In his fortnightly exclusive column for CaughtOffside, Jon Smith, one of football’s first-ever agents and a man who was an integral figure in the forming of the Premier League, discusses why Donald Trump could shape the future of football, why Ivan Toney deserves an England call up for Euro 2024, why Sir Jim Ratcliffe needs to be more impactful at Man United – and more!
—
No changes needed to the structure of the football pyramid
I hate gerrymandering stuff that is not real and the supporters wouldn’t like it either.
Clubs need to work more diligently once they’ve been promoted from the Championship into the Premier League.
Brighton have had a good level of management all the way through their time in the top-flight, and Forest and Wolves have also done well during their time in the top division.
There is a mindset that says let’s bank the £120m check, let’s spend £60m and if we go down we go down £60m richer than we were and we’ve got the use of parachute payments.
I think that the parachute payment needs to be looked at, but the Premier League is the most successful sporting league in the world so why change it?
There’s enough money if you’re clever enough and in a changing footballing market where you don’t have to spend a fortune.
So just maybe being cleverer is much more important than fixing something which is not broken.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe doesn’t need to be Man United’s ‘front of house’
I think what Sir Jim’ needs to do is be a bit more impactful and get a couple of quick wins!
I love football fans, I love the humour, I love the tribal laws, and there is a distinct quality which I share – we have no patience. It is what it is though because Sir Jim only took over in February.
I think during March and April, he should keep the conversations going and then if I was advising him, I’d be asking them to scale back.
I just think float some ideas generally, but I wouldn’t be too specific at the moment because things can change. Unless they’re already in conversations and about to enter into the final stages of signing a player or two.
He’s got a lot of work to do and if I was him I would be saying I want to observe, but I want to try and help at the front end of this as best I can. Look across the road (at Man City) – it took them four years to get properly up and running a few years back.
So I think managing expectations, managing aspirations, is probably the most important thing for Sir Jim right now plus an impactful decision or two.
Ivan Toney is worth a seat on the plane for England
We’ve got Foden who will go to the European Championship, Kane will go and Callum Wilson probably. Jarrod Bowen offers a slightly different formatted front runner, Saka is wide and will come inside.
I think you need someone like Ivan Toney on the front line to disrupt things because he’s a big boy. He’s absolutely got a point to prove as well and he scores goals!
So yes, I would have Ivan Toney in my England team tomorrow morning.
The new Champions League format will change again
There were always going to be some changes to the Champions League and things will evolve, particularly with Ceferin leaving.
This particular iteration of the competition has been flagged for the last 12 to 18 months so I don’t think the Super League has had a great deal of influence here because it was going this way anyway.
There will be other changes too because I think the Saudis will have conversations with FIFA which will ultimately – and this is just a forecast by me – change up the World Club Championship which nobody understands or doesn’t seem to want anywhere.
Those dates are fixed in the calendar and I think there’s a reasonable chance that some sort of evolving Super League under FIFA’s banner will evolve over the next 24/36 months.
Donald Trump could be key to the future of European football
There are an interesting group of think tanks being put together to assemble what the game plan will be in world politics should Biden or Trump win the American election.
I was speaking to one of the think tank chairs and the general political feeling was that if Trump gets in, which they think he will, China, the Gulf and India will be his priorities. Europe will slip down that priority list and Britain is relatively irrelevant even if we speak the same language.
The interesting thing for me though, was that they were looking at green energy, AI, and right at the bottom of that list, sporting influence.
This is where football will actually play a part in what happens next and so I think a lot of people are going to come up with a lot of ideas. I think the blue card was just one thing that came out.
I mean, if there was going to be some sort of foul play which didn’t warrant an instant red but warranted more than a yellow, I don’t see a blue card as being a problem – but the players have got to go off for 30 minutes. It’s got to be it’s got to be something that has an impact on the game.
For me the biggest game changer in terms of game involvement is we have to stop the abuse of the referees. I deplore the intimidation of referees players who do so should be off straight away. Gone.
Any players that abuse referees verbally or physically should be given a big deterrent in order that they don’t do it again. The laws of the game are far too easy on them at this point.
Players have got to learn respect for the future of our children in this game.
They know there’s a line in the sand and they’ve got to stop crossing it as far as authority and football is concerned.
Best regards.