Premier League chief Richard Scudamore’s crusade to lift England football
Telegraph UK
Richard Scudamore, the Premier League’s chief executive, has challenged the FA and the Government to do more to help England. Scudamore wants more investment in grass-roots facilities, particularly in urban areas where the likes of Raheem Sterling and Wilfried Zaha benefited from Premier League-backed schemes.
He also plans a Premier League B league, involving 16 of the elite clubs and six from the Football League to play a season-long Under-23 competition (with four older players allowed), helping bridge the gap between Academies and first teams, a boon for experience-hunting English hopefuls.
It would reward and involve those clubs with Category 1 Academy status: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle, Norwich, Southampton, Stoke, Sunderland, Tottenham, West Brom and West Ham would be joined by Bolton, Blackburn, Leicester, Middlesbrough, Reading and Wolves. (Crystal Palace of the Premier League are working hard to achieve Cat 1).
Replacing the current underwhelming Under-21 version, this league would be played at the clubs’ main stadiums, be broadcast globally, be given the full marketing push of Scudamore’s organisation and command substantial prize-money. It would not affect the usual promotion and relegation between the Championship and the Premier League.
The need for a deeper reservoir of home-grown talent in the foreigner-filled Premier League has been a familiar lament over the past decade, emanating most recently from the England manager Roy Hodgson and the FA Chairman Greg Dyke. Scudamore declined the chance to sit on the Commission organised by Dyke to address the problems limiting the flow of high-calibre players for the England team. Scudamore preferred to focus his energies on the Elite Player Performance Plan, the youth-development scheme which gives leading clubs more contact time with the best youngsters from all over the country.
He knows that if – when – England bow out early from this summer’s World Cup that the Premier League will be heavily criticised. “Always,’’ shrugged Scudamore, talking in central London on Thursday. “And if England win it we won’t get any plaudits. But we think we are doing our bit. The night (in 2007) we lost to Croatia 2-3, poor old Steve McClaren under the umbrella, I flipped. I said: ‘This can’t go on, we aren’t taking this reputational damage any more.’ It took a while to get this EPPP into place.
“It is incongruous that we have the (successful) league that we have and aren’t seen to be doing better on the international stage. The last eight of the World Cup is where we naturally should be. The last four is bloody good. To get to a final would be absolutely fantastic. It will happen in my lifetime, that England will get to a final.’’
Now 54, Scudamore has such a belief because of the work his clubs are doing, like Southampton with their crop of promising youngsters, and Liverpool with their plethora of English players. “I know the Commission will be taking a very good look at EPPP and will be pleasantly surprised as to what is in place already,’’ said Scudamore. “All our clubs are searching for that local boy who can make it, the Steven Gerrard, the Jamie Carragher, born within the environs of that club. That’s the holy grail. Fans will love any player who is good for their club but there is a special place that fans reserve for the local boy made good.
“I hope the Commission spend some considerable time in their report addressing the biggest issue we’ve got which is the propensity of people to want to play at grass-roots level. But it’s fragile. Grass roots is always fragile. We mustn’t kill the willing amateur. Are we sure that young people have access to the facilities, to play regular football, in this winter of all winters, when you hear of teams who haven’t played since November? Put in a decent 3G facility and you could play a whole league over the weekend.’’
The Premier League currently puts £130m annually into grass-roots. It has also joined with Government and the FA Facilities Fund to inject £102m into facilities, including 150 new or refurbished 3G pitches. “The money we are putting into grass roots is never enough but it wouldn’t be beyond the wit of the FA to find some more of their resources and then Government funding again,’’ said Scudamore.
He would like Dyke to challenge David Cameron and relevant Government ministers to invest more in facilities. “That would be a good thing for the FA chairman to do,’’ said Scudamore. “The key objective for the FA chairman is to get that sorted. The urban areas of Britain aren’t well served. There are lots of young people living in high-density accommodation without an escape through football which is why our clubs are trying to do their bit through their community schemes.
“We can only do so much. What we are doing could be scaled (up) with input from the FA and more input from Government. It is happening. Sport England have now come along part-funding Kickz programme; they see the power of using our club brands and expertise to grow this engagement.
“Raheem Sterling and Wilfried Zaha came through a Kickz programme in a pretty challenging area in this country (London) and there must be loads of kids like them. I can’t believe there aren’t some more kids of 13, 14, 15, 16, living in these huge tower blocks, who if they had the facilities and a safe coaching environment would become footballers.’’
Scudamore also wants Dyke’s Commission to scrutinise the FA’s Club England set-up, ensuring it maximises the potential of the players. “They have got to look at that and see what they can do to make that Team England experience as good as it can be. I don’t believe for one minute all this nonsense of ‘players don’t like playing for England’.’’
As the Commission goes about its interviewing and information-gathering, Scudamore will be busy working on another pathway for home-grown players towards the first team via Premier League B. “We understand the challenge of developing English talent good enough to play in the Premier League first team is how do you get them to transition from Under-18s into first-team squads? It is such a huge leap. You have to have the transition phase, the ‘professional development phase’ we call it.
“The Under-21 League is technically very good but not where it needs to be in terms of meaningful competition for these youngsters. The minute you call it ‘Under-21’ people think it is no use. It needs a better name and a better focus. All clubs recognise that. We need proper kick-off times, using main stadiums, anything to create an experience that is more competitive and more like the first team so it doesn’t come as such a shock. And those players in that group should be interchangeable with the first team.
“They should be Category 1 clubs and we are happy for them to be in that league with 16 of ours, and six of the Championship. If more Cat 1 clubs come along you structure it accordingly. It should be in all our interests that people have more Cat 1 academies because that’s the best it can be.’’
