Chelsea should never take their financial strength and influence for granted

While Chelsea and most of the rest of the football world wait for some kind of resolution to the 2019/20 season, non-league teams and lower-tier women’s teams abruptly received bad news on Thursday.

There’s a lot of money at stake over the remaining nine games of the Premier League season. Aside from the revenue left to gain, if the Football Association were to declare the season null and void there’s some question over whether that would breach their contracts with media outlets, forcing the FA and other leagues to pay back money they have already received from the media. There’s less money involved at each successive tier down the pyramid, and less still in the women’s game, even for top-tier women’s clubs like Chelsea FCW.

Go down far enough, though – somewhere in the mass of non-league clubs for the men and the third- and fourth-tier teams for the women – and there’s not much money at stake. Certainly no money from broadcasters. And without money weighing on their minds, the FA are much more comfortable making an abrupt, non-consultative decision, one they would only make in absolute extremis for the higher tiers.

Of course, “not much money” comes at it by reference to the Premier League. “Not much money” is not worth much deliberation by the FA, but for the affected clubs, it’s a matter of survival.

The FA announced on Thursday that all men’s leagues below the National League and National League North and South (those are, in fact, three different league) and the third- and fourth-tier will have their 2019/20 season expunged. No promotions, no relegations, no title. Like it never happened, except for all that did, right down the memory hole.

The official announcement said the stakeholders “reached a consensus” in coming to this decision. But representatives from some of the affected women’s teams dispute this, saying the men’s leagues and clubs were consulted but the women’s teams were not.

"“We’ve had absolutely nothing. We’ve been asked nothing. We haven’t been given any opportunity to put our thoughts and ideas forward in terms of what we felt was the right way to deal with this. – Andy Bullingham, vice chairman of Stourbridge FC"

As much as people like to carp about the corrupt politics and financial chicanery that swirl around Chelsea and their peers in the Premier League and Champions League, the money that supposedly kills the sport actually has a moderating influence on its governance. Sometimes, money can have too much influence (see, for example: City, Manchester; Saint-Germain, Paris; UEFA, et al) and is the source of corruption. But many other times, it makes the governing bodies accountable to a wider range of stakeholders.

The Football Association and even UEFA can only go so far until “Roman’s rubles” and all those petro-pounds he inspired bring them back into line. The wealthy owners and international broadcasters are influential stakeholders, and they cut into the governing bodies’ autocracy. The FA and UEFA can only get away with so much before they find themselves biting the hand that feeds them.

Don’t believe me? Look at the “Olympic” sports like athletics or swimming. Those sports have no wealthy stakeholders or lucrative contracts, so the governing bodies are accountable to no whim. They rule by whim, because what’s stopping them?

Don’t want to look at any sport other than football? Fine, go back to what we started talking about: non-league teams and lower-tier women’s teams.

Those clubs have nothing to make the FA stand up and take notice of their concerns. The FA should, per their mission and all, but we know how far mission statements will get you.

As Australia’s greatest Scottish cultural export once said, money talks. Chelsea are fortunate to have a loud voice at the table.

Aside from helping lower tier clubs survive, any way top clubs can push money down the table and into the women’s game will further break the governing bodies’ feudal control of the game, and let the players and clubs deliver the game we love.