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Championship Opening Day Review
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Opening Weekend Thoughts
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One part of my process is reviewing what we’ve just seen – really important at the start of the season so I decided to spend an hour immdiately post match reviewing what the early data might suggest,
In the Championship it looks like Blackburn fully deserved the points against West Brom. While the Baggies did well on the shot count, most were poor half-chances and Blackburn worked the ball into the box to ensure their shots were of much higher quality. A draw was a fair result at Bristol City v Preston as the hosts edged the first half and Preston dominated in the second. It's worth noting Preston created their best efforts from open play, while the Robins relied on a few set-plays. Millwall were surprise winners at Middlesbrough. Michael Carricks hosts had most of the ball, and carved out more chances, but it was Millwall who really made things count and they deserved their win in the end.
Norwich are worth a line in the note-book as they completely dominated Hull despite winning just 2-1. They saw 57% of the ball and created a swathe of chances. Had it ended all square they would have been robbed. Look a good early runner on the data.
Plymouth and Huddersfield played out an entertaining match. The xG ended 2.17-1.91 suggesting both might be worth watching on the goals markets in the opening weeks if the market doesn’t react enough to the copious amounts of injury time (more on that, and it’s impacts shortly)
Stoke controlled things easily against Rotherham – 4-1 winners and a result which was never in doubt. 71% possession, six genuine big chances (of which they landed three) and 2.38 xG generated. Impressive.
A draw looks fair between Swansea City and Birmingham. A new era feels like it could be dawning for the Blues but there might need to be a revolution behind the scenes before the on-field evolution can begin.
Finally, Watford fans will be delighted after an opening day 4-0 win over QPR. It’s really hard to know whether it was all about Watford, or equally about QPR who may very well be a huge relegation candidate this campaign. It was all done by half-time allowing them to make early changes. The won the xG 2.67 / 0.40
Ivan Toney – Rules are Rules and why it’s not FA hypocrisy
Ivan Toney – Rules are Rules and why it’s not FA hypocrisy
If you’re here, the chances are you already know all about what Brentford’s Ivan Toney has done, and his punishment. If not, you’ve been living under a rock, but your 40 words summary is thus:
Brentford striker Ivan Toney was this week found guilty of breaching FA rule E8.1 (Players shall not bet on football related stuff) and handed an eight-month ban accordingly. He was charged with 232 breaches over a four-year period.
We don’t know exactly what the bets he had, or at what size, nor whether this will subsequently be revealed. What we can guess however is that it’s unlikely to have been on games he was directly involved in – if they were then we can safely assume the consequences and story would have been far bigger. Plenty of opinions are being given as to the potential hypocrisy of the FA in their decisions and rules to ban players for partaking in betting on the one hand, while simultaneously signing significantly large sponsorship deals and endorsement with gambling companies. There’s equally been plenty of discussions around the severity of his ban (particularly in comparison to other offences in football)
On the first part, I will attempt to lay out why suggestions of hypocrisy are wide of the mark. On the latter, I’d like to outline why I believe the punishment is proportional and justified in the bigger picture.
Why suggestions of hypocrisy are wide of the mark
The first thing to recognise is that gambling’s involvement in football isn’t for everyone. Despite being a regulated, taxed and legal industry, employing hundreds of thousands of people, there are undeniable risks and negatives associated. It’s a matter of fact that despite being an enjoyable past-time for the great majority, it is also one which can lead to addictions for others. As such, some will be against the sector being involved in the sponsorship of sport – just as things like cigarettes and alcohol have been subject to similar moral decisions from sports bodies in the past.
Perhaps the crucial difference is that sports betting has genuine commonality with football, in that betting on your favourite team or player can enhance your enjoyment of the sport. It’s also a reason why there is such a cross over in the potential customer bases of both elite football and sports betting companies – the football on the pitch being the common interest. The FA (as well as the EFL and individual teams) have all considered the various merits and determined that they are happy to be associated with this legal and regulated industry.
Given the FA and other footballing bodies have deemed the gambling sector a suitable partner, the accusation of hypocrisy quickly follows when they are happy to work with betting companies for income, but then ban their own players for having a bet. This is wholly unfair though.
The integrity of football is very important to both– for football to become the victim of match fixing accusations would be hugely damaging to both the sport and betting companies in equal part. One of the important words here is the accusation. An actual act of cheating doesn’t need to have occurred for something to become damaging. This is where article E8.1 comes in. Players, Managers and a host of other footballing roles sign up to this agreement and it goes as follows:
E8.1 A Participant shall not bet, either directly or indirectly, or instruct, permit, cause or enable any person to bet on
- E8.1.1 the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of, or occurrence in or in connection with, a football match or competition; or
- E8.1.2 any other matter concerning or related to football anywhere in the world, including, for example and without limitation, the transfer of players, employment of managers, team selection or disciplinary matters.
