Premier problems

This day was a long time coming.

The Premier League v Manchester City.

In fact it began with Chelsea.

In fact it began with the Premier League being founded.

In fact it began seven years before then.

1985.

1985 was football annus horribilis: Heysel, Bradford fire, riots at Luton, Millwall, a death at Birmingham, and English teams banned from Europe.

ASt the start of the next season, in a bid to break the duopoly of the BBC and ITV on televised football, not football was shown on English TVs until January 1986. Football caved in, it needed TV more than TV needed football.

But.

A glimmer of hope for football was that in place of European football, a competition was set up for clubs who would have otherwise have been in Europe. They played each other in a knockout format, until there was a winner. Never a great success, the final wasn't played until the following season, but it was who televised is what's important: a satellite TV channel called Screensport.

Not many people could watch it, but it was a start.

On top of that, football had convinced itself that it was worth more than the £500,000 or so a year they were getting from the BBC and ITV, and were also unhappy that in the Football League, each of the 92 member clubs had an equal say and vote in matters of policy. The First Division clubs thought, that as the TV wanted to show them more than other clubs, they should have a bigger say in policy.

So, in order to placate them, the Football League gave First Division teams one and a half votes, and Forth Division clubs half a vote.

This still wasn't enough, and there was talk about a breakaway league.

In England there were, and still are, two governing bodies: The Football Association and the Football League. The League looked after the four divions, and the FA the rest.

The FA was jealous of the League in that that's where the money was. 46 games a week between the 92 games, 42 games each a season.

So, the FA agreed to be the body overseeing the new elite top division: The Premier League.

Of the FA Premier League as it was called at first.

In the summer of 1991, all 20 teams in the First Division, submitted letters of resignation that they would be joining the new League in the next summer.

Which is what happened.

The Premier League negotiated a bumper TV package with Sky TV worth £300m over three years, and one with the BBC for £6m for highlights. Sky would broadcast a game or two live per week.

But it was always about money. Big clubs getting more and more of it, to spend on players. Thus transfers and wages climbed, so the TV deals had to raise more and more money to match. Wages and transfers increased still further.

What the FA failed to do was put in controls on the League that had all the power and money in English football, and soon it set up its own Governing body, so lucky England now had three of them. Four if you include what was to become The National League.

So far, so bad.

But then along came Chelsea and newly monied owner and friend of Putin, Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich.

His money threw a rock in the transfer market, paying whatever it took to get the best players and create a PL and Eurpean winning team. Transfers and wages rose even steeper.

Clubs needed to raise even more money just to stand still.

Manchester City were taken over in 2008, and set about becoming one of the big six. Or seven. Or eight.

Cheslea on steroids.

But with regulations coming into force to limit spending, Citeh got busy with creative accounting.

Which brings us to today.

Or last Friday.

Guilty on 144 out of 115 charges, this news leaked after the PL wrote to other clubs informing them of the result of the Independent Panel's investigations.

Nothing official has been announced, but we have seen the hacked documents which show what Citeh did to hide payments to coaches and players, and to overstate advertising and naming rights.

City claim innocence.

If there is no verdict this season, then the bottom three go down, but then Citeh are expelled later, do one or all three sue the PL and/or Citeh?

Four clubs have reserved the right back in 2023 to take legal action against Citeh. I'm guessing it'll be for than four in the end.