[Locke]

Blatter speaks:

A key excerpt from a book written by World Cup 2018 bid committee member Sebastian Coe landed with a kind of soundless thud late last month in the English football news cycle. It details how FIFA president Sepp Blatter remarked that while the bid always had a "smell of death" (according to Coe himself), it also failed in part because Blatter believes English football is "run by idiots."

It doesn’t matter that it's not exactly for the vague reasons Coe lays out, which include "... the unwillingness of English clubs to release players for international duty," the "purchasing power of the English game -- big-name clubs buying up players from all over the world" and "a national federation that, at the time of the bid, had no chairman and no chief executive."

While the league has brought an undeniably exciting brand of football to the world, it has come at a sizable cost. Its lack of financial safeguards and aggressive transfer market activity have led to a situation in which many of the biggest clubs in England either spend well in excess of club turnover on the back of deep-pocketed owners (Manchester City), or were purchased with leveraged funds with a significant portion of club revenues siphoned off to make interest payments (Manchester United). The financial inequality between big and small clubs has meant some ambitious owners have spent well above their means in the hopes of future success.

This has in turn led to financial chaos. On average, more than half of the twenty teams in the Premier League post annual financial losses. In recent years the number has been as high as 16. Since 2004, 13 of the 92 clubs in the Football League and the Premier League have gone into administration.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/blog/_/...d/1640?cc=5901

Interesting read all around, but suspiciously lacking in any alternatives or solutions.