Is the English Premier League a form of sports washing for England?

Much has been and is still being said about the so-called sports washing these days, with the sanctions against Roman Abramovich still on the agenda, and Newcastle suddenly with Saudi Arabia as the owner and Man City for a long time with the Emirates as the true owner of the club. It is, of course, a welcome conversation to continue because important questions arise about what and for whom football really is.

But here is another side of the same conversation. Someone mentioned this a few weeks ago but I can’t remember who. What I do remember, however, is that it was given in the form of a funny commentary, although upon more nuanced reasoning, it was actually based on a true story, so to speak. This means that the English Premier League as a whole began to act as a sporting wash by England or Great Britain.

The immediate background to this observation was the British government’s announcement of plans to send migrants to Rwanda instead, i.e. outsourcing its refugee policy and humanitarian efforts. That is, blaming the “problem” elsewhere and not caring much about what happens to people. It’s not a unique proposition, Israel has done the same before, with highly foreseeable consequences.

Of course, this policy proposal comes as the latest in a very long line of political fads and scandals. Everything from the lies that led to Brexit, the consequences of which are now being felt in higher prices for all forms of living expenses, and shortages of public goods and employees in important areas of society, to the lies and total abuse of power that was dedicated to defending the Prime Minister himself Covid- cheating.

Thus the essential character of the thought is that England, or Great Britain, which not so long ago was one of the chief exemplars of democratic parliamentarism in this world, is tragically not much different at all from the banana republics, the rogue. The countries and oil dictatorships we usually associate with sports washing to try and wash the face of your country.

Now it seems that the Premier League, that is, English football, is the main if not the only thing that still gives England and Great Britain a kind of positive publicity and an atmosphere of external respect. It’s hard to see many other things that give England more positive publicity around the world than the Premier League, and tuning into English football every week still gives us a kind of sense that England is still good in England.

Maybe it’s worth sucking on that caramel!

It is difficult to say exactly what this means or what consequences it would have for the potential will of the British government and its concrete attempts to regulate English football. About a week ago, the government’s plan to “reform football,” in their charming words, was presented. It was a three-pronged plan: (1) an independent authority, (2) integrity tests to protect clubs from the worst, and (3) a greater supportive effect.

It is undeniable that there are problems in English football, and probably no one does either. However, what needs to be done to deal with and solve these problems is far from clear, and when that comes it is very easy to fall into the grip of pure populism. What the British government’s plan breathes more than anything else is perhaps pure and simple populism.

The demand for independent power is perhaps the clearest example of this particular populism. It’s a very popular idea that has gained a foothold in English football in the last year in particular by supporting vociferous figures like Gary Neville. What exactly the authority is supposed to do, and how this so-called “independent” authority is assigned, is not at all clear.

What is true in this regard is that it is a real problem for English football management that the Football League and the Premier League are really just a mixture of the same clubs. This has led to a deadlock in the system and an institutional reluctance to make real decisions that risk infringing on the freedom and flexibility of the individual or perhaps even all of the clubs.

But authority, regardless of whether you call it independent or not, must be assigned and staffed in some way. If added by the Football League and the Premier League, it runs the same risks of not being completely independent today. If it is appointed by the state, it will not become completely independent in a different way, FIFA is usually keen on political independence, and this can be considered a degree of football nationalization.

The introduction of special tests to protect clubs from bad minds and incompetents certainly looks good. But she is also somewhat naive, or toothless. The problem we see in English football rarely has to do with owners or potential owners being criminals, criminals or deformers, i.e. things that are realistically captured by this type of property test.

The problem with English football, and what has attracted attention and indignation in the vast majority of cases, is its fundamentally incompetent owners. Owners who lack the knowledge and perhaps the desire to run an English football club. But of course in reality it is somewhat impossible to organize against someone as objective and elusive as incompetence.

We note this not least because inefficiencies occur in all systems and methods of organizing football, regardless of whether it is in England, Spain, Germany or Sweden. We find examples of clubs disintegrating and disappearing all over the place. Incompetence cannot be regulated or tested because it is in human nature. It was funny to see someone actually trying to design such a test.

The question is whether the UK government really understands this, or does it really care about this. For them, I don’t think it’s more than trying to score cheap political points by “fixing” something that a lot of people in England still care about. So ‘fixing’ the Premier League and English football is also a way of trying to launder the British government.

Whether it would then result in any tangible actual change is not entirely clear, just as if any possible change in this case would actually make sense. Because of the way the plan or proposals are designed, it’s a bit hard to see. The Premier League has already protested and says it is on the verge of coming up with its own proposals that already address a lot of this, possibly taking the force out of the UK government’s reforms.

Anyway, something goes down my spine when I hear the British government, and of course this British government in particular, saying they’re going to “fix football”. You have already seen how she fixed Brexit, you have seen how she has managed to fix the global pandemic, you have seen how she has reformed schools, health care, you have seen her plan to reform refugee policy and so forth over a very long time in place.

The idea that this British government can ‘fix football’ can only be described as a pretty self-fulfilling goal.