So England are out.

Even if you’ve only had the most cursory glance at the football over the past few weeks you’re sure to have heard about England’s defeat to Germany.

Now, most football fans I know out there have either given up or started supporting their next favourite nation. But the real question is, if you’re not half English and half something else, who is there to support as a full-blooded Englishman?

Well, if you can take the pain Germany is the natural choice, as we share quite a bit of our gene pool with them, since we’re all from the same Anglo-Saxon descent. But I have a feeling anyone watching that savage defeat isn’t quite ready to switch support from Rooney to Klose, though they both get red  cards (how could anyone ever forget Rooney’s temper?) and score goals (well, not yet for Rooney, but there’s always next world cup!)

We certainly can’t support their opposition, the Brazilians, out of anything more than a love of their skill, and ability to move the ball. The same, unfortunately is true for the Argentina team, the Netherlands and Uruguay. Paraguay have yet to prove themselves, but as brits we have no link to them.

That leaves us with Spain and Ghana. Spain are the old enemy, whom we constantly fought in the 16^th and 17^th century, and even later, thanks to Queen Liz, and Sir Francis Drake.

So Ghana is the only team we have left. Ghana might seem like a strange choice because they’re an African team, not even from Europe, and they’re members of La Francophonie, so they can’t have anything to do with us, can they?

Well, yes, actually. From the 16^th and 17^th century England has had colonies in Ghana, and it was even a protectorate of the crown between 1874 and 1957.

Michael Essien

They were two upper-mid-table clubs based in the middle of large cities. Supporters flock to their 40,000-50,000-seater stadium every home game. Each fan remembers, or knows of, one club’s 3 FA Cups and the other’s 4. Each fan hopes their team can re-produce the glory days of by-gone decades. However, two halves, one angry team talk, and some defensive slip-ups later the fans leave downcast again. That elusive place in Europe is slipping away and they can’t control it.

However, like all stories, this one has a happy ending. You see, people abroad have decided buying a football club would be a fun thing to do. These people also have , rather conveniently, many billions of pounds. And so deals are struck, and the clubs pass from their British owners to foreign hands, one directly and the other passes hands a few times before finding its ultimate owner.
Ok, by now you will have guessed that I am talking about two clubs the world of football holds close to their hearts, Chelsea and Manchester City. These two clubs are the clubs that have “bought their way into football”, to quote my Liverpool supporting friends.
Once bought both owners followed the same path, one huge shopping spree. Hundreds of millions have been spent. Roman Abramovich, according to CNN, is said to have spent £240 a minute on Chelsea. To put that into perspective, that’s about 100 Big Macs every minute. Sheikh Mansour too has splashed the cash on high profile signings, and I am sure Mancini will be given a huge budget to get through this summer.
Then the teams became serious fixtures on the minds of the likes of Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool. Chelsea

finalised the “Big Four”, who dominated the top four positions of the Premiership for the latter half of the decade. No other clubs were given a look-in. Man. City, as soon as they were bought, were rumored to be able to upset this imbalance that had formed at the top of British football.

However, despite a dismal season for Liverpool, Man. City don’t hold that Champions League place. One might say this was their first season of showing they could hold off bigger clubs, but the start of the season simply didn’t justify the huge spending Man City had made in the summer transfer window. Of course, Hughes was then replaced by Mancini. Yet it was too late, and Man City had already had too much damage done to themselves.
Considering that two years after being bought Chelsea had already won a Premier League title one might therefore claim that Chelsea’s riches have been managed more wisely. Especially when one considers that when the size of relative wealth of their owner’s is compared: Abromavich’s £8 billion seems rather measly compared the Abu Dhabi United Group (Sheikh Mansour and his investment group). However, hopefully after more investment Man City will convert their billions of pounds into competitive, beautiful, football.
The two clubs are the bain of any other supporter, as they, or so say the supporters, are defiling the very values of the game that is football. Perhaps this was most poignantly shown in Jose Mourinho’s tactics he employed with Chelsea, where a string of emotionless boring wins lead Chelsea to two league titles in a row. However, now it seem that Chelsea are showing they can turn on the style and play beautiful football whilst winning as shown by their 103 goals from this Premier League Season. This it could be said provides a valuable defense for the millions spent, as they contributed to providing us with some amazing matches and good football.
And so the story continues, with Chelsea still chasing their Champions League dreams and Man City hoping that next season they can make an assault on that fourth place position…

Chelsea fans can be heard singing in the streets, all around premiership fever is in the air. Whilst the rest of the British population is worrying about the election, die-hard fans are happily reveling by the side of the road singing the Chelsea anthem.

