Failure is fine, it’s ambition that’s a crime
(So say the Football League)
Chris Coleman has not spoken to the owner of sunderland and neither, it seems, has the Football league. Failure is fine; it’s success they want to investigate.
The eFl have concluded their probe into the relationship between Wolverhampton Wanderers, its owners Fosun international and the agent Jorge mendes, with the conclusion there is no case to answer.
it is hard to see how they could have done otherwise, without having a title race that ended in a courtroom some time in 2020, so this was hardly unexpected.
it turns out mendes is not a ‘ relevant person’ at Wolves despite Fosun having a share in his agency Gestifute, which in turn represents their coach nuno espirito santo and several of the best players.
Wolves may have to jump further hoops on arrival in the Premier league — certainly when some of their more scared and useless rivals realise they are unlikely to be relegation fodder — but, for now, the crisis is over. The one at sunderland, meanwhile, seems never-ending.
Coleman got Wales to the semi-final of the 2016 european Championship, but he could not keep sunderland up. he was appointed on november 17 last year and says he is yet to have a conversation with the owner, ellis short, who is tired of investing and now appears to be in denial that the club exists.
even the Premier league’s parachute payments do not insure against such shameful neglect and sunderland are the first since Wolves in 2013 to fall straight through the top two divisions. The Football league didn’t ask questions then, either.
it is only when a club is successful that they get called before the beak.
By the time next season starts with a fixture list giving sunderland a highly likely inaugural meeting with Fleetwood Town, and maybe rochdale too, plus a first game against accrington stanley since 1894, the top tier of the much-acclaimed stadium of light will be closed.
it is not just short who has lost interest.
sunderland’s average attendance may still be the fourth highest in the Championship this season but it is 27,598 — some 13,689 down on their Premier league gates last year.
The fans aren’t coming and who can blame them? in the whole of 2017, sunderland led at home for 20 minutes.
so far, in 2018, it is 187 minutes. an improvement.
Yet two of the games in which they led were drawn, and one ended in defeat. only against hull, on January 20, when Joel asoro scored and sunderland held on for 70 minutes to win 1-0, will the fans have been allowed sustained gratification.
The average wage in league one is around £2,000-a-week, but next season sunderland will have Jack rodwell on £44,000 and others not far behind.
sunderland’s executives never envisaged league one. many players had their wages cut by 40 per cent on falling out of the Premier league but, beyond that, no provision is made.
so they stay on Championship money in the league below. sunderland’s wage bill this season is £35million. even if they have a fire sale of players they will be paying far in excess of others in their division — including an annual £8m interest payment on a debt of £68m to security Bank Capital. only then might short
get a call from the Football League with its insistence on financial fair play.
there is nothing the EFL like doing more than kicking an ambitious club when it is down. Queens Park Rangers invested in a doomed attempt to preserve their Premier League place, meaning wages and expenditure were out of kilter with a Championship existence.
That made no difference to the league who pursued them over FFP anyway, as if this was some Machiavellian grand plan, not a series of poor executive decisions.
Wolves admit that if they had not been promoted, they may have fallen foul of FFP rules. So let’s say their ambitions had gone the way of Birmingham. they would already be suffering under the weight of expensive failure — and then the League swoop in with talk of fines in tens of millions. Ambition, that’s the crime.
Don’t try, don’t invest, go up to come straight back down. Better still, drop out, as venture capitalist Short has from his home in Florida.
Coleman said he had thought of door-stepping him, just turning up out of the blue, but the League would never be so bold. What can they do? there are no rules to govern running a club badly. Short was in graver danger of getting his collar felt when he invested £200m.
Not including loans, Sunderland have bought 80 players in Short’s time, but sold just six for a profit. they will still be due a parachute payment of £35m, even next season, so may comply with the Football League’s fiscal demands.
Yet, if they do not, Short will have to justify meeting expensive financial obligations, having been blithely allowed to let the club drift towards obscurity.
the League will argue what can it do? there is no fit and proper test that can guarantee a club is run successfully or ensures the owner remains engaged.
As long as executive actions are legal, there are no rules to stop Short letting Sunderland fall into the North Sea.
Yet isn’t that the problem? When torpor is made to appear more acceptable than ambition, isn’t this always going to be the result?