If Liverpool win the Quad they will have turned over the egg timer on the birth of another super league ... and the death of our football pyramid STAN COLLYMORE
ENJOY it while you can, folks!
An exciting and climactic finale to the campaign awaits us all this afternoon – a frantic 90 minutes in which the destination of the Premier League title will be decided.
Manchester City are the hot favourites on their own patch against Aston Villa – while Liverpool will be aiming to complete the third leg of a historic Quadruple, if Pep Guardiola’s side slip up, with victory over Wolves.
Everyone of a Red persuasion will jump up and down if it happens – but mark my words. If the Reds triumph this afternoon and go on to lift the Champions League crown against Real Madrid next week, it will be the beginning of the end for English football.
Hated
It will open the door to the hated European Super League again – or even global competition.
Because, once this glass ceiling is broken – the Quadruple – what do you think the suits at these monster clubs are going to do? Will they sit in boardrooms and pat themselves on the back – or will they look at the next money-making venture?
What do you think?
They will be dreaming up new ways to maximise the cash they’re bringing into their clubs – and the English football pyramid will be swept away in a tsunami of money.
We’re already part of the way here. The big clubs are getting wealthier. The competition in the Premier League is getting weaker.
We are reaching the tipping point.
Look at the goals scored and points earned.
The Premier League is going to lose its sheen if teams are racking up 100 points and 100 goals, year in, year out.
Huge
You cannot have a competition if clubs at the top are losing two matches per season and the one at the bottom is losing 20.
It’s not sustainable.
During the 70s, the number of clubs that could win the title was huge.
Nottingham Forest came out of the
Second Division and won the title 12 months later. The financial difference between the clubs wasn’t as great.
There was competition – and don’t throw Leicester City at me – odds of 5,000-1 show that was a footballing fairy-tale, which won’t be repeated.
It’s absolutely guaranteed that the club which pays the biggest wages is pretty much guaranteed to win the Premier League or be thereabouts.
And, ultimately, that will decide success. The pool of clubs being able to offer the biggest wage is becoming smaller by the season.
Mopping up a Quadruple is great.
But if this is done five times in the next 12 years, the sheen is going to wear off.
All Liverpool and Manchester City are doing – along with the giant Spanish clubs as well as Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-germain – is creating an environment where it becomes increasingly inevitable that winning several competitions in the same campaign will happen again.
A lack of competition is generated.
Look at Real Madrid and Barcelona. They figured this out years ago. That’s why they can negotiate their own television deals.
Monster
They aren’t getting pushed by Getafe or Levante.
Why should Manchester City bother playing Norwich City?
They will earn much more playing AC Milan.
And why stop there?
These monster clubs could end up being kings of the world. Bring in Boca Juniors, New York City FC, River Plate, Flamengo or Corinthians – and let’s see how we get on. The healthiest outcome for this season would have been for City to win the Premier League, Liverpool to win the Champions League, Brighton the FA Cup and Leeds the League Cup.
That hasn’t happened.
I hope the excitement generated this afternoon is remembered as being the very essence of English football.
If Manchester City win, well done, they deserve it.
If Liverpool do, wow, one game away from the Quadruple.
But if the Reds can pull themselves over the line, to my mind, all they’ve done is turn over the egg timer to the start of the European – or global – super league.
Amid all the joy and celebration, that’s surely something none of us who care about the health of English football want to see.