Appetite for change helps secure money needed to add glamour to English game

The Premier League was launched almost 20 years ago with the purpose and promise of bringing new life to the somewhat tired English game. In the first part of our series looking at the Future of Football, Richard Sutcliffe charts the rise of what was hailed at the time as ‘a whole new ball game’.

AS the game’s top players do battle today in stadia that compare favourably with anywhere in the world, visualising just what sort of state English football was in when the Premier League came into being 20 seasons ago is not easy.

Not quite still the pariahs of the continent due to the ban on clubs competing in European competition having been recently lifted, the game in this country was still in far from robust health.

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Gazza’s tears during Italia ‘90 had admittedly served as a sea-change in terms of improving public opinion to a game that had, during the nadir of the Eighties, become as far removed from Pele’s famous ‘beautiful’ tag as seemed possible.

But, nevertheless, English football was still considered to be the sick man of Europe due to a combination of hooliganism, often decrepit stadia and the fact the best players were increasingly looking abroad to fulfil their potential.

The stain of Heysel plus the tragedies of Bradford and Hillsborough were also still fresh in the mind.

No wonder, therefore, that there was appetite for change in the football corridors of power.

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The first rumblings of this had come in 1988 when the ‘Big Five’, aided and abetted by a second tier of five other top-flight clubs, had first suggested breaking away from the Football League in an attempt to maximise revenue from television.

That threat was averted at the last minute when agreement was reached over a four-year deal worth £44m with ITV, 80 per cent of which was to be divided between the top-flight clubs with the remainder going to Divisions Two, Three and Four.

It was a compromise deal but one that was never going to last. The seeds for change had been planted.

So much so, in fact, that by the time the deal with ITV had entered its final season, a plan for 22 clubs to breakaway from the League and form their own competition under the auspices of the Football Association had already been agreed.

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The FA Premier League was born, destined to kick-off on August 15, 1992, and to be commercially independent from the Football League.

Ken Bates had been the chairman of Chelsea for a decade when the new competition got under way. He had long since complained that the game was getting a raw deal off the television companies, who as recently as 1985 had paid just £1.3m to screen a handful of live games and broadcast highlights.

Now chairman of Leeds United, Bates recalls: “It was felt that things had to change for the good of the game, though I did have a few misgivings about the first proposals for a Super League.

“I had always been on the side of the smaller clubs. In fact, when there was a coup to get me off the Football League committee once I did ask (former Liverpool chairman) Noel White why he had voted for it and he said, ‘It is because you always stick up for the smaller clubs’.

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“I did that until 2007 when they all turned on Leeds United and voted for the 15 points deduction. After that happened, I thought, ‘Stuff them’.

“But back then I stood up for the smaller clubs and thought their interests had to be protected when the big clubs were calling for a breakaway.”

Bates may not have agreed with the motives of the ‘Big Five’ – Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur – in trying to secure their own deal with ITV in 1988.

But he did feel that football was under-valued in terms of the income it generated from television.

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“Ron Noades (then Crystal Palace chairman) and myself had been fighting for more money from television for a long time,” says Bates. “The Premier League being formed allowed us to do something about that.”

The “something” Bates alludes to was the securing of a deal with satellite broadcaster BSkyB, worth £191m over five years. With the BBC, who had lost the rights to ITV in 1988, also successfully bidding for the highlights package so Match of the Day could return, it pushed income for the new League beyond £300m.

By the standards of the day, it represented a huge sum as Rupert Murdoch pipped ITV, who had originally bid £205m for the rights and then later increased their offer to £262m, to a deal that would prove to be the making of not only Sky but also the Premier League.

Compared to the £1.8m a year that all the top-flight clubs had banked in 1991-92, the rise was a considerable one that, in turn, kick-started a revolution way beyond these shores.

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As Bates reveals on today’s back page, the Leeds chairman feels that without the advent of the Premier League – and the subsequent influx of huge sums of cash – English football would be the also-rans of Europe.

As proof of the positive changes caused by the events of the early Nineties, he points to the country’s stadia now being recognised as being among the very best in the world and the fact that many of the world’s best players now ply their trade in England.

Crucial to this improvement, Bates believes, has been the Founder Members Agreement, signed by all 22 member clubs in July 1991, that stipulated a system whereby the money was shared out fairly.

“Getting rid of ITV and bringing in Sky proved an important move,” says Bates.

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“As was casting everything in stone in the Founders Agreement, and in particular the way the money would be divided up.

“First, half of all money in terms of television and sponsorship was to be shared equally.

“Then, a quarter would be decided on league position with the team finishing first getting the most and so on.

“Finally, the final quarter was to be based on how many times a club featured on television. It was also agreed that the away club should get the same fee as the home club, something I felt was important. Under ITV, the home club had got more money and as it was the big clubs that were always on television that meant they got the most money. I saw that as a bit of a fiddle.”

