Non-league Football’s Financial Frailties

While the likes of Manchester City can pay out £250,000 a week to a player who refuses to play, some clubs at the other end of the spectrum are facing almighty struggles just to keep their heads above water.

After months in administration, Darlington FC have moved a step closer to ceasing to exist at all after ending the contracts of their manager and all of their playing staff.

The situation at Kettering Town is very similar with caretaker boss Mark Cooper saying how the club might not last into February.

What these clubs have in common is that they are both battling relegation from the Blue Square Bet Premier, a characteristic which makes it hard to command a following big enough to fill their stadiums – and to fulfil the aspirations of their chairmen.

Imraan Ladak took over at Kettering Town in 2005 and has put a lot of money into the club since being there.

But things have taken a turn for the worse in recent times.

Under a transfer embargo since November, the club’s players haven’t been paid in full since that month and now the club faces a winding up order in February.

Kettering fans blame Ladak for their beloved team’s situation, especially as they believe he’s stalling the sale of the club.

                                          Kettering fans have lost patience in Ladak

In the case of Darlington, their problems appear to have started with the building of the Reynolds arena in 2002.

Chairman at the time George Reynolds hoped that the all seater ground that can hold 27,000 would help push the club on to the Championship and beyond.

The reality could not be any further from the truth – the club struggles to reach 4,000 fans at home games.

                                                The Reynolds Arena - a bit of a concrete Elephant

Unlike the likes of Leeds United, these clubs can’t sell off their best assets at the expense of dropping down a couple of leagues in order to rebuild.

Without some considerable investment into the clubs they could go into extinction – in Darlington’s case that investment needs to come within a matter of days.

The huge gap in wealth between the top clubs in England and those at the bottom of the pile is staggering.

One week’s worth of Carlos Tevez’s £250,000 a week wages would comfortably bide either Darlington or Kettering over until the end of the season.

Already on twitter ‘Balotelli to save Darlington’ was trending, the Quakers hoping that the volatile-yet-charitable Italian will don the Santa outfit one more time.

It one of these clubs did go under, it would not be the first time something like that happened.

Chester FC was expelled from the Nationwide Conference in 2010 as a result of their financial situation, ending up in the Northern Premier League – the seventh tier of English football.  

The same thing happened to Halifax Town FC. Buried by huge tax debts in 2008, the club returned as FC Halifax Town in the Northern Premier League Division One (English football’s eighth tier).

The passionate fans of lower league and non-league football are one of the things that make British football unique, and if this trend continues that could be in danger.

For the trend to be bucked it may need the FA to share a bit more of its wealth with the lower leagues but these clubs would be in a much better state if it was not for the hasty actions of their over-eager owners.

Marouane Chamakh: No snood – no good

It’s November 27 and Arsenal are 2-1 up in a close game away at Aston Villa. Ciaran Clarke’s 52^nd minute goal has put the Gunners under pressure. Up step Marouane Chamakh, showing his feminine side with a neck warming garment which takes its name from a woman’s hairnet. He scores with a first-time finish after being put through by Tomas Rosicky, and after Clarke has scored again to make it 2-3, he sets up Jack Wilshire to kill the game at 4-2 to the Gunners.

Skip forward a year and two months and Chamakh is about to leave for the African Cup of Nations, but not many of the Arsenal faithful are too sad to see him go.
Chamakh’s goal in the Villa game was his seventh premier league goal of the season, a good start for a new signing, sadly for him it was also his last premiership goal of the season – with less than half of the games played.

                                               Chamakh in top form - must be the snood                       

Any football expert would say that strikers lose form without any explanation – just look at Fernando Torres, but maybe there’s a less obvious answer – because he’s stopped donning the snood.

I am unaware of any research into the effects of wearing something that looks like a women’s fashion accessory upon performance, but this lack of goals can surely be no coincidence.  
Bad news for the Moroccan – snoods were banned by FIFA last year, a law coming into effect at the start of this season. Looks like he’ll need to be on the look-out for some new feminine neck-gear, maybe a new floral scarf? Don’t think they’ve been officially banned yet…  

   

Winter break? Why it might just make the Premier League more predictable.

It’s an issue that regularly comes up at this time of year. Normally brought up by a manager of one of the elite premiership clubs – this time last year it was Sir Alex Ferguson’s turn. He was supported by the manager of Sunderland at the time Steve Bruce, but it could be argued that not having the winter break is a benefit to the clubs not involved at the top of the table – in turn making for a more exciting, less predictable run of games over the Christmas and New Year period.

As a passionate Arsenal fan, I sat through the recent, 2-1 away loss to Fulham and saw how my team struggled to mount any form of consistent pressure in the second half – after doing just that in the first period. Although it might be seen as an excuse, my beloved Gunners were certainly lacking the fitness to drive on and attack in the second half, allowing Fulham to create the pressure which gave them a deserved victory.

Ji Dong-won's late winner stunned Man City

“We played 48 hours before and we went down to ten men and so there were probably some tired legs”, was the excuse from Wojciech Szczesny the next day.  
This year the dreaded winter fixture congestion has certainly taken its toll on the top clubs. Chelsea losing at home to Villa, Man Utd losing as home to Blackburn, Man City losing away at Sunderland, all unexpected results which probably would not have happened were it not for squad rotation and fatigue.
There is an obvious argument that the top clubs are better equipped to deal with a congested fixture list as they have more strength in depth than teams not as well off as them. But this hasn’t proven to be the case this year, and if these games were more spread out wouldn’t it just result in the top teams being able to put out full strength sides in almost every game, thus adding to the predictability of the league – the quality that makes it the most exciting league in the world.