Why Vincent Kompany’s Burnley Success Is More Bad News For English Soccer

When former Manchester City defender and multiple-Premier League-winning captain Vincent Company rocked up at Burnley this summer there was shock.

Of all the locations this generational defender was expected to choose next on his managerial journey, a stint at a freshly relegated Lancastrian club was not on the list.

Doubters of Kompany’s decision to move to Burnley warned it wasn’t just demotion from the Premier League which threatened his chances of success.

“Kompany is taking on a huge challenge at the embattled Lancashire club,” wrote James Ducker in the Daily Telegraph

“A significant portion of a [$80 million] loan that Burnley’s owners ALK Capital took out when buying the club is due for repayment this summer and could more or less wipe out a first-year parachute payment of about [$52 million] they will receive following relegation.

“Burnley had the oldest average starting XI in the Premier League last season and have already seen six senior players leave as free agents, including their first-choice center-half pairing of James Tarkowski and captain Ben Mee.

“Tarkowski has joined Everton while Aaron Lennon, Erik Pieters, Phil Bardsley and Dale Stephens have also gone and Burnley could yet be forced to cash in on Maxwel Cornet, who has a [$21.6 million] release clause in his contract, and fellow winger Dwight McNeil.”

So pervasive was the sentiment that Burnley was a club that would struggle next season many suggested it was Kompany’s desire to return to the North West to be closer to his wife’s family which was driving the decision.

Family should never be overlooked as a factor in any choice professional or otherwise, but those who listened to what the Belgian said at the time would perhaps have had a better understanding of the reasons he chose the Clarets.

“When I laid down the offers on the table, some were perhaps more appealing in terms of name and what they would represent to the wider public, but I had a chance to look in great depth into everything that Burnley is,” he explained.

“I looked at what Burnley wanted to achieve and I’m not saying it’s easy, but I saw a path which was different than that at other places.

“It’s about where you want the club to go and where you want the team to go as well. I only see potential at Burnley, and that’s exciting for me.”

Such platitudes might appear commonplace for a recently appointed manager, the demonstration there was substance in his words came with what happened next.

Not such a gamble

Around 15 players arrived to replace those exiting the Clarets and after a slightly patchy start, the side has established itself at the top of the division well clear of its rivals.

It turns out the risk that Kompany was supposed to have taken in the summer was, in reality, far less of a gamble.

Given the $80 million exodus of talent which occurred at Turf Moor over the summer, there was understandably less attention paid to the $40 million outlay on replacements.

But this figure should not be ignored it was close to double what the next-highest spender forked out and considerably more than all but a handful of clubs in the league.

As Ducker in the Telegraph pointed out, there are other financial obligations for Burnley to meet, but the cushion of the parachute payments-funds paid to relegated clubs by the top division to soften the blow of relegation-has mean the club could afford to spend a substantial portion of the money it received in transfers.

When you watch the Clarets play it’s clear that many of its players, although not acquired for the eye-watering sums as Nick Pope or Dwight McNeil departed for, are of Premier League quality.

Combined with the front-foot tactics of Vincent Kompany this has created a powerful force within England’s second tier who look set for promotion.

So why is that a bad thing?

Well, it’s nothing to do with Vincent Kompany or Burnley Football Club.

The reason it is bad is because the club’s success is further evidence of the polarisation taking place at the lower echelons of the Premier League and the top half of the Championship.

As I have written before, the financial disparity between the top division and the rest of English soccer is creating a situation where the clubs demoted from the top tier rarely spend more than two years outside it.

Fulham, Bournemouth, Norwich City and Watford are all clubs who have bounced between the two divisions and strengthened by the ability to outspend rivals because their revenue is substantially boosted by the parachute payments.

Another example of the advantage this income gives relegated teams can be found with the side in second place, Sheffield United, who narrowly missed out on going up in the last campaign and now sit seven points clear of the nearest rival in the second automatic promotion slot.

The longer this trend continues the more likely we are to get the same 6-8 teams who are promoted or relegated from the Premier League within 1-2 years.

Occasionally a team from outside this cohort might fall, but the chances are they’ll bounce back, the advantage is too vast.

Perhaps the concerns about Burnley were overblown or maybe Vincent Kompany is the key factor in overseeing a miraculous reboot.

But the third explanation that few will want to consider is that the wealth of the Premier League is so extreme, that a club can sell all its star players, gut its first team squad, pay back a substantial loan and still have enough money to build the best side in the division below.

For English soccer fans across the globe that is not a pleasant thought.