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AYRE WALKS ALONE

Comment: 0 October 18th, 2011 by: admin
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There has never been a shortage of fans-versus-management stories when Liverpool FC is concerned. When it comes to topics ranging from increasing debt to ownership transfer, the anger and the frustration of Reds supporters has always been felt, and demonstrated.  Loudly, and furiously.

This time however, the shouts of dissatisfaction over Liverpool’s management are not echoing from the crowd, but from the rest of the Premier League clubs.

And this time, the issue comes down to the very basic essentials, the very item that some may argue drives clubs forward: revenue.

The hullaballoo began when Reds managing director Ian Ayre announced that the club was planning on breaking away from the collective selling of overseas TV rights implemented throughout the Premier League.

What one has to understand is that amongst the ticket sales and the sponsorship deals, the TV rights is the only part of every club’s income that, with the current model, is shared with the rest of the league.

According to Ayre, Liverpool splitting from the arrangement would only right a few wrongs currently in effect, specifically the club’s deprivation of a bigger share of the profits.

The statements came from a club that had the 9th biggest broadcast-related revenue in Europe last season, with €97.1 million.

But Ayre’s point is that the distribution of the collective broadcast revenue levels the playing field for all 20 clubs, despite the probability of a huge part of the earnings brought in by only a number of high profile clubs.

‘We’ll just share our [revenue] because we’ll all be nice to each other?’ Ayre said in a way that makes one imagine him with the biggest smirk on his face.

‘Some people will say “Well you’ve got to all be in it to make it happen.” But isn’t it really about whre the revenue is coming from, which is the broadcaster, and isn’t it really about who people want to watch on that channel?

‘We know it is us’, a smug Ayre assured.  ‘And others,’ he immediately added.

He demanded a ‘rebalance’. He furthered to warn that continuing to do so would threaten ‘the whole phenomenon of the Premier League.’

Ayre insisted that it was ‘a debate that has to happen’.

The director needed 13 more votes from the 20 leagues to get his plan into action.  His statements had a sense of determination that this notion would be supported by the other Premier League clubs.

But there were no supporters.  Instead there were condemnations.  Coming by the droves.

The fight for status quo

Ayre’s statements were instead blasted as everything from ‘diabolical’ to ‘just stupid’.

‘This is the worst idea I have ever heard,’ ripped Dave Whelan, chair of Wigan Athletic. ‘If Liverpool want to ruin the Premier League and rip the heart out of English football, this is the way to go about it.

‘I’m so angry I cannot believe it,’ he wrote in a Daily Telegraph column.

Whelan went on, describing the plan as nothing more than something rooted on greed.

‘They want to take all the money for themselves, but they know the top six cannot play each other every week, so they will eventually look to Europe and the creation of a European League.’

Owen Coyle, Bolton manager, assured that it will not gain the support needed to get the ball rolling.

‘A lot of clubs in this league are a lot of things, but they are not stupid,’ he commented.  ‘The bottom line is we have the best product in the world, and it is made up of 20 teams.  That’s why it is what it is.’

It may be tempting to see these attacks as those coming from the more low-profile clubs set to experience losses from Ayre’s suggested arrangements.  That would be a fair assumption had the bigger clubs not chimed in echoing these opinions.

There was to be no backing had from Chelsea, whose spokesperson insisted that they were in fact satisfied with the current arrangements.

The same sentiment came from Manchester City, who through chief communications officer Vicky Kloss acknowledged the current arrangement’s benefits, and assured that changing it was never a subject of debate.

Arsenal and Manchester United also turned cold shoulders towards the proposed deal.

As the media feasted on the onslaught of attacks aimed at the centre of Ayre’s forehead, somewhere there was an arguable feeling of foreboding as to what would happen should Liverpool’s management surge forward with the breakaway.

Will they turn their backs on the criticisms and somehow find a way to push through with the idea?  Will they in fact shift the foundations of the English Premier League?  And if they managed to go through with the proposal, how much would change, and to what extent?

Apparently these questions were not to be answered, as Ayre afterwards began the strategic yet possibly expected process of backtracking on his statements.

He was not insisting that Liverpool detach from the current arrangement. All he was doing was pointing out that the distribution was ‘an issue we believe.’

An even p(l)aying field

Financial experts and managing directors could hold a week-long conference and dissect every word that came flying out of Ayre’s mouth that fateful day.  Debates could be held based on the differences between the actual economic generation brought about by the large clubs, versus those of the smaller ones.

Entire mathematical formulae could be written in order to engineer a broadcast profit arrangement that could in some way keep Ayre happy while keeping the status quo at the same time.

But perhaps, putting away the numbers and the reports and the statistics and the jargon (that in the end only the club officials will be drooling over), one may look at the bigger picture, and the bigger issue.

A question that could be raised could be the way the English Premier League is regarded, collectively and as individual clubs.  If anything, Ayre’s statements suggested that, profits or none, a certain hierarchy of clubs amongst the league calls for some teams to be regarded higher than others.

On the surface that is a no-brainer question that only suggestions what’s already obvious.  Of course there is a hierarchy, as demonstrated by how one would regard, say, Manchester United versus Bolton.

But what one could overlook is the fact that compared to, for instance, the La Liga, the English Premier League is not a body that runs on the joint monopoly – financial and performance-wise – of a handful of clubs.

Although Ayre makes a valid point regarding the fact that supporters of the larger clubs make up a bulk of the overseas broadcast revenues, one has to remember that the EPL is famous for its global renown as a collective league.  The league makes up roughly 70% of the global market for football broadcasts, despite how not every game is a match between clubs like Man United and Chelsea.  Or Liverpool.

The point is that despite the high predictability of the result of a match between, for instance, United and Wigan, people the world over still tune in.

There could be a range of reasons for this, one being the arguable lack of overall dominance of some clubs.  Manchester United won only 5 of 19 away games, but came away as league champs last year.  That’s 14 upsets for one club alone.

In the Premier League some squads constantly remain at the top part of the table; but even if there is a certain dominance that takes place, this dominance does not overwhelm to the point where the unpredictable does not happen.

What the proposal suggests is that some clubs in the EPL are not as important as a few.  This is not the case; but if this is the belief, then a change is needed.  The Premier League does not survive merely from the hype of 4 or 5 teams.  The Premier League has for some time been a unified organism with each element dynamic enough to be a significant contributor.

The only hierarchy that should be constant is the one in the standings table.  Beyond that, the entire league is one unit.  The sentiment is incredibly corny; but with a 70% share of the global broadcast shares, it definitely sells as one.

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