WHY has the beautiful BPL gone balls-up?

The still image was taken on Wednesday 11th March 2015, when Zlatan Ibrahimovic of Paris Saint-Germain was awarded a red card during the 31st minute of the game against Chelsea FC. This typifies the ugly turn that the Barclays Premier League has taken arguably through the incipience of the 2010s. The image depicts overtly that the hideous physical and psychological onslaught referee Bjorn Kuipers sustained undeniably led to the disregard of the giant Swede.

This brings me on to the first of many inadequacies with the Barclays Premier League, its teams and English football in general. Ill-discipline has plagued our beloved game; evident with the image. Nine, yes NINE, Chelsea players - except goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and the writhing Oscar (whom Mark Lawrenson claims should have been up for an Oscar for his sensational acting talent) - bombarded the ref. Reactions to this unsightly act were as follows: Ibrahimovic called his opposition 'babies' and the situation was 'laughable', whilst BBC Radio 5 Live commentators Alan Green, Mark Chapman and Lawro noted that the Chelsea players were 'cretins who behaved disgracefully', that 'we see it week in, week out' in the BPL, and that 'Diego Costa ran 50 yards...what's it got to do with him?' respectively. Ill-behaviour and childish cheating needs to be kicked out the game, and unfortunately it seems that Chelsea are at the forefront of it. Another tendency of theirs that has unacceptably crept into the game, not due to Chelsea however, is diving (simulation). Statistically, from August to December 2014, Chelsea players had dived 4 times (Costa, Willian and Cahill - who's dive was brandished 'Swan Lake'-esque by Hull City manager Steve Bruce), Manchester City and Sunderland had dived twice each, with Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester United, Burnley, Everton and West Brom each having one incident in the season. This totals to a shocking and ghastly 14 acts of simulation in 4-5 months. Ill-behaviour has crept in with other things such as racism; seen with Chelsea supporters' racism in the Parisian metro and alarmingly 1 in 5 players claim to have witnessed racism or homophobia in the dressing room or training. It is good to see ex-Charlton player Paul Mortimer, Nathan Redmond and Romelu Lukaku have joined anti-racist organisation Kick It Out.

In addition, the Barclays Premier League teams have been underpar during Champions League campaigns. The BPL has been wrongly, unofficially titled the 'best league in the world', they have little European evidence to justify that title. In the campaign of 2011-12, both Mancunian clubs exited at the group stage, with Arsenal bowing out at the quarter-finals. Although Chelsea were champions of that year, overall this was not good enough. Equally, in the 2012-13 campaign Man City and Chelsea didn't advance past the group stage whilst Man United and Arsenal lost in the round of 16. The following year was better but Manchester United and Arsenal bowed out at the round of 16 once more. This year (2014-15) was quite frankly abysmal, with Liverpool finishing 3rd in their group due to performing poorly to Ludogrets Razgrad away and Basel at home. Moreover, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City all bowed out during the round of 16; Chelsea due to unsavoury methods (aforementioned) and Man City due to being bewitched by a beautiful Barca. Although England will be granted 4 CL places for the foreseeable future; due to the coefficients being Spain - 88.0 (4 positions), England - 82.9 (4 positions), Germany 79.6 (4 positions) then Italy with 64.0 (3 positions), it is definitely evident that BPL teams have fallen far short of the great expectation put upon them due to domestic quality. This is especially poignant due to the fact that recently the BPL teams were awarded £1bn between them due to the record TV deal that occurred. Although this should be great, with the failures of Europe, do the teams deserve all of the backing they receive? Not on a global scale. Many fans are blind to the self-besmirching. English teams need to return to the form of 2008-9 when Liverpool lost in the quarter-finals, Arsenal and Chelsea made the semis and Man United lost the final. Perhaps the poor performances are down to stamina as England is disadvantaged in the fact it often has 5 games in 15 days over Christmas and doesn't partake in a Winter break like Spain, Italy, Germany and France.

Unfortunately, another issue that has plagued the league this season is unsatisfactory officiating. Mistakes have caused complaints from many coaches such as Tony Pulis - who suggests that referees are ruining the Premier League, journalists such as Adrian Durham (Daily Mail) and big dogs like Jim Boyce, chairman of FIFA's referees committee, who questioned the number of 'blunders' and 'poor decisions'. Incidents include Vertonghen being ruled offside by linesman Stuart Burt even though he was 4 yards in his half with a Sunderland player in his own half anyway, Wes Morgan being penalised for handball even though Sterling struck the ball into his head infront of Mike Jones, and when 2 cases of mistaken identity stained officials' reputations; with Neil Swarbrick sending off Gareth McAuley instead of Craig Dawson. Officials have spun themselves into quite a sticky web. Talking of webs, it was a real shame that Howard Webb MBE, the experienced and highly-acclaimed referee that oversaw the 2010 UEFA Champions League final, the 2008 and 2012 Euros, the 2010 World Cup and more recently, the 2014 World Cup, hung up his boots to become the technical director of the Professional Game Match Officials Board. Although he has done so to further influence officials from off pitchside, referees seem pusillanimous and disappointing without his presence.

Another issue is a lack of English/ British identity in our game. Whilst it is great to witness the domestic successes of (young) British talents such as Harry Kane - having scored on his England debut on March 27th 2015, Jordan Henderson, Raheem Sterling, Sturridge, Berahino, Butland, Clyne, Bertrand, Mason, Townsend, Shaw, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Shelvey, only 36.08% of playing time was shared by British players in the BPL from August-October 2014 - thanks to Burnley using only 1 non-UK player as of 1st October. Although this has risen compared with years prior, 20 years ago this figure was 69%. The lower BPL clubs seem to shun homegrown talent to cheaply purchase foreign players and Arsene Wenger has even disregarded Greg Dyke's plan to boost Englishness in our game as it'd promote 'mediocrity' in the game. It is brilliant to see exciting foreigners grace British stadiums and create history but there needs to be more of an English identity in the English Premier League.

Works Cited/ Further Reading:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2917850/Premier-League-referees-bad-s-indefensible-kinds-blunders-jobs-people-sacked-killed.html

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9765676/jim-boyce-critical-of-premier-league-refereeing-standards

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_Champions_League_clubs_performance_comparison

http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/season=2013/index.html

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/2014-15/aug/howard-webb-appointed-technical-director-of-PGMOL.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30122051

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsene-wenger-claims-greg-dykes-5413514

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