Football can help itself — but does it want to?

TODAY Portsmouth, tomorrow . . . any other club you care to mention, potentially.

The Premier League’s sinking ship on the south coast is not alone in its financial difficulties. It owes £60 million (€66.7m), which resulted in it being forced into administration last week, but this week’s Soccerex conference in Manchester heard more about the financial insanity of the Premier League.

For instance, the Premier League accounts for 56% of the total debt of European football. Liverpool owe £237m (€263m) and Manchester United £716m (€797m); wages paid by top-flight Premier League sides in 2007-8, the latest season for which figures are available, grew by 23% from the previous season, to £1.2bn (€1.3bn).

Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool had the highest wage bills.

In and of itself this may be unremarkable, but Dan Jones of Deloitte believes there is a strong case for performance-related bonuses and lowering the basic salaries of players.

He said: “There’s no bonus culture. It’s the same, win lose or draw. Why is that allowed to persist?”

BBC chief economics correspondent Hugh Pym echoed Jones, citing the likes of HSBC and Barclays, which paid key executives bonuses which were several times higher than their salaries.

However, he pointed out that such payments, linked to success, were not replicated in football.

“The thing about high player wages is they are often at loss-making clubs. There seems to be a mis-match there which you don’t see in other parts of business,’’ he said.

(What nobody seemed to point out is that if you’re relying on the major banks for examples of remunerative common sense, you know you’re in trouble...)

Fundamental changes are needed, and not just for players. Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis, former deputy commissioner of Major League Soccer in the US, pointed to differences between the Premier League and American Football, particularly among club owners.

“(In Britain) we find clubs competing with each other on the field and also off it,” Gazidis said.

“In the US, there is a recognition that the actions of one affect everyone else, and the pressures can be difficult to resist. Owners have come together and said ‘we need to protect ourselves’, so they are very collaborative off the field of play.

“I am hopeful we will see the spirit that football is coming together, that clubs can work together towards common goals. Partnership off the field is the only thing that can keep this sport stable.”

Gazidis backed the moves by UEFA and the European Clubs Association to draw up new financial guidelines for football clubs to prevent reckless spending and debt.

“I don’t think the purpose here is to prevent equity investment into the game, but… to create an environment where more strong investors can get involved in the game.”

He also said clubs should be encouraged to spend more on youth development and infrastructure, rather than on inflated player salaries and agents, as “That will ultimately create a stronger competition.”

Those inflated salaries came under fire from West Ham co-owner David Gold also.

“I don’t disagree about players receiving due reward for amazing skills,” said Gold. “What I don’t want to see is that wage structure take clubs into administration. You have players earning £60,000 or more a week. Then a club gets relegated and that club is locked into a contract with players.”

Sheffield Wednesday chairman Lee Stafford said his club had suffered those problems after slipping out of the Premier League in 2000.

“It almost guarantees a downward spiral because you have players that aren’t going to want to move on, and clubs aren’t going to want to sign them. So your debt builds up, the spirit in your club breaks, the fans see nothing to be optimistic about and the players are not motivated properly because they know they’re going to struggle,” he said.

“We feel massively disadvantaged by other clubs that are racking up debts paying players that they should not be and getting further up the league. It’s not a level playing field and we need governance in the game to improve.”

Gold went on to warn of more top flight clubs following Portsmouth into administration — or worse, going bankrupt.

“The Premier League’s a great league, but we’re seeing a chink in the armour,” said Gold

“It’s possible that more will go. Portsmouth have gone, imagine if next year one or two more go. I’m concerned. I fear for the league if we do not act.

“Going into administration I could almost live with but what I fear is that a club could eventually go bust. That’s a great possibility and that would be a tragedy for the fans.

“If one club is borrowing money beyond its means it’s a form of cheating and that’s why debt has to be addressed.”

Don’t hail the brave new dawn just yet, though. Despite Gazidis’ warm words of praise for European efforts to tighten up financial controls, it also emerged this week that Europe’s top clubs had succeeded in delaying the full introduction of UEFA’s new financial fair play rules.

The rules will apply in 2015 instead of 2012 and will govern the amount of debt clubs can accrue, with European bans a possible punishment if they are broken.

So, as St Augustine almost said: give me fiscal responsibility, but not just yet.