CHAMPIONSHIP IS A CESSPIT OF MADNESS
THE most dismal sight of the weekend was Derby and Sheffield Wednesday scrapping to survive in the Championship at Pride Park.
The football was rudimentary, the desperation naked. And all the while it was apt to recall what EFL chairman Rick Parry told a Government committee a year ago, not long after Covid-19 had shut down our game.
‘We need to address long-term financial issues,’ said Parry. ‘We need a plan. We need clarity. We can’t go from one bailout to another. We need to reassess the structure root and branch.’
It sounded very dramatic but was also representative of the truth. Almost as soon as Parry had finished his Zoom call to the DCMS committee, a chief executive of a big club told me: ‘The Championship is the most dangerous and irresponsible environment in European football.
‘It’s packed full of clubs chasing promotion to the Premier League on the back of money they don’t have. Those who get promoted can take a breath. The rest just try not to drown.’
Saturday at Derby was a snapshot of this. Few clubs reflect better the madness of life a rung beneath the Premier League than Derby and Wednesday.
They have lost five times in the play- offs between them since 2015. They have chased the dream hard and lost.
Wage bills became unsustainable while attempts to circumnavigate financial boundaries, designed in part to protect clubs from themselves, have brought them into conflict with the EFL.
Derby, who couldn’t pay their players on time in January and February, are still awaiting the outcome of one investigation. Wednesday, meanwhile, went down on Saturday because of a six-point deduction for trying to shift profits from the sale of Hillsborough from one accounting year to the next.
It is all so murky and embarrassing.
Some fine football men have worked at these clubs. Jim Smith and Arthur Cox at Derby; Jack Charlton and Howard Wilkinson at Wednesday. We can only imagine what they would think of it all.
What’s sad is that these clubs are not alone. While we know why clubs lust so brazenly after promotion, that does not excuse it.
Football clubs do not exist only to win. They are also there to represent communities. When Derby and Wednesday fans look at their clubs now, what do they see? Little to be proud of, for sure. It was Derby who finished up the right side of the dreaded dotted line. Rotherham and Wycombe, with the two lowest wage bills in the Championship, pushed them all the way. At full time, a few Derby fans celebrated outside, but it was hard not to pity them. Yet another attempted takeover of their club is in the offing, but how confident can they really be of significant change? Parry was right a year ago. The Championship does need to drastically change, but will it? There were a lot of grand words spoken by a lot of grand people as football gasped for air last summer. Now the pandemic is on the retreat and clubs can start to plan for the return of paying spectators, it is very possible those promises to re- evaluate, recalibrate and reset will disappear into thin air. Proposals for a European Super League were shot down last month amid accusations that our top clubs do not care for the football pyramid that lies beneath. Rightly so. But why should the Premier League be expected to care for the pyramid if the pyramid shows no signs of caring for itself?