Making football fairer - one way to help level the playing field

At the moment, the success of a football club is largely determined by its resources. In the Premier League and Football League, this means that clubs without a rich chairman or very large stadium cannot hope to compete at the very highest level. Clubs promoted to the Premiership have the main ambition of staying there rather than actually winning anything.

The top four, who all qualify for the Champions League, is effectively the preserve of the same four clubs every season. The seperation of this top four from the rest of the league has even led to bookmakers offering odds on who will be the ‘best of the rest’ and finish fifth. Everton fans enjoyed winning that particular ‘league’ last season. Outside of the top two divisions, Leagues One and Two seem to be determined by who has received points deductions for financial problems, and how severe those deductions are. Luton’s decent record of a win, a draw and a defeat has translated into -26 points so far. They will need to get the sort of points a play off contender would accrue just to stay in the league.

While there are certain reforms that could redress the balance slightly, nothing short of the replacement of capitalism with socialism could make the Premier and Football League game resemble fairness. At non-league level though, the financial resources are more evenly spread. There are the odd clubs who have a wealthy owner which propels them artificially to success, but this is generally unsustainable and eventually the club either goes bust or sinks to a more ‘natural’ level. Truro fans should enjoy it while it lasts. Generally at non-league level the success of a club rests on using limited resources well. This means clubs rely on the efforts of volunteers, and also on the gate money that they receive. Expenditures that would be insignificant to a Football League club tend to make up a high percentage of outgoings. Travel to away games is a case in point.

For a competition to be fair, certain factors have to be equal. For example, athletes competing in the 100m sprint have to start at the same position and cross the same finishing line. The lanes have to be of the same width. But not all factors have to be equal. The clothes and shoes worn don’t have to be. Nor do the athletes’ training and dietary regimes. It is a subjective judgment what needs to be kept equal for fairness, but it generally involves factors that the actions of the individual or team competing cannot change.

In football things that a club can change (or influence) are the environment (ground etc.), attendances, coaching and management, tactics, style of play and players. Something a club cannot change is its geographical location. Sure, it can move from one part of town to another, but it generally does not move town or county. The obvious exception to this is the MK Dons, the plastic football club which usurped Wimbledon’s place in the Football League. Since AFC Wimbledon is generally recognised to be the same club as the Wimbledon which won the FA Cup in 1988, and MK Dons an ugly American-style franchise the product of an egomaniac and a town that could not be bothered to actually earn a place in the Football League by winning promotions, it can be ignored. Football clubs are rooted in their own particular area, be it a village, suburb, whole town or even district. They cannot be moved out of that particular area, and if they are they can no longer be considered to be that same club, but a newly founded one.

Travel costs are a product of (an unchangeable) geographical location and are far from equal between clubs at the moment. They therefore be considered to be something which would need to be kept roughly the same. Money taken up in paying for travel will likely take money away from other areas of the club, such as player wages or expenses, coaching and ground improvements. They may also necessitate the increasing of admission prices. Travel costs often put clubs off seeking promotion. Bideford AFC, stung by their financial problems in the 1970s largely caused by travel costs when they were in the Southern League, have not sought promotion to a higher level despite success in recent years. Clubs in Cornwall are also reluctant to seek promotion for this same reason. The fact that the only Cornish club to do so in recent years, Truro City, have been bankrolled by a multimillionaire, confirms this.

So, can the burden of travel costs be shared more fairly? A possible solution is outlined below:

1. Mileages between clubs in a league are calculated. The total mileage per season can then be worked out, then divided that by the number of weeks in the season, and then by the number of clubs in the league.

2. Every week, the cost of a mile’s travel will be calculated using the latest fuel prices. This will be necessary to take account of changing fuel prices.

3. Every club whose average mileage per week is less than the average for the entire league will pay a sum into a central pot, administered by the league, equivalent to how much they are below, multiplied by the fuel costs for team travel determined for that week.

4. Every club whose average mileage per week is above the average for the whole league gets paid the difference, multiplied by the fuel costs determined for that week out of the central pot.

The advantages of this scheme are many. An unchangeable and unfair situation which can contribute to the success or failure of a team is taken out the equation. The geographically well positioned team pays the same fuel costs as the geographically isolated team. Teams will be more likely to be promoted because of what happens on the pitch rather than an accident of geography. Another advantage is that the scheme will be easy to administer, only requiring an Excel spreadsheet and a league chequebook. There may be opposition from the teams who are currently at an unfair advantage, but they will have few legitimate arguments about the fairness and simplicity of the scheme.

Socialists seek to transform society in a profound way by removing capitalism, the system which relies on the exploitation of the many to provide riches for the few, producing inequality, authoritarianism, instability and war. We seek to replace that with socialism, based on cooperation and collaboration, equality, liberty and democracy in every aspect of human society. But we also seek to improve things in the here and now. Sport is an essential part of society, and there is nothing wrong with healthy competitiveness, and the rollercoaster of emotions that supporting a football team can bring. It is only right that we seek to make things fairer now, and one small way to do is what I have outlined in this article.

Devon Socialist Party will be sending these proposals to Philip Hiscox, Secretary of the South West Peninsula League, a competition for teams across Devon and Cornwall.