The most competitive English Premier League season for years!

This year’s premiership is on course to being the most competitive in over 12 years. Not since 1997-98 has the league been this competitive, with such an even distribution of the points on offer.

The chart below shows the competitive level of the premiership since it began in 1992-93. Building on analysis first carried out by footballeconomics.com, I’ve created a competitiveness index*. This uses a statistical technique to allow us to analyse the variation in the league. A perfectly competitive league would produce a competitive value of 1 in this index, as all teams would end up winning an equal proportion of the points on offer.

As can be seen from the chart, the long term trend has been for a decline in the competitiveness of the premier league ever since it started. However, many football pundits have suggested that this season is the most exciting and competitive league for a long time, pointing to Blackpool’s entertaining debut season with little resources, the wide open battle against relegation this season, and with Spurs and Man City challenging for the top four positions. It’s interesting to see that the statistics shown above would bear that out, with this season one of the most competitive in premier league history.

There are reasons to be optimistic, e.g. with the new UEFA financial fair play rules, that this year’s increased competitiveness may be a sign of things to come, and if so we can look forward to a much more competitive league in future years. Time will tell whether this is true, or whether like 2003-04 (itself the most competitive for 8 years at the time) this is just a short term blip in the long term decline.

(* in which the competitiveness value is equal to one minus the standard deviation of the proportion of points achieved by each team, for those of you that want the full geeky details...)

Why the foreign players quota is bad for Welsh rugby

Following the 5 year participation agreement between the WRU and the four Welsh regions/clubs signed in 2009, Welsh Rugby has embarked upon a wave of protectionism. Too many foreigners, coming over here, stealing our jobs etc. seems to be the rallying cry. The argument holding sway at the top of the game is that foreign players at the four professional sides are ‘blocking the development’ of young domestic players, and that this is/will be detrimental to the national side. The only way to tackle it is to restrict the number of overseas players and insist on a certain number of Welsh qualified players in every matchday squad.

(Are the likes of Jerry Collins blocking the next generation of Welsh superstars? Picture from Planetrugby.com)

Even if that were the case (which I don’t think it is), let’s look at what the economic impact of such a cap will be. By putting a cap on immigration (in a rugby sense), you are effectively reducing the overall labour supply. As total demand is fixed, and as domestic rugby players are near perfect substitutes for overseas rugby players, the result will be to increase the demand for Welsh players as the four professional sides are prevented from hiring foreigners. As the supply of Welsh players is fixed, at least in the short term, this will undoubtedly lead to an increase in the wages of Welsh players.

So, with absolutely no increase in the quality of players, the effect is to inflate the wages of average Welsh players, who are now protected from the competition from overseas. The knock-on effect of this is that the four sides are forced to pay out a greater proportion of their limited funds on players that they have no choice to employ due to the quota system. Inevitably, this means that they will have less of their total wage bill left over to spend on overseas players. Since these players are free to work in any country that they choose, this means that the clubs will not be able to attract the same quality of player that they have done in the past, as higher wages will be on offer to them elsewhere.

So, the net result of the cap is that Welsh players get a wage increase without any increase in their own skill/productivity level, and as a result the pro sides are not able to attract the best overseas players to fill the limited places on offer. This won’t lead to any increase whatsoever in the quality of play, will disadvantage Welsh teams compared with teams in other countries who do not have such severe caps, and may ultimately lead to a decline in attendance as supporters grow frustrated watching their teams lose against foreign opposition with one hand tied behind their backs. Coaches are already beginning to hint at their frustration with the system, see for example Dai Young's comments as all four Welsh sides failed to compete in the Heineken Cup this year:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/rugby_union/my_club/cardiff_blues/9366056.stm

What’s better for the Welsh national game? Having the best young players playing with and against the very best players in the world week in and week out, where they can learn from overseas players and develop their skills at high intensity, or having young players get lots and lots of game time in mediocre sides that get hammered by better foreign opposition?