Events | 2010.08.17
We're living in the age of the football-industrial complex | Marina Hyde
What is the Premier League if not capitalism without democracy? China and Liverpool FC are made for each other
Is there some kind of tear in the very fabric of the news universe? It has been a week in which areas one would hope to be discrete have collapsed troublingly into one other. Not only has Naomi Campbell been to the Hague , but the People\'s Republic of China is frontrunner to buy Liverpool football club . Well, I say the People\'s Republic itself, though obviously that would put pressure on space in the directors\' box at Anfield. Rather, the bid is being fronted by the entrepreneur Kenny Huang, but is widely believed to be financially backed by the China Investment Corporation, the investment arm of the Chinese government.
Though it\'s not even the first time representatives of a foreign government have tried to buy Liverpool – Thaksin Shinawatra had a crack while he was still Thai prime minister – this latest development would seem to mark the moment at which the already storied history of the Premier League finally tipped into overblown satire. We\'re now officially living in the age of the football-industrial complex.
Clearly, any China-backed purchase of Liverpool would offer excellent potential for cultural exchange – I should like Mao\'s embalmed body to be brought for a ceremonial lying in state in front of the Kop, or at the very least to see the old devil paraded for photocall in the manner of a new star signing, ideally wearing a strip reading CHAIRMAN on the back. As yet, the benefits of Liverpool gaining representation on the UN security council are unquantified, but can be surely estimated as being worth at least three points a season.
Such synergies all depend, of course, on the Chinese government being able to pass the Premier League\'s "fit and proper person" test for new owners – although famously, no one has ever failed it. In fact, I couldn\'t be more sure of an outcome were Usain Bolt to offer to race me to the corner shop.
In the interests of accuracy, the aforementioned test has been renamed the "owners and directors test", presumably because post-Thaksin et al it became impossible to say "fit and proper person" without doing immensely sarcastic air quotes. What the amendment to this flimsiest of forms shakes down to is a requirement for would-be owners to prove they have the funds to sustain a club, which, Premier League\'s chief executive Richard Scudamore has declared, will prevent "a repeat of the Portsmouth situation" . How long before the league finally accepts its geopolitical importance, and Scudamore upgrades his silly little test "to prevent a repeat of the Korean peninsula situation"?
For now, though I\'m no expert, one imagines Beijing will be good for the cash. China is apparently doing quite well at the moment, and while there\'ll doubtless be the usual gripes about not wanting to pay over the odds for a right back, it probably helps if the person holding the purse strings is the second largest economy in the world as opposed to Dave Whelan.
As for further background checks, I think the powers that be will recognise a clubbable sort in the Chinese government. When itinerant chiseller Sven-Göran Eriksson was weighing up whether to take the job managing Manchester City, then owned by Thaksin, he deployed the most rigorous of vetting procedures to assess the former Thai PM\'s record. "It was enough for me to make a phone call to [Premier League chairman] Sir Dave Richards," Eriksson explained. "He [replied], \'Absolutely clean\'."
That\'s how it works, you see. Though not a noted expert in south-east Asian politics – Thaksin\'s human rights record had been widely condemned and he was under threat of corruption and fraud charges – Sir Dave is what is known in the game as a "football man". Considering that fellow holders of this epithet include Ken Bates and Phil Gartside, you might suspect "football man" is merely a euphemism for a word we don\'t print in the Guardian unless it\'s in reported speech. But "football men" have made the Premier League what it is, bless them, and it would take more than whinges about state-sponsored human rights abuse to take the wind out of their radioactive self-belief.
Just as modern China is a grimly chastening rebuke to those who claimed you can\'t have capitalism without democracy, so the Premier League of recent years has been a similarly rude slap in the face to those who declare you can\'t just waltz in and buy a club and imagine you own it. One of the running jokes beloved of my colleagues on the Fiver about this period is to parrot the Bill Shankly-inspired line that "118 years of history and tradition isn\'t for sale" – before adding "except when it is".
In the end, what is the history of the Premier League, if not capitalism without democracy? Whether disgusted fans of any team think that this year\'s passing oligarch or asset-stripper truly "owns" their club is presumably a matter of as much concern to said oligarchs or asset-strippers as the views of peasants are to the Chinese government. Which is to say, bugger all concern. The only surprise about China\'s bid is that the so-called People\'s Republic didn\'t alight on the Premier League sooner. They really are made for each other.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]he-football-industrial-complex
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