FA Premiership questions

April 6, 2006 10:24 AM

PremiershipFilter: Does the FA Premiership have salary caps on teams? If not, is there a sense of competitive imbalance, whereby fans of like Middlesbrough feel that their team will never be able to compete with the likes of Man United?

Also, does the Premiership do any kind of steroid testing? Has there ever been a roids scandal such as there is in US baseball? Lastly, what's widely considered more important- the league title, the EU cup, the Champion's League, or what? All of them on the same footing as far as fans are concerned?

Just an American very curious about what seems like one of the most intriguing sports league in the world.

posted by xmutex to sports, hobbies, & recreation (27 comments total)

1. There is no salary cap. Teams are definitely not balanced competetively. As well, teams can buy players' rights, essentially buying a team. The most recent example would be Chelsea FC, who were recently bought by Roman Abramovitch, a Russian billionaire. He has spent upwards of 250M Pounds on players in the last few years (not including salary), changing the state of the game considerably.

2. There is definitely testing. While not completely sure of the specifics, Rio Ferdinand, an England and Manchester United player, and once the most expensive defenseman in the world, was banned from all football for almost a year for failing to show up at a test. As well another player was recently banned for testing positive for steroids.

3. Historically, the League and the FA Cup have been the two big ones. Recently, however, the Champions League has definitely overtaken the FA Cup in importance, and the League as well in the minds of some.
posted by sauril at 10:32 AM on April 6, 2006

Is the Carling Cup given to the league winner (by virtue of points) or is that awarded to the FA Cup winner?
posted by xmutex at 10:36 AM on April 6, 2006

Oh- and has the sense of competitive imbalance over the years seemed to dampen the enthusiasm of fans?
posted by xmutex at 10:36 AM on April 6, 2006

I don't think steroids are widespread in football, recreational drugs are more of a problem. Adrian Mutu is a player who tested positive for cocaine recently. He was fined, temporarily banned from football, and sold by Chelsea. Now plays for Juventus.
posted by fire&wings at 10:37 AM on April 6, 2006

(should have previewed...sorry)

Another difference wrt to salary caps and the like, is the fact that there is more than one high quality league. Spain's La Ligua and Italy's Serie A are considered at least as good and perhaps better than the Premiership. And that's not even including quality teams from other league like Germany's Bayern Munich. So any effort to impose a salary cap would have to include all the top leagues, or else all the best players would simply leave.

One more difference compared to North American sports is the concept of promotion and relegation. Theoretically, anyone can enter a team at the lowest level, and move up leagues if they keep winning. Eventually to the Premiership.

Hope this all helps.

On Preview - The Carling Cup is a seperate competition open to anyone in the Football League (currently The Premiership, the Championship, League One and League Two). The FA cup on the other hand is open to any team in England.
posted by sauril at 10:38 AM on April 6, 2006

There are no salary caps on teams. It is pure, unfettered capitalism. Players go to the biggest clubs with the highest wages and there are huge imbalances. It is a fact of life that a player like Shaun Wright Phillips (formerly of Manchester City now at Chelsea) went in a transfer of about £20m plus and went from being the lynchpin of the team to a substitute. This breeds a lot of resentment among some of the smaller clubs.

The Premiership does drug testing (in fact I think it is UEFA or FIFA sanctioned, European governing body and world governing body respectively). I believe Jaap Stam and Edgar Davids (when they was playing in Serie A in Italy) were caught using nandralone and faced bans.

There is a great deal of debate about what is the most prestigious trophy. Some would argue the Premiership as far as domestic leagues go (most exciting, less technical than some other leagues) whereas others would say Spain's La Liga is the best. That is if you are comparing national league against national league.

If you compare the FA Cup against the Premiership then it is arguable that the Premiership is more prestigious.

The Champions League is generally viewed as the most prestigious club tournament in the world and features the big clubs from across the continent but in some countries it is not as important as domestic success (eg Italy- it is more important to win the domestic league than the Champs League). In England, the Champs League is seen as the most prestigious tournament.

This is all about club football. We haven't even discussed internationals yet...

These topics regarding prestige make up the basis of thousands of conversations at the pub every day and some people will make a convincing argument which runs counter to pretty much everything I have just said.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 10:46 AM on April 6, 2006

I too should have previewed.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 10:47 AM on April 6, 2006

no- thanks for chiming in ClanvidHorse. I appreciate all thoughts. Consider this thread a virtual pub :)
posted by xmutex at 10:59 AM on April 6, 2006

Just chiming in to say that it's great to see another American as interested in EPL football as our family is!
posted by Emperor Yamamoto's Eggs at 11:02 AM on April 6, 2006

I knew nothing of European club football until I started playing Championship manager (now Football manager). An amazing footie sim, that, I understand, is the most popular computer game in Europe. Every player, around the world, every league, every tourney, every semi-pro league, all the international teams, just amazing. All the rules and elements of the game are there, include transfers, loans, promotion, relegation, contract negotiations, reserve squads, under-18 teams, tv contracts, scouting, and fully watchable little game simulations, with little dots following your (very detailed) tactics. Play a season or two of that and you'll get it all. I play online against a buddy, and am totally addicted. I can barely watch North American sports these days (except baseball!).
posted by loquax at 11:09 AM on April 6, 2006

The other part of the Carling cup question: The Premiership title is indeed awarded to the team with most points at the end of the season; there are no playoffs.

