NEIL Warnock’s views on Brexit can have come as a surprise to nobody.
That an often cranky 70-year-old whose entire life-philosophy is based on a scepticism about sophistication favours leave is entirely predictable. So too has been the reaction, a widespread sneering about his supposed hypocrisy. But as ever with Brexit, the debate is a little more complex than that.
It should be acknowledged, of course, that Warnock is a wealthy man with a farm in Cornwall. It’s not much going to matter to him if the economy tanks and manufacturing is devastated. He will be able to afford any increase in prices and given he is yet to attract interest from foreign clubs in a managerial career deep into its fourth decade, it’s unlikely the loss of freedom of movement will have much impact.
"I think we'll be far better out of the bloody thing. In every aspect. To hell with the rest of the world."
To @CardiffCityFC manager Neil Warnock, Brexit means Brexit. pic.twitter.com/EVJoZsImeX
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) January 13, 2019
And if there are food shortages, he can always grow his own. So you can accuse him of selfishness (although the vast majority of people vote selfishly), but that doesn’t make him a hypocrite.
Nor does the fact that he earns a significant salary in a league whose existence in its present form is the result of the sort of global vision Brexit rejects. Nor does the fact that the Cardiff squad contains three (and possibly four) players who would not be entitled to play in the UK were it not for the European Union.
Nor, even, does the fact that, within 24 hours of saying he “couldn’t wait” to be out of the EU, Warnock was negotiating with Nantes to sign the Argentinian forward Emiliano Sala, who will not need a work permit because of his Italian passport.
Emiliano Sala has today told Nantes he wants to leave and sign for Cardiff City. Talks yesterday with Cardiff manager Neil Warnock and chief executive Ken Choo and agents Meissa N’Diaye & Mark McKay. Cardiff now club he wants to join.
— Kaveh Solhekol (@SkyKaveh) January 15, 2019
This is the world Warnock is in; he cannot opt out of it. Plenty of people every day are forced to go along with things with which they do not agree. Republicans still use cash with a picture of the queen on it.
People who want the railways re-nationalised still use the privatised service. People with deep concerns over the ownership of various clubs still go to watch them play. Such compromises are part of life. Warnock may be blinkered, but he is not (on this issue) a hypocrite.
If Warnock looks on the Premier League and sees it as an image of the dangers of globalisation and untrammelled capitalism, he may have a point. This is not a straightforward issue. The football played at the highest level of the league at the moment is thrilling and of extraordinary quality.
The reach of the competition is astonishing; it is by some margin the most watched league in the world, and generates extraordinary revenue as a result. Far more than a couple of decades ago, football dominates the national conversation. The Premier League is, in those sense, an extraordinary success story.
#Breaking Cardiff distance themselves from comments made by manager Neil Warnock about Brexit, saying: "These comments do not reflect the political position of Cardiff City Football Club, nor its board of directors." pic.twitter.com/HXLa2sLrk8
— PA Dugout (@PAdugout) January 14, 2019
Has it been good for the England national team? Probably not: Gareth Southgate often complains that only around a third of the players in the league are English (and it’s only now that promising teenagers are beginning to explore the possibility of finishing their education abroad). England sucked in talent from around the world and the EU, and has been hesitant about exploiting the opportunities it offers.
Has it been good for teams beyond the top five or six? Again, probably not. Everybody is much richer than they were, but the gulf between the top end and the bottom has grown. There are fewer and fewer games between teams of roughly the same ability – between 2002-03 and 2004-05, there were only three games in the Premier League in which one team had 70 per cent possession or more; last season there were 63. Mismatches are becoming more and more common.
Warnock unveils new Cardiff City home kit pic.twitter.com/ENU2GkvJK5
— Tywysog Cymru (@Cymroid) January 14, 2019
If, looking at the issue from a footballing point of view, Warnock’s underlying reasoning is that it might be worth accepting less money and lower quality for a more even league in which clubs are more connected to their communities and not simply English hubs servicing a fan base from Los Angeles to Bangalore, from Johannesburg to Oslo, he would find many who sympathise with him. The EU and the form of free-market it encourages have led to increasing inequality of resources in football and beyond.
And, of course, if English football were a little more like it was in the eighties, Warnock would probably have played a higher profile role in it, without his route to the top being blocked by dozens of gifted foreign coaches.
Those are the arguments Warnock could have made. But he didn’t. His argument was “to hell with the rest of the world”: to hell with the Malaysian owner who pays his wages, to hell with the Spanish forward who scored the winner at Leicester, to hell with all those fans across the globe whose interests keeps the money rolling in.
There are good reasons to ask if the EU has damaged certain aspects of English football, but in that phrase Warnock declared himself an old-school xenophobe.
