There is one universal truth. Football isn't and has never been played on a level playing field. Craig Harrison examines the effect money and refereeing had on the outcome of City's visit to White Hart Lane.
Harsh realities
Wednesday night was a very sad night. Before the game I don’t think many Spurs fans could have claimed any high degree of confidence in us getting much from the match. City have been steam rolling teams for fun this season, and personally speaking I don’t think many clubs are going to offer much of a resistance to them lifting the league title come May.
But the very fact that we now take such a view of a team as natural, who five years ago were playing at a lower level than Spurs, is sad. Two years ago City successfully bought the league. In a few months they are probably going to do it again.
The fact that a team who fought for mid-table finishes less than ten years ago are now widely recognised as one of the best teams in Europe, purely because of the massive spending power that arrived with new Oligarch owners, should matter a whole lot more to those who follow football than it does.
[authquoteleft text=”When did success in football become less about great managers and team spirit?[/linequote]
In what used to be a sport for the working class man, we now look at teams like City who have players sitting on their bench every week that cost more than the entire starting eleven of some of the teams at the bottom of the league put together; Stevan Jovetic, who scored his first Premier League goal Wednesday night, has made less than five league appearances for City, having arrived during the summer for more than £20m.
Why do we accept that the fortunes of teams like Spurs and Liverpool depend on how efficient the rich teams in the league are at buying higher league positions?
Why isn’t an eye lid blinked when teams like Chelsea seem to buy players just to keep them out of the hands of their rivals?
Is it ok that greatness and prestige come as a result of blowing other teams out of the water with spending power, rather than meaningful histories and a great fan base?
When did success in football become less about great managers and team spirit, and more based on how many more of the top players in the world you can buy than your rivals?
I’m not saying that the current managers of City and Chelsea aren’t good at their jobs, but the fact that both have sacked and hired so many different managers over the past number of years, and still went on to win things surly makes the argument that success will come as long as you can afford to buy the best?
If this is true, were is the fairness?
What chance to teams like Spurs and Liverpool have when Chelsea can stride in through the back door and snatch players like Willian and Mohamed Salah away by throwing more money at the selling club and offer the player tens of thousands more per week in wages?
Liverpool look destined to lose Luis Suarez to one of the biggest and richest teams in Europe. Taking away all biased opinions on how hateful the striker is, why aren’t we more troubled by the fact that a team with a history as prestigious and a fan base as fantastic as Liverpool aren’t able to keep hold of their best player because a richer team who have bought enough talent to qualify for the Champions League can throw 70 or 80 million at the club and offer Suarez £200,000 a week?
[linequote]What chance to teams like Spurs and Liverpool have when Chelsea can stride in through the back door and snatch players like Willian and Mohamed Salah?[/linequote]
The second sad reality that was further reinforced after our match against City is the fact that, despite the game having more money tied up in it than most other industries in the world, a game that that could have been so significant was massively influenced by a shocking decision by a man standing ten yards away from the incident.
Yes we were 1-0 down at the time, but we all seen how much more Spurs were getting into the game. We were threatening, looked to be getting closer to making a telling attack on the City goal and were always in with a chance as long as there was only one goal in the match.
Many have said with the form City are in, we would have lost anyway. That’s fair enough, but does the fact that they are such a good team excuse us not being given a fair chance to even try to get something from the game?
If City scored another goal and went onto win the match against a full allocation of Spurs players, there is nothing we could have taken issue with. We would have been beaten by the better team on the day, fair and square. But to wrongly concede a penalty, that was converted to double the deficit and have a man send off in the process, putting the game completely out of our reach and condemning us to a battering for the rest of the match, is sickening.
It took less than 30 seconds for viewers at home to see a reply which showed that Danny Rose had won the ball, and that the correct decision was to award City a corner. In an age when billions of pounds are pumped into the game on a yearly basis, why on earth are we still at the mercy of officials who don’t do their jobs properly every week?
Instead of camera replays only being useful for fans watching games at home, why can’t an official also be sat behind a computer monitor, watching what actually happened and then telling the man in black on the pitch what call to make?
