Search: 'European Union'

Mike Ticher talks to Graham Kelly about the formation of the Premier League, England's World Cup bid and the possibility of a future breakaway

When the Premier League began, you maintained it would benefit football as a whole. How successful has it been?
I think in two respects it’s been very successful. Firstly, commercially. The Premier League wasn’t set up in exactly the way that I envisaged at the start. We didn’t set up the Premier League within the structure of the FA, it was set up as an autonomous company, with its own board of directors and, not unnaturally, it was jealous of its own commercial properties. So to that extent the pattern isn’t as we envisaged. But nonetheless, helped by other factors, such as the Taylor Report and the emergence of satellite television, commercially the FA Premier League, standing alone, has been spectacularly successful. The second respect is the impetus it gave to the development of players. We argued for a number of years about getting the best young players more time with the best coaches, without a great deal of success. The Football League tended to operate at the pace of the slowest club rather than the fastest. Setting up the Premier League has led indirectly to the formation of the academies, and in time, hopefully, we will see more good English players coming through.

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Alex Ferguson has always let his political views be known, which is why Michael Crick is confused about the lack of it in  his book

It’s an interesting test. Just who in public life today could ring Downing Street at 7.30am and be put straight through to Tony Blair? Gordon Brown, Robin Cook or Jack Straw? Certainly. Rupert Murdoch? Un­doubtedly. Middle-ranking cabinet members like Ste­phen Byers and David Blunkett? Pretty marginal, I’d say. As for ministers like Chris Smith or Clare Short, they’d probably be fobbed off by the switchboard what­ever time of day it was.

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Thursday 1 The Department of Employment issue new rules on work permits. Players will be given permits for the length of their contracts rather than having their cases reviewed at the end of each season, and the rule stipulating that non-EU players must be among the top five wage earners at their clubs is scrapped. Forest's search for a manager ends with the appointment of the impressively tanned David Platt, who says: "The two months I had at Sampdoria were a massive learning curve." That's just what Sampdoria fans will have been thinking when they went down. The charges against Sol Camp≠bell for assaulting a steward after the Derby v Spurs match last autumn are dropped. Arsenal spend £3.5 million on a Brazilian full back, Silvinho, who says: "I have been following Arsenal ever since I knew they were watching me."

Friday 2 The PFA's Gordon Taylor criticises the changes to work permit rules. "We already have more foreign players than anywhere else in the world. Removing the wages criteria means you are opening the door to players who are not neccesarily top quality". Terry McDermott joins the Barnes-Dalglish dream team at Celtic as "social manager" – a highly specialised position which involves a lot of shouting and laughing plus the collecting of betting slips.

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Like it or not, more foreigners are on their way. Guy Osborn and Steve Greenfield explain the new work permit rules in the pipeline

The argument that too many foreigners are ruining British football often revolves around quality rather than quantity. By common consent the likes of Ginola, Zola and Stam have made a positive contribution to the Premier League but there are many others who could be regarded as journeymen. It is this influx, the critics argue, that is devaluing the national character of the game and denying domestic players opportunities. Changes now being considered by the Department of Education and Employment may result in even greater numbers of overseas players coming into the country.

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Hankies out for the European Cup-Winners Cup, which ended its days at Villa Park on May 19, 1999. Cris Freddi looks back on a trophy largely unloved outside Magdeburg.

So farewell then ECWC. No more clogging up sentences with “European Cup-Winners Cup quarter-final second leg”. The last of the three Euro com­petitions to be founded is the first to disappear. Fair enough, perhaps, and I suspect it won’t be unduly mourned.

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