Premier Money

They say money talks and if that is the case the Premier League is shouting at this stage. Clubs up and down England are reaping the rewards of Rupert Murdoch’s brainchild. The deals the clubs signed with BSkyB, ESPN and Setanta have put the Premier League teams in a very envious position financially.

When Rupert Murdoch saw the drama of Italia ’90, Gascoigne in particular, he felt a lot of money could be made if this was replicated week after week. Murdoch got his way as he usually does and the English division 1 was re-branded and the Premier League was born. The new version of the English game was going to be a selling point for his new satellite television venture Sky. This was probably the best thing to happen the English football.

The English clubs had a difficult time adjusting to a pan-European competition, in the main because they were sceptical if it would work. Ironically it was an English club that kick started the idea of a European cup. Wolverhampton Wanderers beat Honved of Hungary and manager Stan Cullis proclaimed his side as the best team in the world and the English media were only too happy to support his claim. This caught the imagination of Europe  and a cup was set up to find the best team on the continent. And the English were lukewarm about the idea.

However, they eventually came around to the idea and by the late 70s and early 80s they were by far the most dominant force in Europe. Between 1978 and 1982 the cup was won only by English teams, the most consecutive victories won by teams from the same league. Even Aston Villa won one. Hamburg broke up the party in 83 but Liverpool won it back in 84. Then the Heysel disaster happened and the English teams received a temporary ban from European competitions. Crowd violence and control had been a problem within the British game for some time and UEFA finally had enough after 39 Italian and Belgian fans were killed in the Heysel stadium in the European cup final in 1985, contested between Liverpool and Juventus.

The English teams found it difficult to settle back into European football, despite Manchester United’s cup-winners-cup victory in 1991. The big boost was the money the new Premiership/League received from Sky. A lot of people have criticised Manchester City for trying to ‘buy success’ but if you look back at the short history of the Premier League you can see that the English clubs bought their way back into contention in Europe and so continue on were the left off before the five year ban was imposed. In their absence, the Serie A teams and Real Madrid and Barcelona had the money and bought the best players. Man City are only continuing a long established European tradition.