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The signing of the Founders Agreement proved to be a landmark moment in what was a fraught year or so as rows, legal wrangling and threatened strike action by players all dogged the setting-up of the planned new competition.

At one stage, Football League president Bill Fox even felt bold enough to state: “The Premier League will never happen.”

As the rows escalated, and in particular those between the two bodies at the head of English football, Bates sensed a major motivation for many at the FA’s Lancaster Gate headquarters.

He said: “I remember being at the FA for a lot of discussions around that time. The FA had a feud with the Football League and it was clear to me that they wanted to smash their rival.

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“The FA were so desperate to get it through that they agreed to everything we demanded.

“They had wanted 18 clubs but the Premier League kicked off with 22. It did come down to 20 a few years later but it has stayed at that level. I felt the FA might have pushed a bit harder to insist on 18 but they never did.”

Eventually, agreement was reached to the satisfaction of all parties – meaning the Premier League was ready to kick-off as planned on August 15, 1992, when Sheffield United’s Brian Deane wrote himself into football folklore by scoring the new league’s first goal in a 2-1 win over Manchester United.

It proved to be turning point in English football, as can be witnessed in this the 20th season of Premier League football. The game may still be beset by problems but the quality of the fare on offer is not in doubt with the days when Paul Gascoigne, David Platt and Des Walker had to head abroad to test themselves against the cream of European talent having long gone.

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No longer the pariahs of Europe, English clubs are now among the most glamorous in the world with the appeal of the game in this country underlined by the Premier League being shown live in more than 100 countries – a prospect that, 20 short seasons ago, was unimaginable.

Salaries soar for players while fortunes dip for Yorkshire’s clubs

WHEN Dave Bassett reads in the newspapers or hears on television about the wages some top Premier League players earn today, he allows himself a wry smile.

Such a response is not because he begrudges the earning potential of Wayne Rooney, John Terry et al.

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No, the reason for the slight shaking of the head is that Bassett, as the former manager of Sheffield United, knows just how dramatically salaries have risen since the advent of the Premier League in 1992.

“I always believed in the Premier League,” admits the 67-year-old, who led the Blades to a ninth-place finish – still their highest since 1974-75 – in the season before the new competition got under way.

“But I didn’t have a clue just how much it would change things. I look back now and think, ‘Was that really how it was then?’

“I always think back to a couple of years after the Premier League had started and the top earning player at Sheffield United was on £136,000 per year.

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“Now, a fair few players earn that in less than a week. It is the same with managers, some of which earn millions of pounds a year. No-one could have predicted that when the Premier League first began.

“I was excited when I first heard about the plans, even if I was also a bit concerned as to whether Sky would be able to make it pay. The money involved was huge so it was just a case of whether the sums added up.

“But, in terms of what the Premier League could do for the game, I felt it would bring added exposure, bring the sponsors in and be a step forward.

“The clubs would then have more money coming in and do up the grounds, while also improving their squads.”

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Bassett’s United team – and, more specifically, Brian Deane – created a piece of Premier League history on August 15, 1992, when the striker scored the first goal in the new competition.

For the former Wimbledon manager, Deane’s early strike against Manchester United merely represented a continuation of the previous season’s impressive showing.

The Blades had finished ninth thanks to a stirring second-half of the campaign that yielded 11 wins from the final 18 games.

By the time such a huge turnaround in form had got underway – the Blades had been in the relegation zone as late as New Year’s Day, 1991 – agreement had been reached over forming the Premier League.

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Much has changed since then, most notably in Yorkshire with how the footballing fortunes of the county have taken a nose-dive.

In that final season of the 92-team Football League, not only did the Blades finish ninth in the top-flight but Sheffield Wednesday were third and Leeds United champions.

Now, the two Steel City rivals are languishing in the third tier while Leeds sit 11th in the Championship.

For Bassett, who spent seven years in charge at Bramall Lane and has since been on the coaching staff at Leeds under Dennis Wise, it represents a regrettable state of affairs.

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He said: “The problem for the clubs outside the Premier League today is that it is getting harder and harder to get back.

“The people of Yorkshire know that more than most. Leeds were up there but they buggered it right up by spending money they couldn’t afford.

“Leeds should be a Premier League club but bad decisions made in the past means they are not.

“Sheffield Wednesday are the same. They were third the year before the Premier League and had a good team but things went badly wrong.

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“And you can’t always blame the managers for that. Other people are making decisions as well.

“Being a former Sheffield United manager, it is not nice seeing what has happened lately.

“They had one year back in the Premier League under Neil Warnock but couldn’t stay up and have gone down again.

“It is a real shame to see, especially as it is getting harder and harder every year to get back up there.”