B Is For...

...B Teams, Bad Ideas and the Backlash.

I have previously  said that change is inevitable; that resistance to change is futile and that such resistance is often a knee-jerk reaction driven by fear of the unknown rather than any rational objection. Then along comes the Football Association's proposal to introduce B teams into English football to which I have to say that change is not inevitable, that resistance is not futile and that far from the opposition being a knee-jerk reaction, it is the proposal itself that is, if not a knee-jerk reaction, then certainly a very wrong headed one.

Almost immediately the announcement had been made in Greg Dyke's press conference  then social media was awash with comment, criticism and bafflement. We saw the power of Twitter in harnessing and mobilising opinion with the hashtag #SayNoToLeague3 appearing immediately; with the "Say no to B Teams" petition (http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/football-association-say-no-to-b-teams) taking shape that afternoon and the website Against League 3 (http://www.againstleague3.co.uk/) up and running within hours. Opposition came from all quarters;  from league administrators, from clubs and from fans. In fact it was nigh on impossible to find anyone who wasn't opposed to the proposal, apart from FA Chairman Greg Dyke and his commission colleagues.

Greg Dyke: Laudable aims but lamentable solution.

The commission's proposals go far beyond the widely publicised idea of creating a new league to include B teams of Premier League (PL) clubs together with existing Conference sides; indeed some of the main objectives of the commission are laudable enough. Increasing the playing opportunities for 18-20 year old elite English players at the top clubs; regulating the player market to create a balance between British, EU and non-EU players; improving coaching at grassroots level and improving facilities and increasing the provision of all weather pitches at grassroots level are all, on the face of it, good ideas but the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Shoehorning B teams into the current league structure and upsetting the existing non-League pyramid does not strike anyone outside of Dyke's cosy little commission as a way to achieve the first of these stated aims, namely increasing the top flight playing opportunities for 18-20 year olds.

Remarkably, the proposed new league (intended to sit between the existing League Two and the Conference and proposed to consist of ten B teams and ten Conference sides) would not, according to the FA's report (which can be downloaded here : http://www.thefa.com/news/thefa/2014/may/fa-commission-report) apparently displace any existing clubs. Try telling that to the fourteen Conference sides not invited to join, who would effectively move down from the fifth tier of the game to the sixth and consequently push everyone below the Conference down one tier.

The FA cite the lack of competition or meaningful matches in the existing Under 21 League as a problem in developing young English talent. They state that fixtures are often nomadic, poorly attended or else played behind closed doors at training grounds, so it is astonishing that they believe that by simply changing the team name to B team (they still aim these teams at under 21 players) Premier League clubs will suddenly change their whole ethos. Yes, perhaps Kidderminster Harriers v Stoke City B will be an authentic work out for the Premier League youngsters, but next week it will be Stoke City B v Manchester City B; why are the Premier League teams going to treat that any differently from the way they approach an existing Under 21 game between the two sides? It is also more than somewhat demeaning to clubs currently in the Conference for them to be told that they are going to be making up the numbers in a league whose primary function is to give game time to Premier League youngsters.

Luton Town's Conference championship has had Kenilworth Road packed out...

...while U21 League games are less well attended.

And how well will these games be attended? It's difficult to imagine Aston Villa B v Crystal Palace B packing them in (wherever they play it) on a wet Tuesday in November and frankly the prospect for many fans of Conference clubs of the visit of a Premier League B team is not as exciting as the people on the FA commission may believe. Mind you they might have had some indication of that had they asked the fans of some Conference clubs, or even Conference officials; shamefully the FA commission did not consult with bodies like the Football Supporters' Federation.  Criminally they did not consult with the Conference itself, the league most directly affected by the proposed change. Any supporter of a Conference club who might have drawn consolation from the prospect of seeing their side play at a Premier League ground when they visited say, Manchester United B, would be disappointed by the statement in the report to the effect that " B teams would play in (separate) stadia, most likely a small stadium built expressly for the purpose or at a nearby lower league club’s stadium." Most likely the latter they mean; can anyone honestly believe that any Premier League side, let alone ten of them, are going to built brand-new (albeit small) stadia, to accommodate their B teams? Conference sides are likely to find themselves playing Away games at their own Home grounds that PL B teams deign to use for their "home" matches.

Danny Mills, a member of the FA's commission, believes fans would relish seeing their team play PL B teams; somehow I doubt it.

Underpinning the desire to increase the flow of young English talent into the Premier League is the wish, the hope and the expectation that this will improve the England national team's chances of success at international tournaments. There is an implication in this that the influx of overseas players into the English leagues has been responsible for a terrible decline in the fortunes of the national side; well this isn't actually borne out by the facts. In the last fifty years England have reached one major final and two semi-finals. The 1966 World Cup triumph and the 1996 European Championship semi-final appearance were achieved largely due to home advantage (and in 1966 success was predicated on a Geoff Hurst goal that remains contested to this day). Three times since 1966 England have failed to even qualify for the World Cup finals (1974, 1978 and 1994) and only one of those years fell after the creation of the Premier League, which ushered in the influx of overseas players. England's record at major tournaments has never been brilliant; the FA are deluding themselves if they think that B teams will suddenly (or even eventually) turn the national team into world beaters. Frankly I doubt that B teams will even make the pool of players from whom the England manager can make his selection significantly bigger because there is no guarantee that this experiment will bring forth any world class stars with English passports; it will not even guarantee that English youngsters play Premier League football. As long as top English clubs have non-English owners and managers whose objective is Champions League football first and foremost, they will continue to open their cheque books and buy top talent from around the world; it will have to be a very rare and exceptional English talent that supplants a proven world class player who can be bought in from abroad.

Even when English players with potential begin to break through it appears to be one step forward and two steps back anyway. Take Jack Rodwell. He began his career with Everton, a club who actually do have a good track record in nurturing English talent, and made 85 PL appearances for them before being sold to Manchester City in 2012, since when he has played just 15 first team matches. Two England caps while at Everton speak of Rodwell's potential, but he is never going to realise it if he cannot make even five first team appearances for City this season. Clubs in Leagues One and Two have already voiced concerns about the Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) which allows Premier League clubs to hoover up young, talented players for nominal fees; the introduction of B teams will only exacerbate that problem. Even players of Rodwell's potential will be sucked into the abyss.

Jack Rodwell: The potential shown at Everton has stalled at The Etihad.

An unpleasant truth that Greg Dyke and the FA need to grasp is that football supporters generally put their club before country. As a non-League supporter; yes , we would like to see England succeed at the World Cup finals, but given the choice between that and our club getting promoted into the Football League (and playing Portsmouth's first team, not Southampton's B team) we are going to pick the latter option every time.

                                                                                                                                                                     

 And what will happen if this B team farrago ever comes to fruition? Will the England team benefit? Probably not. Will the FA pick up the pieces when it fails? No. Will the foreign owned and managed Premier League clubs blithely carry on as before? Yes.  Will the clubs in whatever is left of League Two, Three and the Conference be left to pick up the pieces? Definitely.

The Football Association are guardians of the game at all levels in England; at all levels, not just the national team and the Premier League, and in 2013 they recognised Ebenezer Morley and his contemporaries as founders of the structure of association football in England 150 years ago. Chances are that in another 150 years time our children may be remembering Greg Dyke as the man who tried to dismantle it; it would be a tragedy if they remember him as the man who succeeded.