England's World Cup football disaster

English Football's crisis is just a manifestation of a wider malaise

Dominance by financial interests, quick fixes and cheque-book player acquisition; selfish individualism, big egos and poor teamwork, massive pay for little performance, weak governance and a lack of interest in nurturing indigenous talent.

These are just some of the problems suffered by English football, leading yet again to national World Cup hysteria and wild hopes, followed by inevitable debacle.

This article was written for www.havingtheircake.com nearly four years ago and unfortunately seems to be just as applicable today:

"The takeover of association football club Manchester United by U.S tycoon Malcolm Glazer has sparked off another bout of hand-wringing about the state of the national game. A group of leading authorities and football aficionados has written to national newspapers. This group lambasts the football authorities and the government for a weak and supine attitude to promoting or protecting the nation's favourite sport.

They say: To allow one of the nation's top sporting clubs to be buffeted by the whims of the market demonstrates a failure of leadership and governance by the football authorities, Westminster and Whitehall.....It is ironic that the only sporting regulatory body to investigate this takeover will be the National football League in the USA. The group concludes: The status of football clubs as publicly traded companies has led to people buying into them who have no interest whatsoever in the game.

They have a point - look at the state of football in Britain:

• Cheque-book player development. Buying players, frequently from abroad has diverted funds from the development of younger players.
  The emphasis has moved to transactional, short-term strategies, rather than building a strong game by nurturing and developing talent.
  Consequently top teams frequently appear on the field with few or even no British players. Owing to a lack of local talent, more and more managers and coaches are imported from advanced football nations.
• The overall lack of talent is becoming very evident in international competitions - senior British teams have won nothing of note for decades - and even England under the management of a Swede (who has certainly done better than his British predecessors) shows few signs of reversing this trend.
• Top UK clubs are being purchased by foreign owners. Whilst some demonstrate commitment to the clubs they have purchased, the trend appears to be towards owning clubs for their brand or financial potential, rather than their relationships with their customers, the fans. Top clubs have gone bust as a result of financial wheeler-dealing.
• The game has come to be dominated by rich high-ego 'entrepreneurs' - who want success - and fast.
• Managers are only as good as their last few games. Tenure in management has decreased rapidly. Managers as a class demonstrate high stress leading to ill-health.
• The technical and coaching quality of the British game has trailed foreign competition by a huge margin. Foreign expertise is closing the gap, but there is little sign that indigenous practice is really catching up.
• Smaller clubs are being starved of resources, leading to deterioration and financial failure.
• Larger clubs are traded as assets, customers have little say.

The impacts of this dysfunctional are predictable:

• A lack of trained coaches - Britain has less than 10% of the number of qualified coaches enjoyed by Germany and Spain
• Little opportunity for British youngsters to graduate to top level football - the way is blocked by foreign players bought in by top clubs. For example, Arsenal often turns out a whole team without a British player. Despite the fact that British junior teams do well in international competitions, little of this talent ever reaches the top echelons of the professional game
• Therefore there is a terrible dearth of home-grown talent to supply the national pipeline
• Competition rather than collaboration between the football authorities and the top clubs. The English Football Association is weak and sometimes incompetent, and top clubs, dominated by foreign owners and indigenous rich individualists, take decisions to suit themselves and ignore the national interest. In Germany, clubs have to be registered with the national football association before they can play in a league and this seems to encourage a spirit of collaboration between club and league, ensuring that German youth academies supply the national game with a rich flow of young talent

Meanwhile, business pundits shrug their shoulders and mutter that the financial success of football brands will eventually benefit fans and the game as a whole. One said that money and power will outlast righteous indignation any day.

What a sad story - doesn't it sound familiar?

Here is a sad story of decline, fostered by government inaction, selfish individualism, ineffectual regulatory bodies and increasing dominance by financiers who have little knowledge of the game or long-term commitment towards the enterprises in which they invest.
This corrosive mix leads to short-termism and a lack of investment in the underlying drivers of sustainable performance.
This becomes steadily manifest through a lack of indigenous leadership talent and deterioration in international competitive performance, exacerbated by worship in the media of a few supposed superheroes who it is supposed will work magic.

The people who do have real commitment to the game - the public - are ignored and exploited because they have little immediate power or the requisite wealth to make an impact.
The expected scenario is a breakdown and state of crisis amongst many large clubs and a steady deterioration in the state of smaller ones.
Salvation will only come when the communities and customers that depend on and support the game begin to assert their will and take back significant power from the money men and use it to focus on building the long-term health of the game from the grass-roots up."

This analysis sounds alarmingly familiar. Looking around - isn't a substantial slice of British industry trending the same way? It's not a British football malaise, it's a national trend.

The collapse of the financial and banking system, preceded by a long period of systematic under-investment in developing businesses, relying rather on expanding them by acquisition has led the British economy to a point where is massively dependent on consumer spending and the finance sector.

This has been recognised by many and the new coalition government is now making obeisance's towards growing technology and manufacturing as engines of growth. Trouble is, most ministers seem to have little idea of the scale of the task and exhibit a touching but naïve faith that somehow "the private sector" will spring to the nation's salvation. This is akin to a child-like belief in magic. Partnership and collaboration between government and finance, leading the way to direct support and investment is the only way to regenerate technology and industry.

Other countries know this - it is high time that Britain saw that "the market" will not do it by itself.