Irony of Ian Ayre's ire

“The socialism I believe in is everyone working for each other, everyone having a share of the rewards. It’s the way I see football, the way I see life” – Bill Shankly.

Ian Ayre at a home game

Personally I think the game-changer is going out and recognising our brand globally. Maybe the path will be individual TV rights like they do in Spain. There are so many things moving in that particular area.” – Ian Ayre, Liverpool’s managing director

Contrast what Shankly said to what Ayre said and one will immediately know the difference between a money-minded, post-modernist world to that of when football was a fiercely-competitive game on the park and a couple of beers and a proper debate about the game and its heroes of it.

While Liverpool fans, the ones who echo their managing director’s sentiments, might not be that wrong for wanting a separate overseas TV rights deal, the traditional top four have dominated viewership in the Middle-East and South Asia, do they really want to be part of a league which gives 100 million pounds to them and 5 million pounds to a promoted club further exacerbating the gulf (pun intended) between the rich and the poor?

Ayre, who may have been closely studying the La Liga model where clubs negotiate their own TV deals also said, “What is absolutely certain is that, with the greatest of respect to our colleagues in the Premier League, but if you’re a Bolton fan in Bolton, then you subscribe to Sky because you want to watch Bolton. Everyone gets that. Likewise, if you’re a Liverpool fan from Liverpool, you subscribe. But if you’re in Kuala Lumpur there isn’t anyone subscribing to Astro, or ESPN to watch Bolton, or if they are it’s a very small number. Whereas the large majority are subscribing because they want to watch Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea or Arsenal.”

That is typical snobbery from one of England’s most respected clubs, or at least a representative from one of England’s most respected clubs. Fourteen of the 20 Premier League clubs will have to say yes to Ayre’s proposal to ratify this suggestion. Rest assured, Bolton won’t be one of them.

United calls it ‘fair’

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson recently said the deal-sharing system was “fair”. Coming back to Ayre who thinks if the Premier League doesn’t follow the La Liga model of individually negotiating TV rights, the Premier League’s status quo might affect the top four. Dear Mr. Ayre, step back for a moment and think about the 14 (Tottenham and Manchester City will be able to get a sizable chunk for themselves) clubs if this was to be ratified? Won’t the overall competition of the Premier League be in jeopardy if the elite (6 of the 20) takeaway about 80% of the total money that was on offer?

While Premier League watchers might scoff at me for using the word competition – only four clubs have ever won the revamped Premier League – one just needed to watch the game between Stoke City and Manchester United the other week. It was intense, it was passionate and the “smaller club” almost beat the “bigger club”. And the likes of Stoke City, or even a Blackburn Rovers, who beat Arsenal in dramatic fashion a couple of weeks back, need their own stage, and also a bit of money to perform at the highest level.

If what Ayre is proposing does indeed get some backing, the Premier League will become poorer because of two reasons:

1) this then sets a precedent for someone like Mr. Ayre, from any one of the other four or five clubs, to voice his concerns of equally sharing the domestic TV rights and

2) more and more clubs will go the Manchester City way of finding new owners to pump in that extra bit of money which has been denied to them by the system.

The current overseas broadcast rights is worth about 1.4 billion pounds (contract from 2010-2013). Assuming the demand for the Premier League would have grown by the time 2013 comes around, let us assume the value would be about 2 billion pounds. And the top six, negotiating separately, would be able to access about 1.8 billion pounds for a subsequent three year period.

To just put up a few numbers, that would mean a Manchester United being able to negotiate a 300 million pound contract with an overseas broadcaster for the three year period in question (from 2013-2016) while the likes of Bolton would be able to generate a revenue of say 30 million pound for the same three year period in question. To just put those numbers into perspective, Manchester United just needs to cover 10 meters while Bolton would have to run the whole 100 meters in a sprint.

Why the comparison to Spain doesn’t bear fruit

Just how many of this does Ian Ayre want?

Granted Barcelona has won the Champions League more times in the last decade than all the English clubs put together. But how much of the separate TV rights eventually helped them in winning it? You are arguably looking at the best club side in history since Arrigo Sacchi’s AC Milan. Not a bunch of individuals who have been bought for vast amounts of money from all corners of the world.

The league’s third placed over the last couple of campaigns – Valencia – are doing well in spite of selling their biggest stars over the last two-three campaigns. And the difference between them and top two is so huge at this point in time.

Conventional wisdom, and a passing knowledge, states that Real Madrid are one of the world’s best club. While the foundation was based on a few men, it has managed to stand the test of time. But they haven’t been having a say in trophies, both in Spain as well as in Europe, for quite some time now. Even after individually negotiating the TV rights. It’s just a highway to give clubs more money, there’s no guarantee that it would anyway stop superior football teams from outplaying the inferior but far-rich football teams. So Ayre might have just come out and said he wants Liverpool to “earn” more money, rather than sprouting bollocks about how this jeopardizes the Premier League’s elite, when compared to Spain’s elite.

A better way for Liverpool to address the current imbalance would be to either build a new stadium or stop buying mediocre players for about 35 million pounds. And also get back into Europe.