less) declared about John Terry that “..it is obscene to be on £150,000 a week. People in the street cannot understand salaries like that.”
John Terry is captain of England and Chelsea, and is their starting center-back, was selected for the World Cup all-star team, and his weekly salary is actually £130,000. Be that as it may, but like Terry, Gerry himself is a working-class bloke, left school at sixteen, worked as a salesman and in the printing trade where he became a representative for his union, and thence into politics. As a government minister he doesn’t make the kind of money that Terry takes home, and that seems to p**s him off.

Maybe Sutcliffe covets the footballers life, which he should know is very much shorter than the life of the average politician. Sutcliffe’s comment smacks of pure envy, and to call the salary obscene, when he was a member of the British government that joined with the U.S. in the war in Iraq that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, is hypocrisy of the crudest kind. And does he complain about super-rich entertainers, or about J.K. Rowling making billions from pottering about writing fairy tales?

Add fear to the mix, when people suggest that the system in the Premiership is economically unsustainable, and small wonder that there is talk of (among other things) setting salary-caps to keep the fans’ costs down. But the business model that drives foreign acquisition of big clubs is similar to the model for a lot of business take-overs: borrow money to make the acquisition of a thriving business, then use profits to pay down the debt.

You may not like the model, but it is not out of line with normal capitalist maneuvering. It only becomes unsustainable when people refuse to pay to go to games, and even then, the biggest source of income for the Premiership is worldwide television, not tickets. Is it likely that fans won’t pay to go to games? Manchester United increased their ticket-prices, but Old Trafford is still full.

[On Monday I’ll look at the argument about how the Premiership affects the English national team, and whether something should be done about it.]

A few days ago, after a first-round playoff game in MLS between Houston and Dallas, I used a letter from a fan (and referee) to illustrate a weakness in the league policy about officiating. One of the most experienced referees in the league systematically ignored one of his responsibilities for ensuring a fairly-played match for the entertainment of the spectators and for the good of the game.

That performance, as it now becomes clear, came at the start of ten days in which Major League Soccer’s inadequate officiating was embarrassingly exposed for spectators and television viewers to cry over. The assassination of The Beautiful Game continued unabated . . .

The Chicago Fire beat D.C. United on aggregate goals on November 1, after a 2-2 draw in Washington. It was not without controversy, however, for the referee , a full-time official, took no disciplinary action when United goalkeeper tripped Calen Carr at the edge of the penalty-area in the second half. No penalty-kick, no sending off.

The official partially redeemed himself when he sent off a player at the end of the game (94 minutes). Although it was an “easy” decision because the player was from the losing team and will suffer no consequences, it was better than ignoring the offense, as happened in similar circumstances last year.

The Chicago coach, Juan Carlos Osorio, could not stay silent. He said that since he joined the club at mid-season he’s had trouble adjusting to the quality of the officiating in the league. “I just can’t hold it any longer,” Osorio said. “It’s really, really bad. … The one thing I know for a fact we have to improve is the refereeing. Hopefully they will not fine me for saying that.”

Then another fine mess the following night: another of the league’s full-time referees worked the FC Dallas/Houston match on November 2. By the time it was over, eleven players had had their name inscribed in the book: nine cautioned, one sent off for violent conduct, and another sent off on getting his second caution. Twelve acts of misconduct in 120 minutes of play, seven in regulation, five in overtime. Would any spectator enjoy watching such a match?

There is a positive in all this. Three of the cards were for delaying a restart, presumably after the referee or his masters had read my piece complaining about such lack of enforcement. (This site on October 29.) Like those late-night commercials say: “But that’s not all you get!”

On Saturday, Kansas City played Chivas USA in the final game of their series. It ended in a draw and so K.C. went through, but not before some terrible fouls. I could write a long article about this single game, but suffice it to say that the young referee, looking completely shell-shocked by what was going on around him, never got a grip on the proceedings after he allowed play to continue in the 19th minute when a player was floored by a foul-from-behind that left him down and in pain. No foul, no caution, nothing, for an potentially crippling foul for which the laws require that the criminal be sent off.

But there’s more! Later in the game, the referee got a clear view of one player launching himself airborne at an opponent, feet-first, studs raised, impacting the player above the ankle. Known as a “two-footed tackle”, it is hated by players, is an automatic red card in the Premiership in England, but here it resulted in only a caution, presumably for “ungentle conduct”.

Soon I will explain why some of this decision-making comes about.