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Liverpool's Jay Spearing during their Champions League second round, second leg, soccer match at Anfield Stadium, Liverpool, England, Tuesday, March 10, 2009. AP Photo/Paul Thomas
It’s not often that the Carling Cup semi-finals take on major significance in England, but then it’s not often that the world’s richest club takes on the world’s most indebted with a place in a knock-out final at stake.
That the two teams hail from one of world football’s traditional hotbeds makes tonight’s Carling Cup showdown between Sheikh Mansour’s Manchester City and the Glazer family’s Manchester United all the more intriguing, as the nouveau riche of Eastlands face off against their city rivals.
The match – postponed due to last week’s inclement weather – takes on added significance thanks to the growing alarm at plans by the Glazer family to sell and lease back Old Trafford and United’s Carrington training ground in a bid to refinance their mounting debts.
So incensed are some supporters that they’ve asked Sir Alex Ferguson to resign in protest, and whilst the vocal few might represent just a fraction of United’s global fanbase, there’s no doubt that a growing sense of unease is creeping across the English game.
It comes in part because UEFA has vowed to crack down on heavily indebted clubs – a decision that has reputedly earned the seal of approval from Chelsea’s billionaire benefactor Roman Abramovich.
Chelsea are just one of number of top flight English clubs that could see their spending reined in, but the move could come too late for Portsmouth – winners of the 2008 FA Cup final.
Faced with a winding up order and crippled by seemingly insurmountable debts, the troubled southern club have thrice failed to pay player’s wages this season and have now seen a transfer embargo slapped upon them.
They may have once paid top dollar for the likes of Glen Johnson, Sol Campbell, Sylvain Distin, Lassana Diarra, Niko Krancjar and strikers Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe to call Pompey home, but they did so in the Premier League’s smallest stadium, with matchday revenues failing to cover the massive wage bill.
Former Portsmouth coach Harry Redknapp – who moved on to Tottenham and gutted the Pompey squad in the process – now oversees a Spurs side looking to move away from their own 36,000-capacity White Hart Lane home, as they too look to keep up with the big spenders of the English game.
It’s a similar story across the division as Liverpool supporters grapple with their bickering American owners, West Ham United search for new investment and Arsenal continue to pay off their Ashburton Grove home at the cost of the big-name signings fans crave.
English football may be awash with talent, but it’s also burdened by a mountain of debt, and things will only get worse if the next TV rights deal comes complete with a bargain-basement price tag.
Of course, it’s not just English clubs that are feeling the credit crunch, with plenty of sides in La Liga and Serie A poring nervously over their accounts.
But it’s the lure of the Premier League that continues to attract both sponsors and sheikhs alike, keen to cash in and generate funds or fame by association.
How much longer that continues is a question many fans in recession-hit England are now asking, with the bubble seemingly set to burst on the halcyon days of Premier League spending.
It’s often seen as a hindrance, but while the A-League’s salary cap might prevent clubs from signing global superstars, it also ensures that teams won’t disappear overnight.
I doubt there’ll be too many thinking about that when Roberto Mancini’s side run out at the City of Manchester Stadium, but perhaps it’s a point worth considering when the world’s latest “richest club” takes on one now heavily in debt.