Steroids have not been regarded as a problem in English football. There has been systematic use of them in Italian football, which has been blamed for the premature deaths of 70+ players.

Chelsea have been using some controversial techniques such as 'spinning' (collecting players' blood cells to put back in them before a match).
posted by nowonmai at 11:12 AM on April 6, 2006

It is a fact of life that a player like Shaun Wright Phillips (formerly of Manchester City now at Chelsea) went in a transfer of about £20m plus and went from being the lynchpin of the team to a substitute.

And was also a very bad career move for him, because at a time when he needs to be in the spotlight to be chosen for the England squad in the World Cup, he's lucky to play half a game a week for Chelsea. Had he stayed at Manchester City, he'd probably have played almost every game, and been in the forefront of available English strikers.
posted by essexjan at 11:28 AM on April 6, 2006

The sense of competitive imbalance is utterly ingrained in the Premiership such that at the start of the season there are almost mini sub-leagues within it. The talking points over the season will be clubs that perform better or worse than would be expected from their mini-league. (This is overly formal and clubs often do better or worse than expected but you get the idea the stratification is clear).

So you'll hear managers, players and pundits talk about "number one goal being to avoid the drop" (avoid relegation) or "we could really push for a European place" (be placed high enough - approx top 6 - to go through to one of the European-wide club competitions). Only three or four clubs have winning the premiership as a goal on day one of the season, and that number falls over the season.
posted by patricio at 11:42 AM on April 6, 2006

Does a player have the right to refuse/accept a transfer or is it solely the club's decision?
posted by xmutex at 11:42 AM on April 6, 2006

As I understand it, a player can refuse to sign a contract with the new club, negating the transfer. Not sure what the specific rules are though. See Beckham, David. I guess it's like waiving your no-trade in exchange for a contract extension, or having your club option year picked up.

See the Bosman Ruling (the Curt Flood ruling of soccer) too.
posted by loquax at 11:57 AM on April 6, 2006

I've always found it fascinating that the European sports leagues represent pure market capitalism, while the American sports leagues are uniformly socialistic. The difference is almost certainly because American sports leagues are monopolies, while the European football leagues have to compete with one another. Any attempt to cap salaries or smooth competition would send the best players elsewhere.

The fact that the best British player plays in the Spanish league is pretty good evidence of the relative prestige of the two, but the new money influx for Manchester United and Chelsea may change the dynamics.

I second the recommendation for Football Manager, which puts just about every American sports simulation game to shame.

Anyway, the answer is that fans accept the competitive imbalance, and the goal of a season is to perform better than expected in the Premiership, League Cup, and FA Cup given the resources of the club. Best analogy is to "Cinderella" teams in American college basketball: noone expects George Mason to win the championship, and everyone's very excited when they surprise people and make it as far as the Sweet Sixteen (much less the Final Four), while anything less than a championship is a disappointment for Duke or Connecticut.
posted by commander_cool at 12:12 PM on April 6, 2006

I've always found it fascinating that the European sports leagues represent pure market capitalism, while the American sports leagues are uniformly socialistic. The difference is almost certainly because American sports leagues are monopolies, while the European football leagues have to compete with one another.

I've always found this interesting, too, especially (as I understand it) as it was basically caused by the Bosman ruling, which flows from EU labour rights, yes?
posted by docgonzo at 12:27 PM on April 6, 2006

Well, Bosman only dealt with player transfers and free agency (and yes, it did come from Europe's Court of Justice). The leagues themselves were "capitalist" before that in terms of relegation and promotion, starting new teams, and so on. I think the difference is that North American "leagues" are not organizations that exist for the "good of the game", but really just owner's organizations that exist to maximize profit. This is accomplished by giving yourself a monopoly over the product of "hockey" or "baseball". FIFA or UEFA are not the same thing at all, and exist to manage football and create a level playing field rather than simply marketing the game for the owners. Or, put another way, there is far more financial benefit/loss to winning/losing matches in soccer than there is in North American leagues, which creates a more competitive environment. The Kansas City Royals would have been relegated long ago...
posted by loquax at 12:43 PM on April 6, 2006

David Beckham is the highest profile player possibly globally and England captain, but most armchair pundits (of which I am a mediocre one) wouldn't rate him as the best player from England and perhaps not even want him in the 1st eleven at all. But he must have some incriminating pics of the England manager who will never ever ever drop him.

Related to the Bosman thing,
1. No the Bosman turned the advantage to the player, previously a club owned the player almost like a slave. If he didn't want to play for them (or they didn't want to play him), they could just let him rot and not let him play elsewhere regardless of when his contract expired. But the richest clubs nearly ALWAYS got the best players one way or another, no change there, it's changed the balance but against the poorer clubs who now often have a weaker bargaining position when a rich club winks at one of their players.

