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THE FA CUP FEAST OF TV FOOTBALL. AT THE EXPENSE OF... 22-3-06
Andy Morgan
So another Thursday night game and another triumph for the football schedulers as once more Premier League sides get messed about to allow the TV companies to offer 'a feast of football' to the average armchair punter.
This time however it is not the UEFA Cup being shunted to a Thursday to make way for two days of Champions' League action but the FA Cup, being spread over four nights, mid-week, to aid Sven-Goran Eriksson's England World Cup bid.
So what?! - I hear you cry. This situation has been known about for over a year and it was agreed by all parties that this would be the best thing to do with respect to England's World Cup chances. That extra week's break will allow the players more time to relax before the competition. It will also give them more time to train as a squad, increasing team unity and morale before we go into battle against Paraguay on 10 June.
But do these arguments really stand up? A quick perusal of the fixture lists for all of the other major European leagues show that England is the only country that will finish their games a week early - with the French, German, Spanish and Italian leagues all opting to have their last games of the season on 13th or 14th May.
But what about the FA Cup final! Well, true that will take place on 13th May but what about the domestic cup competitions of these other European countries? Will theirs take place during the following week? Almost certainly. So if anything, England will be finishing their season a week too early.
This gives Sven absolutely no excuse should we crash out of the competition at an early stage. The FA have bent over backwards to placate the Swede and his backroom staff. Success is now expected rather than hoped for and this could add pressure to the England squad. I guess we will see what happens with respect to that in due course.
But this is not what really bothers me. What does is the fact that this week, football's irreversible decline into being a whore of the media has finally been realised. Of course we all knew this anyway but this week's fixture list of four FA Cup quarter-final ties over four consecutive evenings surely highlights the control that the media now have over the beautiful game.
Now I know that had the FA Cup quarter finals been played over their traditional weekend then they would have been spread out over the two days so that all of the games would have been televised anyway. So where's the big deal I hear you ask? Well, the blatant milking of the football cash cow by broadcasters has now started to impinge on the quality and fairness of the Premier League and it is at this point when what was initially a tolerable nuisance becomes an interfering menace.
Take West Ham for example. They played Portsmouth on Saturday and were then expected to play Manchester City in the FA Cup on Monday night. So West Ham, knowing that they are safe in the League and that the FA Cup is the only chance they have of glory this season, understandably decided to rest six of their key players on Saturday so that they could progress in the Cup.
The result? Portsmouth beat West Ham 4-2 and the relegation battle is thrown wide open - the trapdoor opened that little bit wider for West Brom whilst more pressure was put on Birmingham. Now of course you can't say that West Ham would have won the game had they played those six players but I would venture that they probably would have given Pompey a more rigorous game of it had they been fielded.
The next question that must be asked is would West Ham have rested this number of players had the FA Cup game been scheduled for this Wednesday? Well possibly, but surely that would be less likely than what actually happened. Thus the decision to allow television to screen the game on a Monday night was a farcical one, and one that put the integrity of the League into question. Now I don't blame West Ham for doing what they did, hell the Boro have done this in recent weeks too, but to be almost backed into that position to placate a television audience just goes to show how quality and fairness is being diluted for audience ratings and money. And it is this that I find sad.
Let's take another example, this one closer to home. The Boro, all but safe in reality, decided to make nine wholesale changes against Charlton a week ago and although we should have won the game, defensive weaknesses cost us points. Equally we went to Blackburn resting players and ended up getting beat, despite the Lancastrians being down to ten men. This affected the battle for Europe in the Premiership and makes you wonder whether the old adage that you finish where you deserve at the end of the season is ultimately true.
Now I accept these changes were due to our UEFA Cup progress rather than this FA Cup instance, but if television is exasperating these changes by scheduling games at silly times then what hope is there for the integrity of the League?
Now there are certain things in terms of team selection that I accept that you just can't avoid - injuries being one. Many teams are weaker over the Christmas months than they are in September and of course this will affect the results of the games played over those respective periods. In that case it is often just the luck of the fixture list as to how many points a particular team can accrue at a particular time. After all if you have major injuries in your squad you'd rather play Fulham and Villa at home than Arsenal and Manchester United away (unless you're Boro of course).
Another argument is the size of a squad. Now I accept that football is a squad game but let's look at reality here. For the majority, if not all, of the teams in the Premiership you could write down the strongest eleven players (plus two or three back-ups) that you would want to start every game. The simple reality is that not all squad players are of the same quality and thus when you introduce some into the side, you often end up diluting the strength of the team, unless of course, the squad player can add a quality that a member of the first team could not.
This has often been a criticism levelled against Manchester United and Arsenal in the teams they have sometimes fielded in the early rounds of the League Cup. This too is a sign of the television companies' disregard for football and their obsession to milk as much money out of the game as possible as so many of these early games have been televised. This implies that the tag of 'Arsenal' or 'Manchester United' is far more important than the quality of the players representing those teams as the television executives know, like the rest of us, that these teams draw in a greater audience than any other side.
And now this blatant disregard of football's soul and the embracing of the all-encompassing football 'product' has moved on from this benign indifference on behalf of the TV executives to a malignant medalling in the teams that managers put out, through their manipulation of the fixture list. Yes I know Sky do it but the difference between a Saturday and a Sunday is not that great with respect to team selection, although it undoubtedly does affect it to a certain degree.
But the fact that now the broadcasters have started to put themselves above the very teams they broadcast is surely a worrying sign. After all, what was wrong with playing all four games on a Wednesday night - or even two on a Tuesday and two on a Wednesday like they do with replays? Or even move a weekend's Premier League fixtures to mid-week to allow all of the FA Cup matches to be played over a weekend. Both of those alternatives would have been fair for all - both for those sides competing in the FA Cup and those sides in the Premier League who would be playing those sides in the preceding and subsequent League games.
But no, the playing field is no longer even as the demand for money has combined with the bizarre decision to hold these games mid-week to show just how greedy and superficial our major broadcasters are. And with the enormous amount of money washing in the League and the financial consequences of what qualifying for Europe and relegation bring this simply should not be the case. Look at the West Ham v Portsmouth match last Saturday for evidence of this - the financial ramifications of that result could be enormous come the end of the season. So if anything, now is the time when fairness should be encouraged but alas the television companies seem to have got their way and are calling the tune far, far too much.
I know for one that I will enjoy all of the games in the FA Cup this week and I hope that you do too. But I also hope that you realise that there is a price to pay for this 'feast of football' far beyond that of any licence fee or Digibox as that price might just be the integrity and quality of the Premier League. If that's a sacrifice that you're willing to make then fine. But I for one believe that this television lark is starting to go a little too far. The future signs do not make a happy prophecy.
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