Like what you've read?

On Line Opinion is the only Australian site where you get all sides of the story. We don't
charge, but we need your support. Here�s how you can help.

  • Advertise

    We have a monthly audience of 70,000 and advertising packages from $200 a month.

  • Volunteer

    We always need commissioning editors and sub-editors.

  • Contribute

    Got something to say? Submit an essay.


 The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
On Line Opinion logo ON LINE OPINION - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate

Subscribe!
Subscribe





On Line Opinion is a not-for-profit publication and relies on the generosity of its sponsors, editors and contributors. If you would like to help, contact us.
___________

Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Leicester City FC and the English Premier League

By Dennis Loughrey - posted Wednesday, 25 May 2016


Leicester City has won the English Premier League this season. It has never won the league before. This time, though,it had Claudio Ranieri as its manager, and he has developed some very good players - Vardy, Mahrez, Schmeichel, and others. Not every team has this sort of quality.

For that matter, not every team has featured in a novel by Julian Barnes. Leicester has. The novel is The History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters, in which Barnes's narrator wakes up in heaven, in which everyone gets exactly what they want. Now, it turns out that what this narrator wants is that Leicester City wins the FA Cup final. Later, this turns into a desire actually to play - and to score the winning goal - for Leicester in the Cup final.

Why not a desire that Leicester win the league? Perhaps this points to a lack of imagination on the part of Barnes's narrator. There is another explanation. TheHistory was published in 1989, before the formation of the EPL. At that time, the FA Cup was still considered extremely prestigious. It is no longer so. Now only the smaller clubs - such as Crystal Palace - care about the cup. The bigger clubs' main focus is the league. What has happened?

Advertisement

Well, I watch English football from the outside, from afar and on a screen, so my view has gaps in it. Nonetheless, it is easy to see that, since the advent of the EPL, the large sums of money paid for TV rights have meant that football has become part of big media. The money has also led to high wages being demanded by the top players. At the same time, the TV money has tended to flow unevenly to the clubs themselves, rewarding those teams that do better each season. One implication of this structure is that clubs cannot afford to put resources into the FA Cup, thereby increasing the prestige of the EPL. Another implication is that only a small circle of elite clubs can afford the best players, thereby reinforcing the status quo.

This financial advantage reveals itself in the league table. Since the formation of the EPL, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City have between them won over 90 per cent of the league titles (Manchester United themselves have won over half of them). This is not exactly a dynamic, unpredictable state of affairs. This is the usual suspects.

This season, though, has been different.Leicester Citywere 5000 to 1 with bookmakers at the beginning of the season. Is it possible to have a Leicester City every season, to see an EPL that is more evenly matched, exciting and unpredictable? The media logic of the EPL makes such change hard to believe in.

Yet this view is challenged by Thomas Hastings's 'Behind the unpredictable Premier League year that put Leicester top of the pile' in The Conversation. Hastings argues that 'the potential for such seasons to emerge again should remain intact.' Hastings discerns a trend towards a more even distribution of quality players across the teams in the top flight. To explain this, Hastings points to recent initiatives such as the Elite Player Performance Plan, which gives clubs an incentive to scout for local players, and to practices such as Moneyball-style statistical techniques, whereby clubs have acquired the ability to uncover talented new players. If Hastings's claims are correct, then the EPL of the future could well be a more evenly matched competition that is thrilling and unpredictable.

To Hastings's claims, we can add another. Andy Ruddock's Youth and Media contains an argument for the importance of E.P. Thompson's work, particularly The Making of the English Working Class, in understanding today's media. Thompson's treatment of the Methodist church during the Industrial Revolution is particularly salient.

Methodism promoted the idea of accepting one's lot in life by teaching people from a young age that they were sinners and therefore deserved it. Likewise, since its establishment in the 1990s, theEPL has represented a stable football order in which any change seems very remote indeed. We all have to accept our lot in life, at least as far as football is concerned, perhaps in other aspects of life as well. The EPL is a kind of sporting Methodism. And it is not only the EPL. Football was staid, ordered and predictable in the years of the First Division, and I suspect that was one reason that BSkyB bought the broadcast rights. The flow of broadcast funds has entrenched this order.

Advertisement

Back to Thompson. In Thompson's view, an unintentional byproduct of Methodism's strict approach was to create a space where people could come together and discuss their situations. As Andy Ruddock puts it, Methodists were not only exploited, they also had 'a medium to express that exploitation in a way that demanded radical reform'.

For Thompson, then, Methodism unintentionally engendered a political movement. I think that in the EPL, as in Methodism, change is possible. My analogy is not along the political dimension of Thompson so much as along another dimension of social change, another measure of personal and collective worth. In the case of the EPL, I think, a space exists in clubs in which fans can develop in new and experimental ways, and can produce change.

Here are two examples.

Firstly, there are fanzines. Many fanzines have been club based, often to the horror of club directors. Some, such as When Saturday Comes, cover the whole game. Either way, they have been a radical force, entering the political fray on behalf of the fans themselves. Unfortunately, they are currently in decline. But it is quite possible that fanzines, perhaps in a more technological media guise - podcasts, blogs, video - will rise again to challenge the excesses of the boardrooms.

Secondly, there is Football Manager, the game formerly known as Championship Manager. This game has increased fans' knowledge of the value of players, and of the financing, economics and logistics of the football business in general. Fans are smarter as a result of Football Manager. And a smarter audience can bring the best out of the actors on the stage. Clubs are businesses, yet they are influenced by their fans, all the more so when those fans are self-organised and informed.

The dark arts of Football Manager have also spread to the clubs themselves. A fascinating Guardian article by Simon Parkin cites top-flight players who play - and are influenced by - Football Manager. In addition, Parkin writes, real-world clubs and managers have taken up Football Manager, not only to use its huge data base, but also to develop additional football know how. This is particularly helpful for those clubs outside the elite group. They have less money from TV rights, and therefore need to make it count.

For football clubs and fans alike, knowledge of the logistics of football is taking on a new importance, increasing the chances that this season will not turn out to be an exception.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All


Discuss in our Forums

See what other readers are saying about this article!

Click here to read & post comments.

3 posts so far.

Share this:
reddit this reddit thisbookmark with del.icio.us Del.icio.usdigg thisseed newsvineSeed NewsvineStumbleUpon StumbleUponsubmit to propellerkwoff it

About the Author

Dennis Loughrey teaches media studies at Monash University.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Article Tools
Comment 3 comments
Print Printable version
Subscribe Subscribe
Email Email a friend
Advertisement

About Us Search Discuss Feedback Legals Privacy