Even halfway across Britain Manchester United can hear that single point jeering at them, as the two great stalwarts of Britain collapse. For the Blues Drogba hit a hat trick, including a penalty, whilst Ashley Cole was on fine form, scoring a magnificent goal. Among the other 4 goals, Lampard hit home a penalty that rolled past the fingertips of the outstretched keeper, following his first, whilst Kalou was booked in celebrating his final goal of the season.

So twice today, the Blues have triumphed over the Reds, despite a pyrrhic victory for Man United today in the form of their 3-0 victory against Stoke. To quote one passing fan Chelsea were “flaming on fire” (though I’m not quite sure he phrased it as nicely as I just did.)

Opinions on the football? Any devout fans out there?

The Barclays Premier League is fast becoming more than just a group of 20 football teams, but a brand viewed by billions of people worldwide. Football is now the most popular sport in the world and the Barclays Premier League is arguably the largest football league in the world. There are examples of the globalisation of the Premier League in countries such as China, India and many Arab, Asian and African nations. Supporters of clubs such as Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal are found in all of these countries and many more. In fact you could go to any country in the world and they’ll be someone willing to talk about English Football (I remember once finding an Aston Villa fan in the small settlement of Resolute, northern Canada in the Arctic Circle). Stories abound of people watching football on small screens in deserts or jungles and Premier League teams are starting to cash in on this lucrative fortune.

I was recently watched Chelsea vs. Fulham at Stamford Bridge. During a stoppage in play, probably because Didier Drogba was receiving treatment from the medical team, I noticed an advert for an online shopping sale at chelseafc.com flash up on the advertising boards. Suddenly the same advert included Chinese lettering instead of English. So why was there a Chinese advert in London, 5000 miles from Beijing? The reason comes from what I mentioned earlier. The Chelsea fanatics in China probably have the match streamed to them live or would watch highlights and see the adverts during the game. The same goes for an advert about the Chelsea Megastore USA during the same match and probably many other adverts across the Premier League.

Ji-Sung Park attracts equal advertising pulling power as Tiger Woods and co.

However, English football clubs are using other techniques to unlock the potential in foreign markets. For example, most clubs have pre-season tours overseas, e.g. Chelsea have toured the USA for the last three summers and Liverpool were in Asia this summer, though most profits come from club merchandise and TV rights. During the 2007/08 season, Premier League clubs generated the greatest revenue of any other league in the world (£1.9 billion) followed by Germany, Spain and Italy (£1.1 billion). It also regained the title of the most profitable league in the world.

Manchester United have probably made the most marketable and profitable transfer in recent history by signing Park Ji Sung. Park is a household name in Korea and many parts of Asia (and not a bad footballer either). Manchester United signed him for the measly sum of £4 million in 2005. However, his transfer is likely to have produced a large revenue for the club, because Asia now has a rapidly growing fan base (partly owing to Park’s transfer and also a recent tour to the continent). There are many other Premier League clubs that have signed foreign players and most clubs have more overseas players than ‘home-grown’ ones. An extreme example of this was in the recent Premier League match between Portsmouth and Arsenal where the 22 players who started the match represented 16 different countries, but none of them were English.

 But who else has benefited from the popularity of the Barclays Premier League? Well Barclays Bank, the sponsor, has described the deal as ‘very successful’ and has subsequently renewed the sponsorship until the 2012/13 season for an estimated £82.25 million. The greatest gainers have been the players. In 2007/08, Premier League wages increased by 23% to reach a total of £1.2 billion.

To conclude, you can understand why the fight for promotion to the Premier League is so important and competitive, all clubs which are part of it are in the position to exploit the global football market and create large profits. Many of the larger clubs have succeeded in doing so already and it’s only a matter of time until other established clubs start to realise their potential.

By Hugh Wolton