Scudamore emphasised that this new league would be outside the pyramid structure. “Having been chief executive of the Football League, I believe in the pyramid. If you set up a club behind the Dog and Duck, make your way up through those 44,000 others, and climb over enough to get to us – brilliant, we’d love to have you.’’
He can understand the desire to ascend to such a wealthy division, a league currently experiencing one of the greatest seasons ever. “It’s all going on at the top and, my word, it’s all going on in the bottom. Seven points separate the top five. The team in 10th is only eight points away from bottom. In terms of competitiveness, it’s brilliant: goals flying in, Liverpool going 4-0 up in 19 minutes (against Arsenal) and Fulham coming back from 2-1 (against United). I was watching thinking: ‘this is unbelievable’.
“The minute Sir Alex Ferguson left United everyone of us thought ‘this changes the dynamic’ of the Premier League. With change comes new stories. Jose Mourinho’s back. Is he going to do well or not? It’s a story either way. Man City changed Roberto Mancini for Manuel Pellegrini. I was privileged to spend quite a bit of time with Pellegrini at the Asia Trophy and thought that’s going to be a story either way.’’
And United in seventh? “It feels odd. No disrespect to Manchester United or any club, but I sit here wanting change. We want the smaller clubs to beat the bigger clubs. When Norwich can hold out against Man City, that suits us.
When the big clubs play each other, we want change. We’ve had 19 changes of leaders this season. I like that! Sometimes it’s changed three times a weekend.”
As for fans’ legitimate grievances over Premier League ticket prices, particularly the Category A cost of £62 at Arsenal for some visiting supporters, Scudamore countered: “People always quote the highest pricing. We’ve just done a survey of ticket pricing and you can buy adult tickets from £20 to £41 across the league or the kids’ discount stuff. I’m not saying it’s inexpensive but it’s not all at the high end that every one wants to quote. We have always said clubs should stretch their prices. There should be affordable ticketing at one end.’’ He paused, then added: “We are heading for record attendance; we are currently tracking at 95.8 per cent attendance.’’
But what of the frequently subdued atmospheres. “I go to lots of games where it is excellent, and lots of games where it is quite quiet but that is often to do with expectancy. Games can explode at any point. We have got false memories. If you think they were singing and shouting from start to finish every game in the past – it never was. If you go back 10 or 20 years ago, it wasn’t. I go back to the mid-60s attending games and there have always been periods of quiet during games. There is a slight trade-off. There has been a slight gentrification but there’s less hooliganism, less violence, less coin-throwing.’’
He dismissed the possibility of standing returning to the elite division, despite some clubs like Aston Villa wanting a debate. “There is no constitutional majority of Premier League clubs that want to revisit the idea of not having all-seater stadiums. We don’t sense that the Government, the most important people in all this, have any appetite at our level to go back on the all-seater legislation.
“We haven’t discussed it around our table. Have I discussed it unilaterally with individual clubs? Yes. It is a difficult issue. I am a huge supporter and sympathiser with the Hillsborough families’ position. Even if it (standing) was deemed desirable, as we approach the 25th anniversary of Hillsborough and the families feel so strongly about it, is it really appropriate?’’
Scudamore also addressed the “very emotive” issue of owners meddling with the traditions of their clubs. “Cardiff City changing shirt colour is less of an issue than (Hull City) changing names. What do I think about Cardiff playing in red? It would be preferable if they played in blue but I don’t think it’s the end of civilisation as we know it. I have spoken to him (Cardiff owner Vincent Tan) just as I have spoken to Hull (owner Assem Allam) about their name-change.
“Sometimes it is hard to understand why somebody would want to do something; clearly in Vincent’s case it is recognised that red is a very, very significant colour in Asian culture. But he hasn’t been universally criticised by all his own fan-base. If the fan-base was asked we’ll play in red or blue, Premier League or non Premier League, they would probably play in yellow in the Premier League. We have made our feelings known to Hull. At some point, when there’s that many people think it (Tigers) is a bad idea, you really have to start to listen. They are listening but it is an unshakeable belief and when people have an unshakeable belief there isn’t a lot you can do to shake that. But it’s an FA decision, not ours. We are not going to be handing back club ownership to the local communities. It is not going to happen.”
The threat of match-fixing, a real issue elsewhere, features in Scudamore’s daily thoughts. “One cannot categorically ever say it is not an issue at our level. But we have all the things in place with the 300 markets we monitor, with the early-earning systems, the player education programmes we’ve got. There is not a player at our level who doesn’t know that doing something artificial, within the match context in exchange for some reward, is clearly wrong. You don’t need a PHD to know this is wrong.
“But we are not complacent. We think about it every day. There is always that nagging thought: have we done enough. You can’t ever stop worrying about it. It would be much simpler if players couldn’t bet on any football. It’s simple for me: my contract with the Premier League is I can’t bet on football.’’
Inevitably, any conversation about the Premier League involved talking about money. “Do I worry about players’ wages?’’ reflected Scudamore. “You can’t justify their wages; you can only explain them. The really talented people are hard to find and the market decides what they’re going to be paid.” Was Rooney worth £300,000 a week? “Worth it? Somebody has made the calculation that in their model, their world, he is worth paying that money to stay at the club and play for the club and that’s the end of it.”
Scudamore is not an admirer of Michel Platini’s FFP rules. “It has set club against club. They are all looking at each other and policing each other; it’s another thing to have a snipe at each other about. But it’s here to stay. You can write whatever rules you want but implementing them and coming up with the appropriate remedial action is the hardest part – and we are not at that phase yet. The lawyers will be doing well.’’