[authquoteright text=”In an age when billions of pounds are pumped into the game on a yearly basis, why on earth are we still at the mercy of officials who don’t do their jobs properly?[/linequote]
The fact that so little has been said about the awful game that the officials had is also telling. If the shoe was on the other foot, and City lost the game, missing the chance to go 1st in the league because of incompetent referees, would more have been said about what happened at White Hart Lane last night?
All Spurs can do now is brush ourselves off and concentrate on Hull away at the weekend. We’ve came back from defeats like this before, and we know we can do it again. What’s more, on current form an away fixture probably suits us more than a home one as we look to get back to winning ways. Hopefully it’ll be the boys in Lilywhite, not black, that decide the fate of our next game.
[author name=”Craig” avatar=”https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/378800000836728525/f3a5d00c84b742e292eaf00e1882ae73_bigger.jpeg” twitter=”” tag=”Craig[/linequote]
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19 Comments
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31/01/2014 @ 11:14 am
I can only think back to the Mendes goal to see that technology needs to be put to more use in the modern game.Back in our double days you had to rely on the ref there was no other option and huge sums of money we’nt being spent.Now we have the technology to back or refute refereeing decisions.Its on the big screens in nanoseconds b ut not used.Having said that were is this fair play thing?Chelsea,City and others still seem to be slinging large sums of unearned money about.
31/01/2014 @ 11:48 am
Good article. When you compare Man City’s annual wage bill of £233m per year with that of Spurs (less than half that) you can see why Spurs are punching above their weight. We can’t pay the wages that Man City do so they can attract and keep the best players even if some of them just sit on the bench.
Regarding the ref and the sending off and penalty decision the ref doesn’t have the benefit of slow motion replays. I agree that the 4th official should have access to video evidence and the ability to overrule the ref on game changing decisions such as this one.
I see Spurs ending up in 4th place after Man Utd and Liverpool. It wouldn’t surprise me if Man Utd ended up in 4th place.
31/01/2014 @ 11:48 am
Oh get over it and stop your pathetic whinings. LIFE ISN’T FAIR. I am sick and tired of fellow Spurs supporters moaning on about how other teams have money to burn. We have plenty of cash, it’s just that WE don’t splash it on any and every player that looks good. Please just STFU with the crying and look at where we REALLY are. We beat Hull and Citeh beat Chelski and we are only 4, yes FOUR points from third. So shut up and start supporting our mighty Spurs you pathetic twonk.
31/01/2014 @ 11:55 am
Don’t be silly. Spurs don’t have the revenue of Man Utd. Man Utd revenue £340m. Spurs £140m. Spurs don’t have an oil billionaire ready to pump money in like Man City and Chelsea do. Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea are prepared to pay salaries of over £200k per week (over £10m per year). Spurs are not. Hence Spurs can never attract or keep the really top players. They pay Adebayour around£170k per week, but Man City still pay half of that.
Spurs don’t have plenty of cash to burn. They balance their books.
31/01/2014 @ 11:58 am
You want to stop being abusive, Chris and use your brain. That’s if you have one!
31/01/2014 @ 1:45 pm
You understand that you’re giving a complete stranger abuse for no reason other than they have a different opinion than you?
31/01/2014 @ 9:41 pm
Get that dick out of your mouth.
31/01/2014 @ 11:49 am
Correction. Meant Spurs ending up in 6th place.
31/01/2014 @ 2:30 pm
I agree that the money available at City is obscene but at the same time, I imagine someone languishing at the bottom of the Prem or any side in the Championship and below would love to be able to spend the money that we have. Don’t we have our very own £36m midfielder (not even making the bench) and £26m striker not being regular starters?
On the technology aspect, I totally agree. I don’t buy the counter argument that if it technology can’t be implemented at a lower level then it shouldn’t be implemented at the highest level. A debatable shot that did/didn’t cross the line at your regular Saturday/Sunday league level (that I’m sure many of us play) is completely different to when it has the potential to impact a season that results in millions of pounds of prize money.
31/01/2014 @ 4:19 pm
In 2014 Chelsea and Manchester City are the moneybags.
