The bigger English football gets, the further away from us it goes. The English game has consciously been trying to shed its working class base for the past decade and the trend for the next few years will be even more exclusionary as pay-per-view television finds a more refined method of getting your money into football's bulging pocket. If it's still your money they are after. One suspects that football would like its games to be occasions where the upper middle classes gather to applaud the athletic deeds of millionaires.
It would be reassuring to think that while your favourites are driving past you in their sports cars, on their way home to their grand-gated communities, that there was at least some fairness or inherent wisdom in the manner in which your money gets spent once you hand it over. There's not.
Football takes and it spends like a ruined addict. According to the sober people at Deloitte-Touche, after transfer costs, profits on sale of players, and finance costs, English clubs' overall pre-tax loss more than doubled to £145million in the 1999/2000 season. The Premier League recorded a £34.5million pre-tax loss (a significant deterioration against a £13.7million profit in 1998/99) while the combined losses of the Football League Clubs worsened from £75.3million to £110.1million.
Which is where you and your working wage come in. TV (which you pay for, both directly and indirectly) has kicked in £2billions worth of current deals but it won't be enough.
"Even," say Deloitte-Touche, "if the whole of the extra £85million or so that Football League Clubs will receive from TV and Internet deals in the 2001/02 season was to flow through to 'the bottom line' - i.e. with no wage increases at all - the 72 clubs would still have to find another c.£30million to 'balance the books'. The 'Supporter/Investor' or 'Benefactor' has a role that is far from over."
The outlook is equally bleak for the Premiership where wages are running out of control and large transfer fees are running to Italy and Spain.
Your role as supporter/investor will be to pay more and to pay it more often because football isn't going to stop spending. Transfer spending went to a record £340million last year with 53% going to clubs outside England. In the absence of any salary cap scheme wages continue to spiral Over the 1999/00 season, total wages costs increased to £747 million (69% of income) from £620 million the year before, 65% of income. Roy Keane's rumoured £52,000-a-week deal doesn't even sound unlikely now and how quaint is it to think back a few years to Pierre Van Hooijdonk's outrage at being paid £7,000-a-week, an allowance for a homeless person as he saw it. So true, Pierre.
The Premier League salary bill increased by 20% compared to a growth rate of 28% in 1998/99. Over the same period Division One saw the biggest hike with the wages bill up by 35%. Division Two remained static, although the make-up of the clubs in these divisions is the likely reason for these very different effects. In the five years since 1995/96, all the divisions' annual wages growth rates exceed the rates of income growth. Now seven out of every 10 clubs have a total wage bill in excess of 70% of their income: 70% is the dividing line between comfort and concern. Only three clubs - Leeds United, Watford and Manchester United - have wages: turnover ratios below 50%.
Incredibly, 16 clubs across the four leagues have total club wage bills that exceed 100% of their turnover. In Division One, from where the promised land of Premiership excess is clearly visible, over a third of clubs pay wages that exceed 100% of income. That's just so they can get to the Premiership and spend further beyond their means.
Premier League clubs generated 15% more income in 1999/2000, bringing the total to £772 million. Between them the remaining 72 Football League clubs generated just £306 million. The rich keep spending more without actually getting richer. The Premiership clubs shared out almost £600 million more than their Division One counterparts. Average club income in 1999/2000 season for the Premier League was £38.6 million, Division One £7.7 million, Division Two £3.3 million and Division Three £1.7 million.
Up to the mid-80s clubs had two traditional sources of revenue - gate receipts and transfer income. If enough of you failed to turn up, they sold your favourite players. All changed there. Income now comes from different sources. Sometimes you hardly notice you're handing your money over at all. In 1999, Manchester United's gate receipts accounted for just 38% of turnover after a season of full houses. 'MUFC' is now a global logo and commodity which earns well over £20 million per annum from merchandising (your money), £17 million from sponsorship and £7 million from conferences and catering (that's £7 million from match day catering, events, conferences, weddings, etc. Your money again.).
It's up to you, of course. You can stay home, put your feet up. There is more football than ever on television, much more. Back in the days of Match of the Day and Sunday's post-prandial Big Match, football got less than 13 hours a month screen time divided almost equally between ITV and the Beeb. Now you can watch football for 421 hours a month if you had the time. And if you had the time you almost certainly wouldn't have the money. Seventy-three per cent of that is on satellite, which will cost you installation fees plus a minimum of £60Stg if you wish to purchase a 40-game Premiership season ticket. Sky had sold 100,000 such packages before the league season began.
The other pay-per-view options currently available are from Telewest (£8 per game) and ITV Sport channel at £9.99 a month. Ticket prices continue to rise. A seat at a Premiership game can cost you anything from a low of £16 at Fulham and Leicester to a high of £40 at Chelsea. A recent study put the cost of a trip to a Premiership match for a family of four at £200, including ticket, public transport, programme and four drinks and four burgers, purchased at the ground.
And it's getting worse. The digital era will personalise packages for your taste and for your budget. You'll soon be used to the direct debit drip drip being an integral part of your footballing experience. Roy Keane thought that the prawn sandwich brigade were killing the atmosphere? Well, the league has found that season ticket holders earning more than £30,000 a year are the most desirable but the least committed and bother to turn up for only half the games they pay for.
Ain't seen nothing yet, Roy.
