There but for the Grace of God

The news of the demise of Farsley Celtic over a figure equivalent to 1/1200^th of the amount Manchester City have just paid for a barely workmanlike defender only serves to confirm the insanity of modern football. At one end of the game you have pampered players bleating about the amount of income tax they are paying on their multi-million wages, and at the other end there are clubs that have been part of their communities for centuries going to the wall over a few hundred thousand pounds.

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That’s not to say that Clubs that get in trouble are entirely blameless. More often than not it is down to living beyond your means. We are all so desperate to inch ourselves closer to the golden glow of the Premier League that we are all spending money we simply don’t have. Money that perhaps should have been put aside to pay the VAT bill!

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Moderate players are being paid far too much money. Clubs that are far too small to pay full-time wages are stretching themselves to accommodate engorged wage bills. At the same time the number of people paying at the gate to watch football is falling. There is also less sponsorship money coming into the game as companies outside of football rightly have other, better priorities closer to home. All-in-all, this is a combination of factors not entirely conducive to continued footballing harmony. And if this sounds familiar, it should. As well as any other number of Clubs, it describes the Poppies pretty accurately.

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Without Imraan’s continued backing exactly where would we be now? At best, we’d be moaning on Poppynet about our ticket allocation for the forthcoming derby at Rockingham Triangle. At middling we’d be groundsharing with Rothwell Town, and arranging our games around their fixtures. At worst we could all be talking about Kettering Town FC in the past tense. Let’s not kid ourselves that we’re a full-time football club playing at this level due to anything except Imraan’s wealth and, credit where it’s due, Mark Cooper’s abilities. Let’s also not kid ourselves of the condition we will be in should Imraan pull his funding.

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So football continues to throw every penny it has got at players wages to the exclusion of everything else. Supporters are paying a fortune to watch their teams. Clubs overspend and go bust.

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Whatever happened to the plans mooted a decade or so ago, when those in charge of football had a rare prescient moment, and foresaw where we were heading? The plans that included the regionalisation of the old Division Three and Four and the possible reverting to part-time football at this level? This may have been a way for Clubs to continue to pay their way, and achieve success. Not only didn’t this happen, but the upper reaches of non-league have also become full-time to match the unaltered lower divisions of the Football League.

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When will it end? When League teams routinely go bust? When a Premier League Team folds? When the TV money runs out? Maybe when we run out of bored Far East or Russian billionaires! Or perhaps it is when supporters finally baulk at funding the lavish lifestyles of people whose only talent is to kick a football.