The English Premier League and sport have become antonyms. The former is diametrically opposed to the latter, conspiring to ensure there is no place for fundamental concepts such as fair play, integrity and honesty.
While football at the elite level is far from alone in being dominated by money — cycling, horse racing and Formula One are just three other examples — it is the game that first transfixed me as a pre-teen. Thus it has always held a special place in my heart. I have shed tears of joy, tears of misery and tears of frustration.
When you join the club, as nearly every Newcastle United fan can testify, that’s part of the deal, though the joy can be a long time coming.
A lack of success is unimportant in the great scheme of things. Supporters who are now well into their Sixties, as I am, grew up when mid-table mediocrity was sort-of reassuring.
What does concern me, today more than ever, is the series of rules and regulations that militate against ambition. Any Mag who endured the Mike Ashley era knows how it feels to be robbed of hope. It’s NOT the hope that kills you; it’s the absence of hope.
And this week, even before we have played our first proper match of Matthias Jaissle’s reign, that feeling of pointlessness overwhelms me. Pointless, as in “what’s the point”, rather than “where are the points coming from”!
The great Kevin Keegan urged us to keep the faith, because one day we would get our club back. He was right, of course. We did . . . but those who control the Premier League have made the playing field so uneven since the takeover in 2021 that the start of another season has rendered me as flat as a fillet of sole on North Shields fish quay.
Football should be an escape from the harsh realities of life. Instead, the Premier League epitomises much of what is wrong with the real world. Nearly all the power is held by a tiny minority, a handful of clubs that through luck and timing found themselves in the right place at the right time.
Luck and timing have always been ingredients in sport. There’s no reason to rail against them. What stinks more than a rotting cod’s head is the cynical and systematic way in which the fortunate few have all but guaranteed they cannot be challenged by their putative peers.
The so-called big clubs have been aided and abetted by those in charge of the Premier League, in charge of Uefa and of Fifa.
When the owners of three teams from the North-West and three from London secretly plotted to form a breakaway competition (I use the word in its loosest sense) a few short years ago, they were rewarded rather than punished. Rewarded by being given everything they wanted: more power, more money, less jeopardy, fewer rivals.
A level playing field is ideal if sport is to offer a memorable spectacle; ideal, though not essential. Who doesn’t love a David v Goliath contest? What is there to admire, however, if David finds he has both arms tied behind his back? Now try firing your slingshot, little man! That’s not sport. It’s business. It’s the English Premier League.
The clubs with the highest turnover buy the best players, almost regardless of whether they will be selected in the starting line-up. Find a diamond in the rough, polish that gem, then watch it vanish. Worse still, watch it bite the hand that once fed it. Where is the sport in that?
Maybe I’m the only football fan who is greeting the 2026/27 season devoid of enthusiasm. Perhaps not. The predictability, the low-risk football, the corruption are all big turn-offs. Perhaps the unenlightened leaders will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.
There is a glimmer of hope on the distant horizon. The driving force behind this farrago of fake sport is money. Always was, always will be. If enough supporters are repelled by the stench emanating from what we are constantly told is “the greatest league in the world”, the powers-that-be might sense the need for change. Once the system starts to fail, it will be altered.
The status quo can be revised by benevolent rules and regulations, just as it was established and bolstered by malignant ones. Don’t hold your breath, mind.
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