Bleacher Report - Articles by Philip Brown

Premier League, You're Having a Laugh

Philip Brown — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:43:24 -0400

So the summer is finally over and the new English season is upon us, the hopes and dreams of most fans are still securely intact. Manchester City spent £80 million on above-average players whilst everybody else scraped the barrel.

As the transfer window draws to a close, we're left in absolutely no doubt, the bubble has well and truly burst in the greed-is-good league.

Forgive my schaudenfraud but no-one more than the English Premier League can not say "they didn't have it coming." The league has put profit before anything else and as a result, attracted all the wrong investment from all the wrong types of people.

Manchester United and Liverpool, Englands two finest footballing institutions are crippled financially, both clubs forced to sell their best players then beg and borrow to sign woeful replacements.

Arsenal, in debt for the right reasons, can't turn down offers for anyone, Chelsea with an extremely old team are showing no signs of past spending habits which leaves a league with some very heavy baggage.

Scudamore and co. represent exactly why my love affair with football is coming to an end. I reminisce of the 80s, packed stadiums, affordable football, loyalty, and no mention of PLC, Hedge Funds and Automatic cup schemes.

The game really did belong to the people.

Now we're told that the "premiership is the greatest league in the world" and a 39th game is a great way to bring English Football to the world.

Maybe its the utter contempt they show towards everyone elses intelligence, it certainly would explain a lot but any semi conscious observer knows why the suits in English Football want these things and its exactly the same reason why the Champions League exists in its current format.

Liverpool and Manchester United are English footballs greatest clubs, both steeped in history, tradition, fantasy and equally, enormous debt. The scandalous 'fit and proper test' was just words. If it isn't then I would love to know who determines suitability when people like Thaksin Shinawatra are passed fit?

The fact is, these parasites sold every principle English football had for instant gratification which has now resulted in a horrifyingly precarious outlook for some of the leagues greatest clubs.

Man City fans are beyond giddy about the fact they have signed a team full of above average players. Has anyone ever told them that they don't even own their own stadium?

You know, some of the most basic financial advice will tell you, dont plough your money into expensive toys whilst living in a rented apartment. City fans would be much better off if the Abu Dhabi group bought City a stadium, training facilities that weren't laughable, and improved the clubs infrastructure as a whole.

At least if the Arabs leave town, City have sustainable assets rather than overpaid players on long term contracts. But hey, who cares about tomorrow?

As a lover of English football, i despair about its current state. I have no faith at all in its legislators and i believe the barrel is rotten to the core.

UEFA have got to introduce regulation that bans clubs from its competitions if they are heavily in debt. Its fair, its ethical and its protection for supporters against over leveraged buy outs of clubs that transform them into ticking time bombs.

There would be no Glazers, no Hicks and Gillet, no Leeds if these regulations existed. The meltdown has already begun, Englands biggest clubs are marketing monsters that just happen to play football.

These clubs are set up to run on revenue streams that are only obtainable by monumental success. With players leaving like rats of a sinking ship then just how success on a global scale is supposed to be maintained is any ones guess.

The English FA have picked off all their easy targets in hammering lower league clubs for going into administration, I do wonder how they'll react when (not if) it happens to a Premiership Club. Expect double standards.

Michel Platini The Saviour For the Forgotten Fans?

Philip Brown — Tue, 19 May 2009 02:37:33 -0400

There's a popular myth that does the rounds, the myth that Michel Platini resents English football and is on a crusade to destroy it.

As the scientific community would say, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

I look at Platini's priors and wonder just what it is he has done to have earned such condemnation from the English Premier League? The French genius has unbelievably been accused of being anti-English for saying things like, "Clubs heavily in debt will not be allowed in the Champions League", can someone please explain to me how that is anything other than doing his job as the well-being custodian of European football?

Picture that oasis of only profitable football clubs in the Champions League, we would have no national monuments raped by the likes of the Glazers, Hicks, and Gillet, Liverpool and United without Champions League revenue would be a non-starter for these parasites.

Leeds United would never have happened, it would prevent it from ever happening again, so tell me again, just how is that anti-English? He's the knight in shining armour for all supporters who have watched their club used as toy by some morally and fiscally bankrupt human beings who have no motive other than financial.

Let's analyse his criticism of foreign investment in the Premiership. On the face of it, investment looks great—lots of money, great players, instant success, every one's a winner right?

Not if you look a little deeper.

Thakshin Shinawatra had to be the most repulsive human being ever to acquire a football club, made an absolute mockery of the Premier League's fit and proper test and it said an awful lot about the modern football fan when City fans were showing up and confessing their undying love for the money laundering dictator.

What kind of message did that send?

Buy a couple of players and it doesn't matter if Saddam Hussein buys your club. Why aren't these supporters demanding more? If I was a City fan or any other supporter whose club was acquired by a rich mogul, i would analyse very closely what changes they are making.

Say what you want about Abramovich, but he added value to Chelsea on and off the field, he built a new multi-million pound training facility which is exactly the kind of investment supporters should be welcoming.

