“I’ll get some stick over this” smugs Frank Kane over his provocative “harsh realities” in yesterday’s Observer. Will any suckers bite? Chomp, chomp.
Passing over the half-truths (he should read the chapter in here about Louis Edwards’s acquisition of Manchester United) I couldn’t help but gag on his Pangloss impression:
“Glazer’s audacious move is the start of the second revolution in British football – after the setting up of the Premier League – but it will be much more traumatic and long-lasting. At the end of the day, it will be good for the game, and for business.”
He’s likely right about the second revolution in English football, and if so it certainly will be traumatic. But his airy assumption that breaking apart collective bargaining will be “for the good of the game” beggars belief. Maybe there’s a case to be made, and if there is I’d like to hear it. Kane’s assertion is empty and crass.
The foundation of the Premiership has brought some good things to the game but the FA’s inability to manage the power of the larger clubs has brought huge problems, which I won’t rehearse here because they’re obvious but which you can read lots more about if you’d like. If the clubs, inspired by Glazer, are to smash apart any last vestige of distributing TV money then we can only assume they will happily keep making things worse, as long as the mony keeps growing. At present, the only benefits suggested are mainly flowing in the direction of the Glazers.
It’s tempting (especially if you support a financially-knackered tiny club, as I do) to pay no attantion to the Glazer take-over at Man U: this die was perhaps cast the day they converted to PLC status to raise money to build a new stand, and it seems entirely possible to me that Manchester United aree about to embark on yet another era of on-field success. But I don’t want English football to be ripped apart again, its hierarchies to be stretched further, and ever more painfully. Bless the Manchester United fans who feel the same way.
Enraged, I had to write.