2. Michael Owen only had a year left on his contract and joined Real Madrid from Liverpool for approx £7m, he then got sold after a season to Newcastle for approx £18m, Real made a nice profit for paying his hotel bills + salary for a year.

His low value initially was due to his contract expiring in 12mths time, had he waited it out, he could have left for a FREE transfer then and received a much bigger signing on fee from his new club. His high (£18m) value was partly due to him still having like 3+yrs left on his new Real Madrid contract... and also Newcastle having the financial negotiating skills of a new tourist in a Bazaar.

Transfers are rarely very public, so there's additional agents fees often involved (running up to high 6 figures). Manchester United used to publish on the net all their transfer dealings/agents fees/backhanders etc. But now they're Glazerfied, I guess that will stop.

I seem to remember that Pina Zahavi got paid £1m by Manchester United for going to Mohammed al Fayed and persuading him to accept £12m for Louis Saha.
posted by selton at 12:45 PM on April 6, 2006

In England, the order of prestige seems to be:

Champions League
Domestic league (these top two tend to flipflop depending on who you ask - without domestic league success, a team can't be in the CL, so I tend to value the domestic league more)
FA Cup
League Cup (currently Carling Cup, it's had about a million names)

Used to be, the FA Cup was the most prestigious, but it's slipped in the last few years because there's no real money in it; success in the Premiership determines where a team plays in the European cup system (the top four finishers in the Premiership play in the Champions League, the next two play in the lower-level UEFA Cup).

The FA Cup and Carling Cup are like season-long NCAA basketball tournaments; they're single elimination tournaments in which any team that plays professional football in England can compete (there's 92 of them across four divisions). The main difference between the cups and the NCAA's is that the draw is held after every round, so a team doesn't know who they will play until all of the current round's games are finished.

The cups are conducted alongside the regular Premier League season and have no bearing on that regular season.
posted by pdb at 1:15 PM on April 6, 2006

xmutex:
Funny you should mention Middlesborough......
They just had an astonishing result in the Champions League, match just finished.
posted by dash_slot- at 2:17 PM on April 6, 2006

David Beckham is a reasonably good player (at the highest level) but he is not a great. When he was at ManUtd he usually played second fiddle to the likes of Scholes and Keane. The one-man corporate megamerchandisingmachine is something else (and I suspect that was the main reason that Perez got him for Madrid) not for his ability to cross (which he is admittedly very good at).

I would advise anyone to watch La Liga before the Premiership. It is fast, very technical and is usually played along the deck. The only thing that lets it down is not on the pitch- its the racist chanting which is aimed at black players. The Spanish FA dont take the issue seriously and usually only dole out miniscule fines under pressure from UEFA.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 2:27 PM on April 6, 2006

pdb: the FA Cup is also open to non-league teams, and has provided some classic David and Goliath matches, where some team of part-timers goes up against a Manchester United or Liverpool...
posted by sauril at 2:58 PM on April 6, 2006

sauril - as an Arsenal fan, I block the name Wrexham from my memory while acknowledging that you're indeed correct.
posted by pdb at 3:12 PM on April 6, 2006

I know Wrexham was (is) a league side, but they were in the lowest division at the time...
posted by pdb at 3:13 PM on April 6, 2006

Funny you should mention Middlesborough......
They just had an astonishing result in the Champions League, match just finished.

Minor nit: UEFA Cup, not Champions League. Still, quite a result, considering they had to overcome a 2-0 deficit from the first leg and an early away goal in this leg. After some of the league spankings they've taken this year (7-0 to the Arsenal!), I wouldn't have thought they had it in them.

pdb: Good on you. As a Gunner in Seattle, I find your blog especially pertinent, although I am an indifferent viewer of baseball at best.
posted by Errant at 3:47 PM on April 6, 2006

(warning: Football Manager is known to break up marriages.)

Competitive imbalance is just the way it is. After watching my beloved Liverpool completely annihilate Birmingham 7-0 in a recent FA Cup match, my husband (a Gillingham fan, currently struggling in League 1) turned to me and asked "What's it like? Winning by that much?" He'll never see Gillingham do that, most likely. The cup competitions mirror this too - all the smaller clubs want to do is get to the third round and draw a big Premiership team away. Games like that have kept small poor clubs afloat in the past, just on the gate takings.

As a side note, it isn't entirely about money. Newcastle have plenty of financial clout (see the ridiculous price paid for Owen - would've loved to see him back, but not at that price) but consistently fail to succeed. Real Madrid are another example, lately. Chelsea were decidedly mediocre (for an upper-tier Prem team) before their cash injection, but along with the cash came arguably the world's best club manager, and the likes of Lampard and Terry were already there.

I'm entirely fascinated with how people choose a team to support, especially when there's no local allegiance. Also how once the team is chosen, that's it and there's no swapping. I met a Norwegian QPR fan recently who chose them because he just liked the name. Anyone care to share? (I began watching NFL at the start of last season and chose the Steelers because of a friend from Pennsylvania. That worked out well)
posted by corvine at 5:32 AM on April 7, 2006