‘Prune juice’ still the EPL’s drink of choice

"PRUNE JUICE" is how Alan Sugar, then Spurs chairman, memorably described the lashings of moolah coming in and going straight out of the top Premier League clubs in 2002.
Back in what now almost seems an age of austerity, £20 million would get you a world-class player: today, as spending soared over the £1 billion barrier, it's the cut an agent gets for "selling" such a player.
Mino Raiola's slice of the world record £89m pie Manchester United paid for Paul Pogba may have been exceptional, but it provided a graphic illustration of Sugar's point.
Indeed, it also seemed apt that with his rather easily gotten gains, Raiola should spend them on, of all things, Al Capone's old mansion.
Not that Raiola had done anything wrong – he had simply allocated a generous commission for himself out of a legitimate transfer.
But such are the eye-watering amounts of cash coursing through football in 2016, had Capone been around to see them, he probably wouldn't have bothered robbing banks: football clubs are a lot less troublesome.
That's how it seems with many – United among them - still managing to be in debt despite the broadcasting riches raining down upon them.
The real beneficiaries are, of course, the players who have become the 21st century's nouveau riche along with their agents. Hence Sugar's analogy – the cash is simply passing through and not providing any lasting benefit to the game itself.
Indeed, while top players indulge themselves with their customised limos, gated mansions and decadent lifestyles, fans are still being fleeced, lesser clubs teeter on the edge of bankruptcy and the grass roots are largely ignored.
UK Government cutbacks have actually hampered development at lower levels.
Football as a whole is simply not benefitting from this incredible gold rush – in fact, you worry about its future when, with uncanny timing, the Premier League and FA announced they were jointly giving £28m to grass roots development at the time Chelsea were paying £32m to bring David Luiz back from PSG.
The announcements came just before 5pm which was traditionally time to bury bad news on a Saturday – as the football results were coming in.
So, we have to ask: was there a scintilla of guilt about the donation being somewhat less than what the Blues were paying for a well-known liability of a defender whom Jose Mourinho couldn't wait to get rid of?
To put things into a wider perspective, the sum is not even one and a half times what Raiola picked up.
And nothing illustrates the sheer madness in the game that this occurred on a day when no less than 11 of the top flight clubs broke their transfer records on nonentities of whom many of their fans would not have heard.
"Market forces" they will tell you at Premier League Towers but we know that is a euphemism for the law of the jungle.
Here in Asia, you may wonder why we should worry about the rank unfairness on the other side of the world, but we do want to still be watching this game in 10 or 20 years, don't we?
The EPL is rightly lauded for its more even-handed distribution of the TV wealth compared to other leagues, but now the stakes are higher so is the desperation not to lose the coveted place at the trough. So there is always a nagging worry that the bubble may burst.
If nothing is done to control it, burst it will and we'll end up with a world league of the same clubs, no relegation and all the paint-drying excitement of American sport.
Of the deals done, the trend was for the bigger boys to do their business earlier as was the case with both Manchester clubs.
And City didn't even attempt to claw back any of the £175m they spent, allowing Joe Hart, Samir Nasri, Wilfried Bony, Eliaquim Mangala and Jason Denayer to go on loan when their combined knockdown fees would have amounted to half of the club's expenditure.
Pogba apart, United have been relatively subdued but they can do that when making the biggest impact so far is freebie Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
Even Arsene Wenger ended up close to £100m and once again he probably got value in Shkodran Mustafi and Lucas Perez for a combined £50m.
But they're not the sort of marquee names the fans wanted and they're probably not good enough to win the title either.
Liverpool were virtual non-participants and clearly showed Jurgen Klopp's disdain for wheeling and dealing. But they at least got rid of Mario Balotelli.
Leicester showed their ambition by spending a lot but bought mainly forwards when their centrehalves have a combined age of 65.
There was also the usual last day panic induced by the false nature of the window. This, in turn, pushes up prices and English clubs found themselves paying a premium for foreign recruits.
The broadcasting mother lode should have given English football the chance to both change the balance of power in Europe at the top end and ensure the future development of the game at home. The way it is being squandered, we cannot have much confidence that either will be achieved.