There’s a lot more detail in there, but the essence here is that betting on football is a clear red line for participants in the game. Early attempts looked at games where the player was directly involved, but quickly found themselves coming up short when there was a potential story to be written. Where did the ethical line of acceptable betting begin and end for example? I’m sure we could all agree that a player betting on their own team to lose would be pretty outrageous, and draw clear conflicts of interest for the player involved. What about betting on their team to win though? Suppose that bet was placed after secret behind the scenes knowledge that the opposition goalkeeper had just been injured? Or worse, what about accusations that the player placing the bet was in cahoots with the opposition to throw the match. It quickly gets murky.
Extrapolate that out further, and suppose a League Two team is accused of skulduggery, and it turns our a player who was on-loan their earlier in the season bet against them? How do we know they were part of an attempt to fix the game? (For a while the regulations on players covered just betting on matches in competitions for which they had participated that season)
And even if there is nothing to an accusation, we all know that mud sticks, and giving the tabloids even the slightest excuse to sensationalise things and draw tenuous (even if baseless) links will be snatched up by the red-tops. Football and the Gambling Sector need to protect themselves from this threat, just as much they do their players. In doing so, they also ensure they protect the betting public from this sort of behaviour too.
As I’ve shown, even tenuous links pose a risk, so a few years ago it was agreed that the FA would simply draw a clear line. If it’s Football betting, it’s off the cards for players. Not because betting is bad per se, but because betting directly on football was just risky for all concerned. It protects not just from the act of match-fixing or influencing, but also from the accusation of such practices as well.
As a football player there are a host of other things you can bet on if you want to. Horse Racing, Golf, Tennis for example. Drawing the line at football is a clear and easy line. For me that’s why there is no hypocrisy here.
So what about the ban length?
There’s two parallels to draw I guess. The length of the ban for Premier League player Ivan Toney versus how other players have been treated for the same or similar offences, and the length of the ban versus other offences in football (such as violence or racism ).
Starting with the first, I’d say an eight month suspension looks consistent with other similar offences. Some have been longer, some shorter. Joey Barton for example was one of the highest profile cases when he was banned for 13-months in 2017 for similar offences – that ban essentially ended his playing career and delayed his move into management. Daniel Sturridge was banned for four months for passing information to a third party about an upcoming transfer. That one I suppose is a lesser offence in as much as he didn't place a bet or lots of bets, but a more serious accusation that it was was an attempt to directly use inside knowledge.
Comparing the ban to that imposed on Scott Kashket perhaps suggests Toney has been harshly treated – Kashket was banned for just two months in 2020 despite betting on games he was actually involved in. There was no suggestion of match-fixing but nevertheless, it looks a more serious accusation. In 2021 two non-league players were banned for five months for being charged with betting on around 750 bets between them.
The penalties might appear harsh for some of these – after all, what’s the harm in a few bets on games you’re not even involved in some might ask. The reality is that the consequence has to be significant enough to act as a deterrent, and I think this ban clearly sends out that message. There’s simply too much at stake for the FA to condone it with smaller punishments, and Ivan Toney is about as high profile as they come right now.
The other question is around it’s comparison to other football bans. I'm not quite so sure they are being handed out proportionally.
Luis Suarez received just four months for biting Giorgio Chellini in 2014. So half the suspension for a clearly violent incident, and one in which there could barely be any mitigation or defence. It certainly feels like Saurez got off lightly. Similarly the same player received just an eight-match ban for racially abusing Patrice Evra in 2011. Again it doesn’t feel long enough by comparison does it?
John Terry was found guilty of racially abusing Anton Ferdinand – he received just four matches out, while incredulously Marco Materazzi was banned for just two matches for that famous World Cup Final head-butt! Then we’ve got the referee ones – Paulo Di Canio got 11 matches for that push on Paul Alcock, while it was 10 games for Mitrovic. The pushes for me personally didnt have the same level of violence, but came against a match official. It was more about sending out a message and drawing a clear line. Do Not Touch the Referee!
I think it’s fair to question the length of the ban for Toney in comparison to a bunch of those – particularly those clearly found guilty of racism or more serious violence. I guess here I’d suggest however its not the gambling length which is wrong, but the leniency of the others which is at fault.
Anyway, hope you’ve found this is a useful input into the debate!
EFL TV Deal – Why 3pm Football will remain
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EFL TV Deal – Why 3pm Football will remain
The EFL announced a landmark TV deal for member clubs this week – a whopping £935m Sky Sports TV deal to broadcast over 1,000 matches a season across Football League competitions for five years. The deal runs from 2024/25 under 2028/29 – representing a 50% increase on the value of the current rights. All of this while confirming the already controversial 2.45 – 5.15 UK TV Blackout period (Article 48) will remain in place.
Armchair fans may well rejoice, but the general feeling in the harder-core football fan community is that this is a death knell for the standard 3pm slot and an unwelcome infringement on our national institution. I was immediately in that camp, but as this morning wore on, I decided to run the numbers to see whether that really is true, or whether we’re getting out knickers in a twist unnecessarily.
