Why the new Home Internationals are proof that in football, money is God - and what God wants, God gets

By Ian Winwood

Published 09:00 14/01/11

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If ever you required proof that money talks in football, look no further than this week’s suggestion by the FA that 2013 might see a return (at least for one year) of the Home Championship series.

The tournament would pit Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England against each other in a series of games last seen in 1984.

And who provided the jump-start to this idea? Was it the fans, who remember what it was like to see Scottish fans jubilant in victory at Wembley in 1977 and would like to see the return of such scenes? Was it some crusty old commentator having a quick stroll down memory lane?

No, the idea was proposed by England’s new sponsors, Vauxhall.

Football’s God is money – and what God wants, God gets.

If the series does go ahead – and at the moment the proposal is for a one-off event only – you might ask yourself if British international football has ever been in a worse state than it is at the moment.

It must seem to supporters of Northern Ireland to be an age since their team qualified for the World Cup in Spain in 1982 – a time when both the competition and their country was a very different place indeed.

Chances are that anyone who remembers Wales’ last appearance in the World Cup is now in possession of a bus pass. Starved of any kind of success since 1958, the national side play to crowds as low as 10,000 in the 74,500-seat Millennium Stadium.

For their part, the Scottish national team haven’t had a busy summer since the World Cup in France in 1998. What’s more, much of the football the team has played since then has been so dour as to make curling seem riveting.

Sober or pessimistic Scots might wonder if their representatives will ever again qualify for a major national tournament.

And then, of course, there is England.

Humiliated in South Africa over the summer, humiliated at the World Cup voting ceremony in Zurich and holed up at Wembley demanding the entire country has to travel to London to see them play, it surely seems as if the gap between team and supporter, and country and the rest of the world, has never been greater.

In pursuit of their disastrous World Cup bid, the FA sent England all over the world to play daft friendlies for nothing more than political reasons. This may have got them nowhere, but at least it got them out of the house.

There is nothing really wrong with the notion of a Home International series, so long as you ignore one or two oft-repeated statements.

The first is that modern footballers play too much football. If this is true, what good can come from adding yet more meaningless games to the end of another long season?

The second is that in 2011 – or in 2013 – international football is more international than it ever has been before. As powers emerge in such countries as the United States and Australia, it seems typical of British nations that they instead look inward and play with each other for no other reason than to fill a stadium.

The third is that without the intervention of Vauxhall, the ghost of this long-forgotten tradition would never have been roused from its grave.

If you like the idea of the return of the Home International series, then you’re welcome to it. But it’s not for you that this competition may make its return.

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