Time to wage a war on pay
PALIOS: FOOTBALL MUST CHANGE ... STARTING WITH PLAYER DEALS
FORMER FA supremo Mark Palios is praying that the humiliating climbdown from the 12 rebel clubs will bring about genuine change
At the start of last week, the Tranmere chairman was embarrassed.
Red-faced at the prospect of English clubs leading a European Super League exodus and tearing apart the foundations of a beautiful game that had rarely looked so ugly.
Now, after a week that shamed the sport, Palios (below) admits: “The reality of what football is about, certainly in this country, has come home to roost.
“I’ve said it a few times. To let people who serve Mammon be in charge of sporting integrity is a bit like letting the fox sort out the security arrangements for the hen coop.
“And that is the beginning and end of it.”
The list of football’s ills is a lengthy one, and dates back far beyond last week.
Palios argues that none of them can be solved without first tackling the global wages market.
Like many others, he believes it has run out of control.
He said: “Let me give you an exaggerated example. You have a lad who has come from the docks in Birkenhead or the Brazilian favelas.
“You say to him that you’re going to give him a thousand pounds a week, or £50,000 a year, to be a professional footballer.
“Is he going to be a better player? No. Will he play football professionally? Yes, he will.
“So why do we give him £500,000 a week? People say ‘because we can’.
“But we can’t. We can see that creates the kind of financial damage we’re seeing.
“We need a rectification of the wages market.”
And that can’t be done in isolation.
Meaning that while the
ESL was largely a European venture, the over-inflation of players’ wages is one that needs to be tackled on a global basis.
The greater involvement of supporters and the control of owners who have shown such a blatant disregard for their supporter base should also form part of any review.
And the final part, Palios argues, needs to be a levelling up of the financial playing field from the Premier League down.
“You need to distribute the money so you don’t create the gaps that have existed through our pyramid and were starting to see that happen in Europe too,” he says.
“You need to look at international cooperation. But there’s a concern that whatever happens next, they’ll only look at a local solution.” The 12 clubs that attempted the breakaway were hauled back to reality by the uproar from fans who have rarely felt so alienated and irrelevant.
Whether those wounds will eventually heal remains to be seen. But most supporters’ gripes surrounded the removal of one of sport’s most fundamental elements – ambition.
And the ESL would have taken that and torn it to shreds.
“If these teams had been excluded from the Premier League, just looking here on Merseyside, imagine going in to work on a Monday – you would never play Liverpool, as Everton fans,” he says.
“I’m not a little Englander but these people – the Premier League’s foreign owners – just do not get it.
“For years I’ve believed in the game in this country and now the fans have jumped up and stopped something in its tracks.”
The foxes were licking their chops at the start of the week.
Now, in the reverse of the ageold Chicken Licken tale, they’re licking their wounds – and their sky is falling down.