Back in the early sixties it was Everton(littlewoods pools) and Tottenham Hotspur.
Not sure exactly where the Spurs money came from, but they were certainly a very wealthy team. More so than other teams with similar gates. And Bill Nicholson didn’t waste too much on poor signings. But often wondered about the source of the Spurs wealth in those long away days.
31/01/2014 @ 4:56 pm
I don’t speak with any personal knowledge of Spurs pre-Bill Nick, but didn’t he buy players on an unparalled scale? All the stars of the Double Team were bought (as were most of the ‘supporting cast’), and the mystery to me is what clubs as well supported as Spurs did with their money in the era of the £20 per week maximum wage (£250 per week first team wage bill!) before big money transfer fees became the norm. We often had gates of 70,000 even in the old Division 2 in the ’40s, so I don’t think the odd £35,000 fee for the likes of Jones or Mackay broke the WHL bank!
31/01/2014 @ 5:16 pm
Football finances weren’t so public in those days. After the double Spurs spent huge sums – for those days – on Greaves £99k, England £95k, Venables £80k, Mullery £72k, Gilzean £72k. They seemed to have more cash than the other teams. They had large gates, but so did other teams. Still not sure what gave Spurs their fimancial edge.
31/01/2014 @ 6:24 pm
I was certainly puzzled by the apparent change in Spurs’ finances in the early ’70s – the two most expensive players in the English game in Peters and Coates in ’70 and ’71, and unable to persuade Bill Garner to leave Chelsea (let alone compete with Everton for Martin Dobson or Leeds for Duncan Mackenzie) only two or three years later. Certainly our gates had plunged from 50,000+ in the early ’60s to barely half that by the mid-’70s, and our diminished status was reflected in our ‘successful’ signings – the likes of Ian Moores and Don MacAllister, while Liverpool were snapping up Dalgleish and Souness. Under Scholar, we briefly flirted with the Big Boys again, before reality in the depressing form of Alan Sugar reasserted itself, and now we’ve got ENIC, and false dawns approximately every two years. Where does that leave us? The PL now consists of a ‘Big Two’ (City and Chelsea, obviously), a ‘Slightly Smaller Two’ (United and Arsenal), a ‘Special Case One’ (Liverpool, by virtue of their history and world-wide fan base), and then ‘The Pretenders’ (Us, Everton and possibly Newcastle), who have NO chance of winning the league, but might qualify for the CL in a good year. At least I’ve got memories of real success at Spurs, but it would be nicer if they were in colour rather than sepia.
31/01/2014 @ 6:56 pm
There have been loads of books on Spurs. An economic/financial history would be worth reading.
Agree with where we stand at present. Only one way to get to City/Chelsea level. A new stadium, without any/too much debt might in time allow us to compete with United/Arsenal.
31/01/2014 @ 7:26 pm
Agree that Spurs seemed lose their financial advantage after around 1972.
Arsenal had surfaced again, having been in Spurs shadow for the 1960s, and some of the 1950s.
Maybe the Spurs board lost confidence. And Bill Nicholson was nearing retirement.
Quite sad when you look back on it.
31/01/2014 @ 10:27 pm
1991 was probably when the dream was over.
1961-1991 12 of our 17 trophies.
Only 3 before 1961, and only 2 since 1991.
31/01/2014 @ 9:44 pm
Maybe if teams took a points penalty each season that was worked out based on a combination of spending from the previous 5 years and the wage bill? Pie in the sky, I know, but what if?
01/02/2014 @ 2:53 am
Take a look at American pro sports. Baseball is for the most part dominated by the teams that can outspend. Yankees, Red Sox, two or three others. Teams outside the top spenders can and do winbut the odds don’t favor it and the odds certainly don’t favor the non top spenders competing consistently. it’s simply a very uneven field because spending dictates success in most cases. It’s a shame but it seems like epl is no different.
01/02/2014 @ 3:00 am
(I’m am American new to epl who chose to support spurs because my dad is a spurs fan… I probably am too new to it to even weigh in but coming from a second tier spending city (Philadelphia) I think I can relate to what you guys and gals are feeling with respect to Manchester city’s and others’ spending.)