James Shield's Sheffield United Column: Recent events have busted a big myth about the Premier League and its leaders
Eleven months ago, as Sheffield United began celebrating their return to the Premier League, we were told they were entering a billionaire’s playground where folk could hardly take a step without snagging their expensively tailored clothes on a magic money tree.
Spin doctors and PR executives like to portray the competition as one of the world’s most prestigious sporting brands and successful businesses. So I’m confused, as thousands of low paid staff either laid-off or placed into furlough by member clubs doubtless are too, why less than a month after its season was mothballed because of the coronavirus crisis, teams whose turnovers could clear the debt of some third world countries are apparently in such dire financial straits they feel compelled to take advantage of government worker retention schemes less than a month after the fixture calendar ground to a halt. Either the image we were sold was a load of old cobblers or those responsible for running it are not quite as savvy as they often paint themselves. Possibly even both. No institution in receipt of hundreds of millions pounds a year should ever, no matter what the so-called experts say, find itself so quickly exposed in times of crisis.
The fact English football’s powerbrokers seem utterly oblivious to the damage their dithering over the issue of wage cuts and deferrals for players themselves has caused to the way their flagship division is perceived by the public, many of whom are already suffering extreme hardship, smacks of incompetence.
Even if they don’t give a stuff for the likes of you and I, those responsible for running the game should have spotted the chance to repair their community credentials long before tomorrow’s expected announcement that measures are finally being pushed through. The PFA, the professional footballers’ union, has also been asked to shoulder its share of responsibility for a situation which, this week, promoted the chair of Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee to claim football was operating in a “moral vacuum” over the issue.
“It sticks in the throat,” Julian Knight MP, said. “This exposes the crazy economics in English football and the moral vacuum at its centre.”
With Tottenham Hotspur effectively asking the taxpayer to pay many of its employees wages on the same day it emerged their chairman pocketed £7m last year, with Newcastle doing the same while Steve Bruce’s squad continue to receive their full unsubsidised amounts, it is impossible to accuse the honourable gentleman of grandstanding.
Criticism of the PFA, however, must be tempered because its priority is its members. Instead, those with a wider brief must come under the spotlight for not tackling this issue before deciding often minimum wage pay packets seemingly represent, given they addressed these first, the greatest threat to the existence of England’s leading and richest clubs.
Although some managers and players have already taken voluntary decisions to either forgo or delay some of their earnings, those who haven’t should not be subject to personal criticism. Football is governed by ruling bodies tasked with representing individuals working within it.
Recent events smack of poor leadership, fibre and awareness at the very top. Together, if the PL really is teetering on the edge of a precipice rather than being guilty of flagrant opportunism, a shortage of the acumen and foresight required, given the millions sloshing through it, to build a more robust business model.
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