The Detailed Facts
The EFL announced over 1000 matches to be televised. The detail shows this will be a minimum of 1059, broken down as follows:
- 328 Championship
- 248 League One
- 248 League Two
- 15 Play Offs
- 93 Carabao Cup
- 127 EFL Trophy
They’ve said 10 live EFL Fixtures will be shown each weekend – five from the Championship and five from League One and Two combined. They’ve also confirmed all opening day, final day and midweek fixtures will be shown live, as well as all games on Bank Holiday’s – Easter, Boxing Day and New Years Day, plus matches played in Sky Bet League One and Two during international breaks.
Article 48
This is commonly misinterpreted as a blackout period on all football being broadcast live from 3pm matches every Saturday. There’s actually a bit of devil in the detail though, and it only actually applies during certain game weeks. In 2022/23 for example it was:
- 30th July-17 September 2022
- 1st October – 12th November 2022
- 14th January – 18th March 2023
- 1st April-20th May 2023
That means seven Saturday EFL game weeks could legitimately have all the fixtures televised without moving from the traditional 3pm slot.
How many matches already take place outside of the black-out period?
You might be surprised. There are 552 League Games played each season in each of the divisions. The following is all taken from this season (2022/23)
In the Championship we already saw:
- 261 matches taking place on Sunday-Friday
- 33 matches taking place on Saturday’s but not in a 3pm slot
- 8 matches opening round Saturday matches
- 14 matches taking place at 3pm on Saturday, but outside of the black-out dates.
So that’s 316 out of 552 already eligible for broadcast with no changes to scheduling. Or put another way, in order to broadcast their committed 328 matches, only 12 matches would need rescheduling based on the 2022/23 plans on pure numbers alone.
But what about the “five matches each weekend” commitment?
Quite right, and this is the concerning bit for Championship fans.
I’ve counted up all the weekends during the Black-Out, where there were not five or more matches taking place over the game weekend at times avoiding the blackout – 61 fixtures would need rescheduling – roughly 5 per team, per season. They currently play, on average, 21.5 Saturday 3pm games per team, per season. So that’s a reduction of around 23% of 3pm matches being affected by some sort of kick-off change.
What about League One and Two?
League One should see considerably less impacted. Of the 552 matches:
- 194 matches took place on Sunday-Friday
- 18 matches taking place on Saturday’s but not in a 3pm slot
- 12 matches opening round Saturday matches
- 38 matches taking place at 3pm on Saturday, but outside of the black-out dates.
So that’s 262 matches already eligible for broadcast – the vast majority of which come from the non-3pm slots. And already more than the commitment being made to show them. The EFL and Sky TV could hit their broadcast commitment without any impact to schedule over and above the existing 2022/23 fixture list on the pure numbers alone.
Of the 552 League Two matches:
- 191 matches took place on Sunday-Friday
- 15 matches taking place on Saturday’s but not in a 3pm slot
- 12 matches opening round Saturday matches
- 52 matches taking place at 3pm on Saturday, but outside of the black-out dates.
That’s 270 matches already eligible for broadcast. Once again, the EFL and Sky are proposing televised coverage of 248 per season, so the target number could be hit with opening/closing day matches, those taking place outside black-out fixture dates, and those on bank holidays.
That is, until we consider the five-games-per-week note.
Tell me more…..
For both League One and Two, the commitment to broadcast five games a week will mean some movements – I’ve counted up how many would be needed across the bottom two divisions to hit that, and its 104 matches. That’s roughly four matches per team, per season. Those will be an inconvenience of course, but I’m hopeful the EFL will move only local matches to the 12:30 slot, and try avoid too many long distance matches being scheduled for Fridays, Sundays or Mondays. The average EFL L1/L2 side would expect to see 28 Saturday 3pm matches, reduced to 24 – only a 14% impact. Perhaps slightly more League One ganes will get moved than League Two given the TV pulling power of those sides.
Conclusion
On balance, I’m a fan of the changes, but do accept that fans who travel home and away every single week will feel some downsides inevitably.
EFL Championship fans are probably impacted greatest – they already see more midweek games by virtue of the fact they don’t play in International weekends. Championship fans are likely to see 20 Saturday 3pm fixtures reduced to 15. It’s definitely not ideal, but hopefully the EFL will employ some decent scheduling to ensure the more local matches are those moved. The greater proportion of fixtures should be unaffected.
L1 and L2 fans should barely notice an impact on their Saturday experience, while enjoying the benefits of wider TV coverage on midweek’s, international break weekends and bank holidays. The average L1/L2 fan will see 28 Saturday 3pm fixtures reduced to 24. Some those might only move by a couple of hours. Again, lets hope travelling fans are considered in the decisions on which matches. Wrexham fans might want to keep their diaries flexible though.
While there are clearly some downsides, we are going to have every EFL Trophy and Carabao Cup match available to watch now, and that’s a big positive. Kick-offs wont be impacted that, and as fans we can still make the choice to go to the game. For me nothing replicates that live experience and I can’t see how it will change me – other than meaning I can watch my side’s away midweek matches where otherwise I simply couldn’t make them with work commitments. I’m sure many others will feel that benefit too.
