Burnley going GLOBAL
BURNLEY’S preparations for the arrival of Crystal Palace today have included their new £15million striker sitting across the bridge from the new £10.5m training facility, discussing the prospect of playing against Lionel Messi in a World Cup qualifying match.
Don’t let it be said that they are splashing the money here. This was one of only five Premier League clubs who earned more than they spent in the summer. But Burnley (pop: 73,000) reveal more than most the Premier League’s capacity to create a global awareness of the most improbable places.
Friday lunchtime’s World Cup talk came from New Zealander Chris Wood, whose hat-trick against the Solomon Islands leaves his nation on the verge of a play-off against South America’s fifth best team. If results go well, it will be Argentina. Arrangements were made this week for manager Sean Dyche to take phone calls from New Zealand and Bermuda, whose international Nahki Wells was another late summer signing.
Burnley’s extraordinary opening league win at Chelsea was watched far and wide: in Aracaju, the Brazilian coastal city where Diego Costa saw his side defeated, and Morocco’s Atlas Mountains.
Plugging into the world has taken Burnley some time. When the club were promoted to the top flight in 2014, they beat a path to Singapore but the trip wasn’t an overwhelming success. A more natural ‘overseas’ following has emerged in Ireland, given the nationality of five of the squad – Robbie Brady, Jeff Hendrick, Jon Walters, Stephen Ward and Kevin Long.
The club do not need to rush things, if only they can maintain their presence in the top flight. The £101m TV money which Premier League status has brought Burnley this season will contribute to expected revenues of around £120m, placing them in the next Deloitte list of world football’s 30 biggest earning clubs. They will certainly sit among clubs who have been regular members of the European elite for decades, such as Lyon, Benfica and Napoli. Burnley could even find they are bigger earners than Inter Milan, who earned £123m and were 20th in the last table. This is reward for the club’s faith in Dyche (left) after the side which he had taken up to the top flight in 2014 were immediately relegated. As he awaits a Palace side whose fifth manager in three years, Frank de Boer, could be dismissed on the back of a heavy defeat, Dyche reflected on an impatience from which he is not immune — and to which, he says, fans contribute substantially. ‘We were winning when I first got here,’ he said. ‘But then we had a really poor period, and I was getting booed off every week. The club at that time could see the bigger picture. I was allowed a bit more time than maybe others would be allowed, because we were slightly under the radar in the Championship.’
The longer view is hard to find. Dyche will chalk up five years as Burnley manager next month. Only six managers in the entire Premier and Football League pyramid have been at their clubs for longer.
He did not dismiss the notion of a transfer window for managers — clubs being forced to stick by the one they start the season with in all but exceptional circumstances — even though the idea is improbable. ‘It would give a tolerance level, and everyone would know the tolerance level,’ he said.
Dyche has no illusions about his own shelf life. Huddersfield chairman Dean Hoyle spoke last month about the change which he imagines comes when you’ve survived perhaps four seasons in the top division. ‘Fans are no longer happy with you just being a Premiership club,’ he said. ‘They want you to push on. Then maybe things go wrong, maybe there’s a change of ownership, change of manager, you lose your best player, and you fall through the trap door and you’re over-financed.’
It’s only year two for Burnley and for now modest signature statements of their new global status will do: the training facility, a £1.5m media centre and new offices, taking capital spend to around £17m.
They’ve had an honours board in the foyer for years, listing all players who gain an international cap, though it had barely been added to since the Leighton James days.
Now, the Irish, Icelandic, Belgian and England internationals have rendered it too small for purpose. They recently took it down, bought a bigger board and embossed all the names on that instead.