The Sweeper: Where’s Your Wad Gone, Premier League?
Big Story
Spending in the Premier League this transfer window isn’t just down: it has shrunk to levels that one might even consider sane. The BBC’s Simon Austin recounts the numbers as we approach the transfer deadline:
“I’ve just been to interview a sports consultant at Deloitte. They estimate only £21m has been spent in the January transfer window so far, compared to £170m last year and £150m in January 2008. There haven’t been any £10m signings this year and only one for £5m, which Spurs paid Portsmouth for Younes Kaboul. There were seven £10m signings last January – three were made by Manchester City (Nigel de Jong, Craig Bellamy and Wayne Bridge), three by Spurs (Wilson Palacios, Jermain Defoe and Robbie Keane) and one by Arsenal (Andrey Arshavin).
I suppose this ought to come as no surprise, given we’ve spent the past few months here writing non-stop about the financial crises at various Premier League clubs. Yet the sheer scale of that decline is rather remarkable: it would be very interesting to see how this compares across the continent, and to consider if this marks a turning point in the balance of power in spending across Europe.
Worldwide News
- We asked on Saturday if anyone could offer us any reasonable defense for the decision of CAF to ban Togo from the next two Africa Cup of Nations tournaments. Nobody did, but in a bizarrely short and weakly argued piece in the Times, the usually thoughtful Gabriele Marcotti spits out the following: “CAF’s announcement that Togo would not be allowed to enter the next two continental tournaments met howls of outrage. And, indeed, it is shocking, until you read CAF’s justification. Togo were banned not for withdrawing from the competition — given the circumstances, it would have been more than understandable — but because the decision to pull out was taken by the Togolese Government, which apparently overruled the players, who reportedly wanted to play. And CAF, like Fifa and Uefa, has strict rules about government interference in sporting matters: the decision should have been made by Togo’s football association and it should have been final.” Not a word about the unusual circumstances to the “interference” in this case, nor the bizarre timing of CAF’s announcement.
- The Philadelphia Union has pulled off an impressive sponsorship deal for their new stadium in this economy, with a $20m, ten-year deal with Pennsylvania Power & Light. The deal is in line with Rio Tinto’s deal with Salt Lake and Dick’s Sporting Goods in Colorado, though considerably more than the ten-year, $7.5m sponsorship for Toyota Park in Chicago.
- Two Hundred Percent says pretty much all that needs to be said about the “John Terry moral conundrum.”
The Sweeper appears every weekday, and once at the weekend. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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Tom Dunmore is the founder and editor of Pitch Invasion. Follow him @pitchinvasion on Twitter.
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Spending is down, but is there a price correction to follow? Fees have skyrocketed in recent years, but I can’t imagine clubs have adjusted their valuations. Since I have only a cursory understanding the economics and how the market forces might manifest themselves, I’m really just babbling here.
Jason — that may happen to some degree, yeah. I was interested to hear a Premier League agent on BBC radio shortly after the window closed, saying he didn’t expect spending to return to near previous levels until summer 2011. Bad for his business, at least…..
I think its not just Premier League who are facing this problem even the NBA have lowered there salary cap and other expenses just to save money.
Why do you say that Marcotti “spits out the following”? Can you really argue against the point he is making?
Yes…and I have. The fact that Marcotti addresses it so pithily, with no mention of the gross insensitivity of their decision, the timing of its release or the extraordinary circumstances here and CAF’s own culpability in the entire affair is astonishing to me.
Comparing it as he does to other political interference in sporting affairs in Africa completely ignores the fact that this incident was an act of terrorism committed against their team, and not the usual matter of government and sporting bodies arguing over the financial renumeration.
The fact that he uses both “reportedly” and “apparently” to defend CAF”s actions only goes to show he is relying on nothing more than the confused press reports we all have to understand what happened. Surely a much longer investigation by CAF was due here, rather than a hasty ruling just a couple of weeks after the incident. It smacked of being highly political itself, in fact.
I just found it amazing he made the point so briefly and without any substantive reference to the obvious extraordinary moral and political circumstances here.
Whilst I agree with the poor timing, insensitivity and other equitable issues relating to the decision, I think it was still the right one. The law is the law and it must be applied given circumstances. Given this however, I am expecting the ban to be reduced or even completely reneged on appeal. I think this was just a failed attempt by the CAF to look big and authoritative. That may seem like a total contradiction to what I am trying to argue about, but it’s almost always the case that the initial ruling always leaves grounds for an appeal.