EPL: Getting Rid of Promotion/Relegation in Premier League Would Be a Mistake

According to the Associated Press (h/t ESPN), the English Premier League owners may one day force a major change to English football by pushing to do away with relegation from the top flight.

League Managers' Association chief executive Richard Bevan spoke about the issue at the Professional Players Federation conference this week, saying that foreign owners, of which there are ten in the EPL, will be the main factor.

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"There are a number of overseas-owned clubs already talking about bringing about the avoidance of promotion and relegation in the Premier League. If we have four or five more new owners, that could happen."

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Five current clubs in the Premier League: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester United, and Sunderland are all under American ownership. Blackburn, Chelsea, Queens Park Rangers, Fulham, and Manchester City are all foreign-owned as well.

In order for a change to the rules, 14 of the 20 clubs have to be in favor.

It is very possible, according to Bevan, that a change to the rules could happen if more foreign owners come into the fold. Like many things these days, it all has to do with money. In the AP article, Bevan is quoted as saying this about the idea:

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"Certainly you'll find that with American owners and you'll find that with some of the Asian owners (they have been talking about scrapping relegation).

"If you look at sports all around the world and you look at sports owners trying to work out how to invest to make money, you will find that most of them like the idea of franchises. If you take particularly American owners, without doubt, there have been a number of them looking at having more of a franchise situation and that would mean no promotion or relegation."

"Obviously if I was an American owner and I owned a football club or I was an Indian owner I might be thinking I would like to see no promotion or relegation, my investment is going to be safer and my shares are going to go up in value."

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This would be a change only to the Premier League. The 20 teams in the league would remain the same, much like in American sports. The other leagues on the ladder: the Football League Championship, League One, League Two, Conference North, Conference South and all the way through the regional leagues would continue as usual.

Is this really fair though? Should the Premier League clubs be able to close the door to the rest of England's clubs and call themselves the top 20 forever?

In the Football League Championship, the second division of English football: Derby County, Southhampton, Leicester City, Birmingham City, Cardiff City, Hull City, Portsmouth, Millwall, Blackpool and Peterborough United are all owned by foreign investors. What do you say to all of them? Five of these clubs have been in the Premier League since the start of the 2007-08 season.

Promotion and relegation is one of the things that makes football so amazing. You could have teams that were in the Premier League for quite some time like Newcastle and West Ham that all of a sudden have to go down to the Championship and fight their way back up. Why shouldn't the clubs in the Championship now or in the future be given a chance at the Premier League?

Look at the Championship last season. When Queens Park Rangers secured the title, what would a club like Nottingham Forest, who finished 13 points behind the champions, have to play for if there were no promotion to the Premier League? Though they didn't win the promotion play-off, their last two games were vital as they had to hold off Leeds United who were threatening at taking their spot.

While it gives clubs in the lower divisions everything to play for, it also gives reason for the bottom teams in the Premier League reason to play as well.

Wigan Athletic have gone into the last couple seasons in the Premier League as a club expected to finish at the bottom, pretty much Premier League version of the Kansas City Royals. The Royals have literally nothing to play for. They have finished last or first from bottom every year in their division since 2004.

What about Wigan? Well, with the threat of being relegated to the Championship, Wigan have everything to play for, even though they know they won't be challenging the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, and Chelsea for the title anytime soon. Finishing 18th, 19th, or 20th would mean losing their place in arguably the best domestic league in the world and would also mean a loss of a lot of money from playing in the second division.

Owners may be afraid of severe drops in attendance with a drop to the Championship, yet this should not be a worry.

A prime example that should ease concern is Derby County. During the 2007-08 Premier League season, the Rams finished 20th with a record of 1-8-29 (W-D-L). They set Premier League worsts with the fewest wins, most losses, and a goal difference of -69. They were the first team in Premier League history to be officially relegated in March, second in post-war English football league history, and they joined Longborough, a team which dissolved in 1900, as the only clubs to finish with one win in Football League history.

Despite this miserable season, Derby, a club which has never been extremely popular except with its local supporters and a club which has not been a top flight champion since 1975, only twice ever, saw very little change in their attendance numbers. They went from 32,432 fans on average in 2007-08 in the Premier League to 29,445 in the Championship in 2008-09. That is not really a terrible drop off.

Now consider if for some reason Manchester United ever got relegated. The odds are astronomical, but does anyone really think the average attendance, which so far in 2011-12 is 75,006, would drop much?

Football fans in England are what I wish American fans could be, loyal through and through. When the Yankees aren't winning baseball games, people do not show up. That seems to be the worry of American owners in the Premier League. I would not.

The idea of getting rid of relegation from and promotion to the Premier League is absurd. The idea of an intense relegation battle is actually important to the game as it gives bottom of the table teams reason to play and fans reason to watch.

Look to Italy. In 2003-04, Cesena were in Serie C1. They have been able to build and work their way up into the top flight, where they made life miserable for the big clubs last year and turned a lot of heads. More impressively, Napoli, after the glory days of Maradona, fell off completely. They were in Serie C1 as recently as 2000-01. They only climbed into Serie A in 2007-08. Since then, they have built a team that has finished 8th, 12th, 6th and 3rd and is now considered one of the favorites to win the league and are a threat to go far in the UEFA Champions League. They were in the second and third flights for most of the last 15 years and now they can win the Scuedtto! That's what football is all about.

To close the league off to the clubs below is totally unfair. Yes, the owners want to protect their investments, but what of the other clubs with foreign owners in the leagues below. If you want to protect your investment, build a team that can stay in the Premier League. If they do not, your bad.

Unless you have a really bad run of it, a good club that gets relegated will be back within a year, maybe two. It was a lesson for Newcastle. Relegation is not the end of the world.

The other thing, look at the clubs owned by foreign owners. Arsenal, yea, rough season so far, but relegation? No.

Aston Villa? Probably not going anywhere anytime soon, though I would not call them a threat for a European spot.

Liverpool? John Henry is a genius. Within a couple years of buying the Boston Red Sox, a team that looked like it was about to hit the fan, he was a World Series champion. He liked winning so much that he did again a couple years later. He has brought in a great manager in Kenny Dalglish and some phenomenal talent.

Manchester United?

Sunderland? Rough start this year, but the Black Cats are normally mid-table.

Chelsea? No. Roman Abromovich has worked wonders.

Manchester City? If it were not for their oil prince owner, they would not be one of the three title threats.

Right now, only Blackburn look to be in trouble. Fulham and QPR are away from the drop zone, but its still early.

The point is, the foreign owners are whining about a problem that is unlikely to affect them anytime soon. Even if it did, they have the resources to put their club right back in the Premier League after a year in the Championship.

Blocking out teams that work hard to get to where they are, making bottom-table games boring, and taking away all outside interest in the lesser divisions are all reasons to avoid doing away with relegation from the Premier League.

Your team is where it is because it worked hard to get there. The money will be there, unless the owner does something stupid and screws their team over.