In December, when English football’s eyes were still focused on the Qatar World Cup, something significant happened here in the Premier League.
American Bill Foley completed his takeover of Bournemouth, leaving nearly half of our top division clubs under the influence or direct control of owners or investors from the United States.
America’s grip on English football continues to tighten.
The Glazer family has run Manchester United for 18 years. Stan Kroenke has been a majority shareholder at Arsenal since 2011. A year earlier, Fenway Sports Group bought Liverpool. Americans now also own Chelsea, and Fulham and a good chunk of Leeds United and Crystal Palace and so on.
So yes, America is here and America is staying, supporting our top division through ownership and a TV deal with NBC that currently costs about £2 billion over six years.
There is a sense of inevitability that Premier League football will one day be played in the US
The Glazer family, owners of Manchester United, are one of many American owners
Chelsea is co-owned by Todd Boehly (left), while Stan Kroenke (right) is the majority shareholder of Arsenal, two of the Premier League’s biggest clubs, and they want a return on their investment
So why the surprise that UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin talked about holding a Champions League final in America?
It sounds wrong. The final of the European Blue Riband football tournament takes place on another continent. But it also feels obvious and perhaps even starkly inevitable when we consider that America owns an increasing number of clubs in England, Italy and France, including current Champions League semi-finalist AC Milan.
As America continues to invest in football, it makes sense that it would eventually expect something in return other than pictures on a TV screen.
America has been paying the biggest clubs in Europe big money for years to play pre-season games on their grounds. Why not at some point expect them to host a bit of the real thing too?
None of this particularly appeals to me. The Champions League final, in its modern and older guises, is a historic sporting event. It belongs firmly in Europe, just as the Super Bowl belongs firmly in America.
But that doesn’t mean we can expect our football calendar to remain untouched, especially in England. This would betray a misguided belief that the Premier League remains an English football league. It does not.
The Premier League was no longer an English league years ago. It is now an elite international football competition that happens to take place in England. There is a difference.
The owners are largely foreign, as are the players and managers. The same goes for TV viewers, in that the amount of money now paid by foreign broadcasters to show the Premier League is higher than the amounts paid by TV companies in England.
The only thing that is uniquely English about our game is the people who sit in the stands and we know they are not considered as important as they used to be. Gate tickets remain valuable, but not as they used to be. Television and sponsorship money dwarf everything in the modern game.
So where does this leave us? A bit fragile, to be honest. Vulnerable to the whims of owners eager to expand and experiment.
Bill Foley (right) recently sealed his takeover of Bournemouth and added another top US owner. Hollywood actor Michael B Jordan (left) is one of the investors in the South Coast team
Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly was blasted into flames last year when he proposed the introduction of an all-star game. Since then, he has been more concerned with matters at his own doorstep than trying again.
But Boehly and his ilk didn’t spend money here just to sit and watch from the sidelines.
We shouldn’t assume that they don’t care about the history and traditions of our sport. American owners are not automatically bad owners.
It is also worth noting that offers from England investment in football are scarce, with United, Chelsea and Liverpool being on the market lately.
Similarly, sport in America has historically not thrived by standing still. So we should expect steps to change something of what is dear to us.
Some issues require us to walk on our heels. Promotion and relegation remain fundamental and the battle must continue over issues such as the future of the League Cup and Saturday’s 3pm kick-off. Change will come, though, and I’m honestly not as offended by some of it as I once thought I was.
Do you remember the 39th game? Plans by clubs to bring an extra round of Premier League matches abroad – probably to America – were brushed aside in 2010. and most palatable conclusion.
The idea of a 39th season game being held in America feels more appetizing than ever before
And would it really be that bad? If it came as a way to keep our traditions and calendar intact, it doesn’t sound like the worst idea in the world at all.
It still takes 14 votes to pass a motion in the Premier League. So we’re not quite at America’s beck and call yet. But it’s not hard to tell which way the wind is blowing.
Parts of the Premier League will always be fundamentally English. The playing style. The stadiums. Weather. But we started giving away different bits of it piece by piece as it steadily grew into something else over the last 25 years.
English and perhaps European football will certainly be played in America in the future. It’s just a case of when and what it actually looks like when it happens.
Levy needs to grow up, sell Kane, and then spend it well
Daniel Levy has problems piling up, but one problem shouldn’t be bothering the Tottenham chairman so much.
Harry Kane has one year left on his contract. Unless he signs a new contract, he could run into the arms of a club like Manchester United, Chelsea or even Manchester City for nothing in the summer of 2024.
United want the captain of England now. Kane is the club’s number 1 priority this summer. So Levy has to put aside his obsession with not being seen as the patsy of Manchester and sit down at the negotiating table.
Tottenham Hotspur and Daniel Levy have to come of age and sell Harry Kane, who still has a year credit
If he announces that a deal needs to be made, it is likely that other clubs will also be involved in the conversation. United, Chelsea and others are desperate for a striker and that plays to Tottenham’s advantage.
If Levy gets this right, he could be in a bidding war soon, so it’s about time he grew up. Sell Kane for big bucks. Sell it early and then spend the money well.
Aston Villa have managed to move from Jack Grealish and £100 million from Manchester City have helped them make the move.
There is life for Spurs after Kane and Levy need to see that before it’s too late.
Tomori for England? Don’t forget he’s playing in a sub-par league
It is nice to see that Fikayo Tomori is doing well for AC Milan.
The defender had the courage to leave Chelsea when he couldn’t get into the squad and it paid off.
But it’s a flawed argument that Tomori should be in Gareth Southgate’s England team just because his team reached the semi-finals of the Champions League.
Firstly, AC Milan are fourth in Serie A, more than 20 points behind leaders Napoli. So that’s really their level.
Fikayo Tomori is thriving at AC Milan, but that doesn’t mean he should be chosen for England
Second, David May won a Champions League with Manchester United in 1999. Good player, but maybe not elite. Six years later, Djimi Traore won one for Liverpool and he wasn’t even a good player.
So sometimes even medals can lie, but a football coach’s trained eye more often does not, especially if the coach in question happened to be a centre-half.
Tomori is doing well, but doing so in a sub-par European league, at least by our standards.
If he’s good enough, he’ll play for England again, and if his trajectory continues, chances are the time will come soon enough.