There are only eighteen days left until the start of the 2013/14 Premier League season! Next week, I will introduce the Bluebirds' roster and discuss who they have recruited to bolster their chances of surviving in their debut season. But before I do that, I want to briefly cover the player acquisition process as it is pretty different than anything in American major league sports.
The period from July 1st to September 2nd of each year is called the "Transfer Window". This is the primary time when European clubs sign new players. Ok, that's straight forward enough...so what? Well, the Premier League doesn't have an annual draft, nor individual or club salary caps. There's also no soccer being played. So basically, the Transfer Window is a two-month long orgy of spending and rampant tabloid gossip. Let me explain.
Why no annual draft? In Britain, as in most other soccer-competitive nations in Europe, players grow up in academy-based systems. These soccer academies are run by clubs in the top three or four tiers of the Football Association and they train players from ages seven to twenty one. These young athletes are essentially under contract to their parent academy clubs and will play or be traded by them at the clubs' discretion.
There is some debate (safe for work) as to whether or not the Premier League should implement an American-style draft system for new talent, but the short answer is "no". Here's the summary of the arguments for and against...
Pro-Draft
The basic premise of this argument is that the weaker Football Association clubs would be able to get better players this way, which presumably would allow for better spreading of talent among the clubs within a given tier. As it stands, player recruitment is entirely based on who can outspend their competitors. And as the rich teams win competitions they also gain greater world-wide appeal and sell more merchandise. So the rich get richer and it becomes harder and harder for less wealthy teams to ever break into the Premier League. In concept, a draft would be a cheap way to allow less wealthy clubs to compete with rich clubs.
Anti-Draft
The basic premise of this argument is that while a draft system may seem beneficial at first it would be difficult to implement. Why would or should a top tier club sacrifice their most talented academy candidates to a less successful club that hasn't invested any money in these players? Also, unlike most major league American sports, there actually IS competition for talent with leagues in other countries. Why would a player go through the Premier League draft if a Spanish or Italian league club was willing to hand them a contract for more money? Lastly, there's no easy way to rank the clubs. You could look strictly at Premier League performance within a given season, but many of these teams participate and excel in non-league play that could not be easily translated into a common ranking system.
Bottom line, yes there's an obvious disparity between the haves and have-nots in the Premier League. But it's not going anywhere. Frankly, I find that an even more compelling reason to follow Cardiff City in 2013/14. Even with the backing of Vincent Tan, the Bluebirds' most lavish contract of the season is still only one tenth of the likes of Manchester United. If Cardiff City survives this season, it won't be because they outspent most of their opponents.
Interestingly enough, even American MLS is starting to shy away from the draft system in favor of an academy-based system. You can read more in this ESPN article (safe for work) on academy growth.
I said earlier that the July/August transfer window is the primary time when clubs sign new players. It should be noted that clubs can also sign new players mid-season (January) and throughout the year if extenuating circumstances (such as loss of first team goalkeeper) exist.
In my previous post I stated that the South Wales Derby was the insanity that lies at the intersection of civic pride, soccer obsession, anger issues, and binge drinking. In contrast, the time between Premier League seasons is pretty much the same minus the civic pride and the anger issues.
From a soccer obsession perspective, fans literally plug Twitter into an IV drip to get an up-to-the-millisecond dosage of possible transfer news. I've read tweets of coffee shop employees at train stations reporting possible sightings of star players in town. These in turn explode into hundreds of tweets of ever-increasing ridiculousness about the likelihood of that town acquiring a given player.
From a binge drinking perspective, I found an amazing Vice magazine article (NOT SAFE FOR WORK) that gave me a flavor for the nightlife in South Wales. I must stress that this is absolutely not safe for work, unless your work involves naked men and/or public urination. Then I guess I need to re-evaluate who my audience is.
For my non-deviantly employed readership, this quote sums up the scene nicely: "All her nights out seem to look like the gay Garbage Pail Kids doing the Vietnam war with piss instead of napalm..."
Tantalizing and Shakespearean isn't it? You've been warned.
Next week on Dragon and Bluebird, we'll dive into the Cardiff City 2013/14 roster!
As always, thank you for reading and feel free to follow me on Twitter @dragon_bluebird
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