On 11th october 1954, the day he turned 17, Bobby Charlton signed a contract with Manchester United. Exactly 45 years after Charlton signed the contract that would bring him almost ?350 a year, the agent of Roy Keane, the current captain of Manchester United, began negotiations which should bring Keane ?35,000 a week-possibly ?60,000 if he goes abroad instead. In the past 40 years, star-quality British football players have had a higher proportionate increase in pay than any other single group represented by a professional body or trade union.
There are three reasons for this. The first is the abolition of the maximum wage rule in 1960, following a parliamentary debate I introduced. The second is the comparative contract freedom given to football players by a number of judicial decisions-notably the Eastham case and the Bosman ruling. But the most important reason has been the inflow of money from commercial television. This year Manchester United should earn ?11m-its share of the Premier League contract with BSkyB-while the three clubs which will be relegated from the Premier League should still receive ?5m each.
The television contract between BSkyB and the Premier League must be renegotiated in the next two years and there are already indications that the 20 Premier League clubs will be looking for ?1 billion spread over three years. And there could be separate contracts for FA cup games and European competitions. Hence the bigger clubs will be getting a bigger slice of a bigger cake. In the Italian League Juventus and AC Milan each receive about ?37m a year for television rights to their domestic games-more than three times as much as Manchester United.
While the rich clubs are getting richer, the poor clubs are getting poorer. In the 1997-8 season the 20 clubs in the Premier League made a profit of ?20m; but the 72 clubs in Divisions One, Two and Three had combined losses of ?52m. At the end of the 1998-9 season a number of clubs tottered on the edge of bankruptcy. Oxford United could not pay its staff; Crystal Palace was in the hands of the receivers; Carlisle United survived by the skin of its teeth; and Chester City was rescued by a wealthy American.
There are still plenty of small clubs queuing up for a chance to gain a place in the Football League, but the prospects for clubs in Division Two and Three are not encouraging. Traditionally, the lower Division clubs have survived by selling their best young players to bigger clubs. Temporarily at least, this financial lifeline has been cut. During the summer transfer season Premier League clubs spent ?140m on new players-but only 1 per cent of this sum went to clubs in the bottom two divisions. The total paid by Premier League clubs to those in Divisions Two and Three is fractionally less than the ?1.5m paid by Middlesbrough to a club in Buenos Aires for Carlos Marinelli, a 17-year-old Argentinian player.
Not all the young players from abroad succeed. There was relief when the 20-year-old French international Nicolas Anelka was sold by Arsenal to Real Madrid for ?22m. But even in a bad patch his talents are valued more highly than the combined value of all the League clubs in the Third Division. This makes no sense. Football is about to become a ?1 billion-a-year sport. Astronomic sums are being paid for young players, yet the bottom half of the Football League faces bankruptcy.
The men who manage English football should look across the Atlantic at baseball. There, the 30 major league clubs effectively control minor league baseball. The major league clubs either own minor league clubs or have training and contractual agreements with them. Each American or Canadian major league club will have at least 100 young players on its books. Almost all major league baseball players spend at least a year or two playing for a "farm team" before they are promoted to the major leagues.
In the past two decades one of the best known baseball players has been Cal Ripken, Jr of the Baltimore Orioles. After a 20-year career Ripken is still paid $6m a year. His talent was obvious by the time he graduated from high school and there was little doubt which club he would play for (his father was a coach for the Baltimore Orioles). But for two seasons he was sent to a minor league club owned by the Orioles. He was then ready to begin his record-breaking major league career.
Not all American baseball clubs have the extensive minor league farm system of the richest clubs such as the Baltimore Orioles. But almost every one of the 30 clubs spends more time and money on developing young players than any Premier League club. The exception is Manchester United. Today, England national teams often include four products of United's training scheme-David Beckham, Paul Scholes and the Neville brothers. Beckham spent a brief period on loan to Preston North End and Manchester United has an uneasy agreement with an Antwerp football club to give some of their young players competitive experience in Belgium. (Charlton Athletic has just made a similar deal with Inter-Milan.)
The idea that one football club should own another has been anathema to the Football League and the Football Association. But if outright ownership is ruled out, there are many other ways in which mutually beneficial alliances could be formed. For example, Liverpool FC might loan a squad of 15 or 20 young players to Chester City. The young Liverpool squad would be paid by Liverpool FC and the Merseyside club would provide a coaching staff. Chester City would be able to cut its wages bill and would have players with more potential talent than they could normally expect to attract. Meanwhile, the young Liverpool/Chester players would get valuable competitive experience. Arsenal might have a similar agreement with Brighton, another Third Division team which has come close to extinction.
Individual loan arrangements between clubs are well-established. The introduction of a farm or nursery club system would encourage big clubs to have more young players under contract, and it would prompt them to look to Brentford before Buenos Aires for talent.
Of course there would be problems. Player contracts would be more complex. There would also be a distortion of competition. A Chester City team which was, in effect, a Liverpool youth team could soon be challenging for promotion to Division Two and even Division One, but this problem is self-regulating. Chester/Liverpool would be playing against Brighton/Arsenal and Manchester United/Preston. If one of these nursery teams looked like winning promotion to Division One the Football League authorities would be able to take appropriate action.
The growth of television revenues has changed football, mainly for the better. But we must find a way to prevent the collapse of the smaller clubs and the suffocation of domestic talent. Adoption by the Premier League is one answer.
