Multi-billion-pound deal to damage England’s national team.
Lord Sugar has expressed his belief that the record £5.136bn Premier League TV Rights deal with Sky Sports and BT Sport is an exceptional piece of business – but one that will banish any hopes of a future England team threatening on the world-stage.
The 67-year-old believes the incredible money acquired from the agreement will go towards buying expensive talent from overseas, subsequently damaging already strained youth systems in the country, and thus starving English talent of game-time.
The illustrious business magnate has spoken highly of Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane, who is almost a certainty to receive an international call-up with England in March, but describes the 21-year-old as an “exception to the rule”.
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In an interview with BBC Sport, Lord Sugar discussed the idea of “the prune juice effect” – in which the money simply “goes in one end and goes out the other” – and the repercussions on the England national team:
“We don’t have a chance of winning the World Cup again,” Sugar told BBC Sport.
“The Premier League hierarchy have done a good deal in squeezing the most amount of money out of the TV broadcasters in the UK and worldwide. I suppose yes, they’re happy.
“Will they be happy in year’s time when they realise all the money they have got, they’ve given to players and players’ agents is another story.”
“Football was never started as a business. We don’t have a chance of winning World Cup or European Championships again, it’s because of money thrown into the league in order for Premier League clubs to survive by hiring in players from abroad and not allowing young players to come and learn their trade,” he continued defiantly.
“This excess of money enables clubs to buy talent from outside the UK. Look at the Premier League, it’s full of foreign players, excellent players. And what that does is it starves the opportunity of young British players to grow.”