English Premiership: The relegation contest is more honest than the goings-on at the top, writes Tom Humphries
Money first. F Lucre will be the key player in this season's Premiership. So no change there. The bigger the billionaire, the more bulging the trophy cabinet.
The disparity in the wealth of clubs competing in the same competition is the elephant in the drawing-room of the Premiership. The refusal to implement a salary cap no longer threatens the viability of clubs, but it still handicaps the true competitiveness of the Premiership.
The romance of the FA Cup died some years ago when the big clubs realised they could afford to win it with virtual reserve teams. League competition will die more slowly, but the withering is visible. The last figures available, those for the 2004/2005 season, show Chelsea's wage bill (£115 million, €170 million) for the year was £32 million higher than that of their nearest rivals and second-highest payers, Manchester United.
That gulf has massive implications in terms of squad size, and it was intriguing to note in the close season Chelsea's benign indifference to whether they lost Damien Duff, and the player's vastly restricted choices in finding another club who would pay him anything even close to the wage he drew at Stamford Bridge.
There are models. The NFL introduced a so-called "hard cap" in 1994. No team can exceed that cap for any reason under penalty from the league. The NFL also operate a hard salary floor, ie, a minimum team payroll. The cap and floor are kept in line with growth of the league's revenues. This year the NFL salary cap is approximately $102 million per team. The salary floor is set at about $75 million per team.
The NBA, on the other hand, operate a salary cap system known as "soft cap". Teams can break the cap in order to retain the rights to a player who has already been on the team.
This provision is known as the Larry Bird Rule. Bird was retained by the Boston Celtics under this rule until his retirement. The Larry Bird Rule addresses discomfort of fans with the frequent changing of teams by players in a free-agency market and gives the team which developed a player a slight advantage in keeping him.
Either a hard cap or a soft cap should have obvious attractions for the Premiership. The game has evolved from being a passion of ordinary people to being an overhyped entertainment of the corporate classes.
Having watched Chelsea annex the last couple of seasons while also stockpiling players like nuclear armaments, the prawn-sandwich brigade are unperturbed at Chelsea now adding Shevchenko and Ballack, John Obi Mikel and Salomon Kalou to their roster. The first two are among the world's finest; the second two will join the exalted in due time.
The rate of increase of Premiership wages has slowed in recent years, but the availability of £1.7 billion in TV money from 2007 is likely to ease the brakes again. Implications for modest clubs are grave.
As for The Championship, one tier below, the competition is becoming wildly distorted over wages as clubs desperately chase a Premiership place which analysts reckon can be worth up to £50 million in extra revenue. Championship clubs are abandoning all economic reason in what is effectively a Grand National race to the Premiership.
The overall effect on the face of English football has been disfiguring. Romance is hard to find, and there is an ugly shrillness in the demands of fans that the millionaire owner be replaced by a billionaire owner who can free them from the chains of economic reality.
Money will shape the season again this year. Chelsea will win the big pot for the third time running and will scarcely care if they don't conquer Europe.
Jose Mourinho has the cash to buy whomever he wants and to reshape his side accordingly. Duff could see that life was only going to get harder for wingers at Stamford Bridge. Duff made the right decision to leave, although he may yet regret embracing Newcastle United's expensive addiction to mediocrity.
Chelsea won't fascinate this season. Manchester United might. Alex Ferguson increasingly resembles King Lear raging about on the heath. Losing Ruud van Nistelrooy because of a personal spat (apparently over the Prince of Pointless Stepovers, Cristiano Ronaldo) will prove disastrous for United.
There's more trouble than that ahead too. While the ineffectiveness of the English midfield at the World Cup was widely commented upon, Ferguson has perversely chosen to woo a couple of same at a cost of £35 million. Out of everything he saw in Germany, Ferguson felt that Carrick and Hargreaves were worth that money? It will be a while before the Stretford End stops hankering for Roy K.
Elsewhere, you have to like the cut of Arsenal's jib. New stadium, young side, some style. Even the most begrudging are forced to admire Arsene Wenger's wise and patient cultivation of his young players. They played some of the loveliest football last season, and if they can retain that standard through the dank days of December and January they will be Chelsea's closest challengers.
Martin Jol appears to have bought well at Spurs. Dimitar Berbatov is capable of bringing his 20-goal-a- season Bundesliga form to the Premiership, and, while the midfield loses Carrick, the arrival of Didier Zakora for some £10 million less looks good business. Spurs are a little lightweight, but in Robbie Keane, Jermain Defoe and Aaron Lennon they have plenty of trickery. Nice bet for a Champions League place.
As for Liverpool? Rafael Benitez's buying patterns are odd. Craig Bellamy and Jermaine Pennant have promised to be good boys and have been added to an offensive package that already includes Robbie Fowler. The phrase "stick to beat his back with" comes to mind almost every time Rafa goes to the market.
The most significant piece of business may prove to be the bureaucratic decision which freed Chile's Mark Gonzalez to begin his Liverpool career.
Outside of that bunch of clubs who will compete for the big money, we'll be looking for the romance in the survival battle and in the careers of a handful of young Irish players.
The Premiership's relegation dogfight is a more honest contest in many ways than anything which goes on at the other end. The people always seem more likeable too. It will be sad to lose Aidy Boothroyd, but it is hard to see him keeping Watford up on the basis of the £3.1 million he has spent.
Watford have the Premiership's most heartwarming story in their ranks though. Alhassan Bangura fled Sierra Leone as a boy and was sold into prostitution. He sought asylum in Britain and was spotted kicking about in a park by a Watford scout. He played 35 times last season. We hope the Premiership will be good to him.
Joining Watford on the way back to the Championship hinterlands will be Sheffield United, largely as divine punishment for having abducted Rob Hulse from Leeds United in the close season.
Third side for the trip down? We'll take a long shot and say Middlesbrough. Reaching a European final last year didn't convince us that Gareth Southgate wasn't in for a nightmare apprenticeship as a manager. Boro have some decent players, but they're not the "roll your sleeves up and dog your way out" types.
We have excluded Reading from the list of soon-to-be-guillotined sides merely because we like them and don't want to dwell on the possibility of bad things happening to Steve Coppell's entertaining young side. They have spent modestly in the close season - okay, parsimoniously - but they are thrilling to watch and the progress of Kevin Doyle and Shane Long will keep us glued to the teletext.
Doyle and Long are the great Irish hopes this year. Hopefully, Stephen Ireland can get through that difficult second season at Manchester City, but Willo Flood's departure from the same club is an indication of just how difficult life is for even the young and gifted.
Elsewhere, if Alan O'Brien can add some savvy to his speed at Newcastle we might see more of him. Stephen Quinn has been promising for Sheffield United in pre-season games, and Andy Reid looks to kick-start his career at Charlton Athletic.
Weigh all that against Flood's transfer, the likelihood of Liam Miller being anything but a bit player at Old Trafford, the failure of Anthony Stokes to break through at Highbury and Spurs' decision not to give a squad number to Terry Dixon, and the future isn't so bright if you are viewing the Premiership through green-tinted specs.
Another season begins. Ker-ching!
