Newcastle United manager Kevin Keegan would like you to know something very important about the Premier League. It's getting a little stale."Maybe (Newcastle) owner (Mike Ashey) thinks we can bridge that gap - but we can't. This league is in danger of becoming one of the most boring but great leagues in the world.
"The top four next year will be the same top four as this year. What I can say to the Newcastle fans is that we will be trying to get fifth and we will be trying to win the other league that's going on within the Premier League."
Keegan makes a legitimate point. A vicious cycle exists in the Premier League right now, where the Big Four -- Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool and Manchester United -- finish in the top four every year, go to the UEFA Champions League, earn as much as £30 million more than all the other clubs, use that money to buy top players to strengthen their roster, finish in the top four again the next year, and so on and so on, until only four clubs have a real shot at the League title and the rest are left to fend for UEFA Cup scraps.
I believe, however, that there's a way to break this cycle.
Few fans of the Premier League like to use the word "playoffs," and for good reason. English football emphasizes the league season above all else. You can only determine the best club in the league by having all the clubs play each other in a big home-and-away series. To give the league title to a club that got on a hot streak in a post-season tournament is tantamount to blasphemy. The negative reactions to EPL Talk's outlandish playoff system proposal ought to tell you that much.
Yet this hasn't stopped the lower leagues in England from having playoffs of their own. Those playoffs, however, do not determine league champions. Instead, they determine which team will be the last team to be promoted. In the Coca-Cola Championship, for example, 1st-place West Bromwich Albion and 2nd-place Stoke City won automatic promotion to the Premier League, but the 3rd-place through 6th-place teams have to survive a playoff to determine the final promotion winner.
So let's do something like that in the Premier League. Let's have a playoff to determine the 4th and final Champions League bid.
Such a playoff wouldn't necessarily devalue the regular season. Whoever finishes first in the Premier League still hoists the trophy, and the top three clubs would still get automatic bids into the Champions League. In fact, starting next season, the top three Premier League clubs would go directly to the group stage, while the 4th-place club has to go through the qualifying rounds.On the other hand, having the 4th-place through 7th-place clubs duke it out to determine the final Champions League bid winner opens up the field and gives other clubs a shot at European glory. Plus, it creates more meaningful matches going into the final week of the season. Sure, we've got Man United and Chelsea fighting for the title and Fulham, Reading and Birmingham City fighting for survival, but what if Everton, Aston Villa, Blackburn, Portsmouth and Manchester City all had something to play for, too? What if Liverpool and Arsenal were suddenly duking it out for the automatic bid? Would that not inject even more excitement into the league? Would that not give non-Big Four clubs at least some hope of breaking the vicious cycle?
Such a playoff could be a big money-spinner for the Premier League, and as that "39th Game" nonsense made clear, the Premier League is all about spinning money. That's why it would block the more radical proposal of giving the FA Cup winner a Champions League bid -- which I also happen to think is a good idea, but realistically, it would never happen.
Such a playoff could also be sold to English fans more easily than an MLS Cup-style playoff system, because this playoff is just like the lower-league playoffs. It still rewards regular-season success while giving non-Big Four clubs a real shot at Champions League play. It might also break up the monotony of having only four clubs at the top year after year -- not quite the parity you see in the NFL or in MLS, but at least a little less predictable.
Of course, some might argue that Blackburn doesn't deserve to be in the Champions League just because it could upset Liverpool in a one-game playoff. I would ask whether Liverpool (or any other club) deserves its Champions League bid by doing just enough to finish 4th. Right now, 4th place in the Premier League is far more valuable than victory in a domestic cup final. Does that seem right to you? Wouldn't you rather see Liverpool v. Everton or Arsenal v. Tottenham Hotspur in Wembley Stadium at season's end, with the winner getting the big prize and the loser getting sent to the UEFA Cup? Isn't that just a little enticing?
I doubt we'll be seeing this idea proposed by the Premier League any time soon. The Big Four wield a lot of influence and will not stand for anything that kicks even one of them off their money train. Plus, purists will hate it. Right now, though, the only way a club like Newcastle could break into the Champions League is by going out and spending more than £100 million on quality players, and that's no guarantee of success. At the very least, a playoff would give teams that lack billionaire investors a ray of hope. That has to be better than what they have now.
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Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. That's a brilliant idea. I would back any idea that can even start making a small dent in "the big four" monopoly.
Posted at 10:09AM on May 10th 2008 by Keith
2. They're already doing this in the Netherlands. Not that England would be inclined to follow that lead.
Posted at 10:24AM on May 10th 2008 by Beau Dure
3. Beau: The Netherlands' playoff system is a bit more convoluted and not quite as fan friendly. I can see how England wouldn't want to copy that, but I think this system would be a bit easier to grasp.
Posted at 10:26AM on May 10th 2008 by Dave
4. there is still a race for the fifth place going on, where everton or aston villa still can claim that fifth place. and portsmouth and blackburn can still push aston villa out of the place for the intertoto cup - which can give access to the uefa cup. on that note i agree with you that there needs to be a playoff for the final CL spot. or that the final CL spot should be awarded to the winner of the FA cup.
Posted at 9:09AM on May 11th 2008 by upendi
5. upendi: I agree with you about the FA Cup, since winning something is better than finishing 4th, but that's far less likely to happen than this 4th-thru-7th playoff. Big clubs throughout Europe howled at Michel Platini when he suggested that.
Posted at 9:11AM on May 11th 2008 by Dave
6. Well duh, as our American friends would say.
This monoplisation is *exactly the point* of the Champions League. The point of the Champions League is to become the premier club competition in Europe and to cement the places of the clubs with biggest potential TV audiences in it, and domestic leagues be damned. Think about it - a "Champions" League, with three teams from England and three from Italy who aren't actually champions but 2nd, 3rd and 4th in their domestic leagues ? This is simply to ensure that, freak seasons apart, if Manchester United or Liverpool or AC Milan don't actually win their domestic league they're still in with a good chance of appearing in the "Champions" League and keep the TV audiences up (although AC are doing their best to fail this year).
TV money is the worst thing to happen to any sport, and watching sporting bodies throw any sort of tradition to the wind to grovel for more of it is a horrible sight.
Posted at 7:53PM on May 11th 2008 by Tony Douglas