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Jayaditya Gupta in his column in the Cricinfo magazine: ‘Market rules, ok ‘ writes about private ownership bringing about uncertainty and despotism in the way clubs/franchises are run in cricket. The argument he makes and the analogy he draws, with football in particular, is flawed to a great degree and hence this post.

The article has come on the back of the Charu Sharma sacking — which, admittedly, is a bird-brained move because the rot had seemingly set in from the day the auctions were held. But taking this instance as a premise to accuse the attitude of the owners for being results oriented is a little difficult to digest.

Let’s have a look at what he’s had to say:

As the game’s profile has risen, so have the stakes. And those high stakes don’t have any time for the “glorious uncertainties of cricket”. The bottomline does not respect honour in defeat. All that matters is results; the rest is for the writers and romantics. The big stakeholders are rarely given to sitting on their hands while their team’s fortunes dwindle, hoping providence intervenes; they act fast, often shooting the first person in sight, usually shooting first and asking questions later, but shooting. And publicly; they must not merely act, they must be seen to have acted.

About time, don’t you think? How many times have we — and not just we, the fans, but even journalists like the one quoted above — bemoaned the lack of professionalism affecting Indian cricket. What would you expect if you see paid professionals who are expected to show results — and, hence, an improvement in the quality of cricket? Firing personnel to get things moving, sending a message across to the dressing room and setting your house in order are just some of the things one can think of. And when a ruthless approach is taken — more often than not they are under good counsel — team politics and favoritism can be wiped out.

Now when this sense of accountability is being applied to a team, why the anger? Charu Sharma’s sacking may have been ill-advised, but a generalization based on this one incident is grossly unfair.

To make his point clear he cites the example of foreign ownership in football and the English Premier League:

Liverpool was bought by two Americans who were buddies at the time but now can’t bear to sit in the same room. Manchester United was bought by one American who turned the club from a profitable, cash-rich and debt-free listed company into a private enterprise, which though profitable on its own, owes US$1.5 billion to all creditors and has $1.2 billion in total borrowings. Chelsea’s owner, the second-richest man in Britain, has brought two league titles to the club and may bring a third but runs Stamford Bridge with as much glasnost as the Kremlin under Leonid Brezhnev.

Being a Manchester United fan and having had a more than passing interest on the happenings in football, in general, I think he hasn’t exactly nailed the idea of despotism he wanted to convey with the above analogy.

Liverpool are victims of infighting — not despotism; although their manager has been undermined when one of the owners went behind his back to talk to Jurgen Klinsmann about a possible contract with the club. But for a club like Liverpool that hasn’t won the English Premier League for about 18 years now, and are fighting to finish fourth despite spending big the owners can’t be blamed too badly for being concerned about success.

The Glazers who own Manchester United have plunged the club in debt, but have left matters related to football to David Gill (the Chief Executive) and manager Sir Alex Ferguson — again no despotism there.

The only case of despotism could have been Man City’s owner. Chelsea’s owner doesn’t really run the club as a business — he runs it like a sugar daddy without trivial concerns like breaking even and making profits.

That said, my point is this: football clubs in England and Spain are in the results business whether they are owned by billionaire owners or not. All clubs have strong fan bases that demand a certain level of success. Barcelona, for example, is not owned by an entity but by the 100,000 member fans that elect presidents to run their club — they are currently undergoing a major upheaval in key personnel that run their club, are most certainly going to ship Ronaldinho out of the club. No mad billionaire owners making rash decisions here. Not even sympathy for a former FIFA player of the year. Just a mix of common sense, results and a need to stem the rot.

Getting back to the IPL and the franchises, it is actually good for a fan to see proactive action being taken to improve results and, consequently, the quality of cricket on offer for the team one supports. How many years have we spent waiting for a world cup debacle for a change in personnel in the national team?

Market forces will allow players to give a hundred percent due to the stakes involved. How often do you get to see an Ashish Nehra dive full stretch at the straight boundary to save a certain four? Yes, the IPL and the pressure has made such wondrous sights possible. So let’s give it a chance, shall we?