That says commitment, that says you're in it for more than just the publicity and an ego trip.

In my opinion, the true enemy of English football is Richard Scudamore and his co-horts who would play Premiership football over the graves of the dead if the price was right.

People like Platini have been a long time coming, i only hope he has the courage to act on his threats, we would have a much healthier game.

Giggs the Enigma, PFA Awards Sentiment

Philip Brown — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:23:40 -0400

Since the announcement a week ago that Ryan Giggs has been recently crowned footballer of the year, we've heard ad nauseam that whilst he may not have deserved it this year he certainly should have gotten it in the past.

Memory is a funny thing, it lies to us, it abuses our imagination and it tells us half truths. Anyone who has watched Manchester United consistently over the last 18 years will tell you, the reason why Giggs has never won it is because he has never deserved it.

Ryan Giggs is capable of moments of sheer brilliance, a mercurial footballer with sublime talent but he also possessed a negative trait in abundance and that's inconsistency. If you study the Welsh wizard's career closely its not as squeaky clean as your memory might suggest.

In fact, it was widely believed that United where ready to offload Giggs in 2001 had they have been successful in their pursuit of Santiago Solari. Many United fans will tell you, Giggs produces when he's something to prove, something United aren't oblivious to either hence the one year contracts.

I can think of many moments of Giggs' anonymity, conspicuous purely because the man possessed such superlative ability that made it all the more frustrating. To sum it up, Giggs is capable of pure genius but not capable of the consistency that should be required to win Footballer of the year.

Now before people jump to the conclusion that this article is a pop at Ryan Giggs, it isn't. It's merely illustrating that the Welsh Wizard has for me, never fully lived up to his potential.

I remember when he made his debut, i thought United had unearthed a genius, a Lionel Messi of his time. As the years transpired and the hamstring injuries piled up, the winger's star dimmed ever so slightly. As he nears the end of his career he can of course console himself with the fact that he's won more trophies than City have won in their history and pride himself on his impeccable conduct that is so bereft in modern sports.

Without a doubt, a United great—but also without a doubt, an emphatic enigma.

Howard Webb: What's The Fuss About?

Philip Brown — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 04:12:54 -0400

It's Wednesday morning, Champions League semifinal day between the two best footballing teams in the Premier League, yet despite it being the middle of the week, the crescendo of expletives towards Howard Webb has barely subsided.

I sit back in my armchair and put emotions aside. What has Howard Webb done that was so different to any other referee in the country? He's given a penalty that could very easily be argued he was right about, taking the ball and the man after all is a free kick nine times out of 10 anywhere else on the pitch.

What is this public lynching really about? For me it's the despair that only hope can bring.

At half time at Old Trafford you felt the giddiness of a nation, a nation that is fed up with Manchester United dominating both home and abroad. Everyone held their collective breath, hoping that Tottenham would hold out and beat Manchester United so the party could begin.

That was until Howard Webb, with a peep of his whistle, deflated the ABU nation and ignited the kind of hyperbolic vitriol that would suggest the guy had committed a heinous capital murder. He had to issue a public apology for goodness sake, when did that new regulation come in?

Liverpool fans crammed the phone lines with cries of "fix," their suicidal monotones exclaiming the league is corrupt and the FA is petrified of Sir Alex Ferguson.

These are the same fans that cried wolf when Manchester United were given five minutes of injury time against Aston Villa, yet airbrushed out the fact they where given the same against Arsenal just two weeks later—minutes they so dearly needed for their equaliser.

They also want you to forget that two of their three goals against Hull should not have counted. Lucas quite clearly handled the ball for Kuyt's third, which followed an outrageous dive by Mascherano to con the referee into giving the free kick that led to Liverpool's opener.

This brings me to the very crux of my rant.

People complain all day long about the standard of refereeing diminishing, but have we ever given a thought to the standard of the human beings that play the game?

If dubious penalties are given or not given, don't blame the referee, blame the players like Gerrard, Ronaldo, and Robinho, to name a few, who perpetually throw themselves to the ground at the mere touch of a television.

This despicable play acting, cheating, and diving has made a referee's job damn near impossible.

Jermaine Jenas sums up the intelligence of the average footballer quite well when he says: "The thing that struck me was Webb didn't even think about it, he made his mind up right away." Yeah Jermaine, as opposed to sitting on his arse, having a cup of tea and a smoke, and then deciding it wasn't a penalty.

Anyhow, complaining about utter ineptness is something JJ would know an awful lot about. The game hasn't changed, the people that watch it and the people that play it have.

It is what it is because we made it that way. The transition from a sport to a business has brought a win at all costs mentality which unfortunately extends to the field.

Manchester United were denied an FA Cup final place by a penalty that wasn't given, exactly the same way they where eliminated last season. Wilson Palacios should have been sent off in the first five minutes at Old Trafford.

Why don't we hear of such things? Because jealousy is a terrible thing.