Norwich City and the rumbling Premier League debate

As the Canaries hurtle towards the Championship play-offs, the age old debate about whether promotion would be beneficial or wanted by supporters has emerged. But perhaps it does need reframing. 

Often, the argument is made from the point of competition. Anyone who doesn't want to return to the top-flight labelled unambitious. Like so much of modern discourse, that fails to take into account any ounce of nuance. 

Every football fan wants to sit at the top table and challenge the very best. That euphoric victory over Manchester City in September 2019 was as glorious a triumph as any Carrow Road has seen this millennium. 

The prospect of facing Kevin de Bruyne, Erling Haaland, Bukayo Saka or Mo Salah still excites. It is often not a debate about competition, but membership.

There is an increasing discomfort about what the Premier League stands for, how it operates and what that would mean for a club like Norwich. That does often incorporate the difficulties of competing - but it isn't a fear of doing so. 

Clearly, the financial benefits to the club are enormous. The ability to secure the future whilst retaining top talent is undoubtedly a positive. Promotions are hard-fought and can never be underestimated or turned down. 

David Wagner and his troops aren't working over a 46-game season to remain in the second tier. But the reality of promotion is unpalatable for some supporters. 

When I first picked up a football and was pointed towards a goal, it was the love of feeling the ball against my feet, the joy of winning, despair of losing, the team-mates and friends made along the way. The sense of achievement or unjust. 

It wasn't about games being decided by pixels on a screen. It wasn't about the elite hoovering up funds and monopolising the modern game. It wasn't about the game being crowbarred into every available slot irrespective of the ramifications for supporters. 

Then there is the lack of morals. The backroom deals. The rule-breaking. The lack of care for the wider football pyramid. The constant and relentless pursuit of more money and power. No longer is it a game for everyone, not at the top table. 

When even the FA are cowering to the Premier League's demands over FA Cup replays - whilst the same 20 clubs arrange post-season trips to Australia despite constant bleating - it is not a good moment for the game. 

There is a top quota of clubs who nearly walked away from it all without breaking stride. They would trample over anyone to swell their purses further. It is not about winning or losing but profit and financial growth. 

Playing the best is part of being in the Premier League. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

Every club likes to think they would act differently if they got there. That they would stand up to the top six and swim against the tide. That they would run themselves sustainably. But it is not a system that enables clubs to do that. It is intoxicating. Smart people lose all sense of themselves. The cliff edge so steep that it fuels crazy decision making. 

There is a team on the road to their four consecutive title who have 115 charges against their name. The three promoted teams, some of whom have committed wild fees on talent, are set to be relegated at the first attempt. Only points deductions have made it tighter. 

It is a system that rewards wealth, not sustainable models or creative thinking. It is about maintaining hegemony, not allowing challenge to it. 

Norwich would be playing in a billionaire's playground. On the swings are gulf states and at the top of the slide is a group of wealthy Americans. That is the first gulf to bridge, before the players even step out onto the pitch. 

That is not to portray the EFL as some guardian of dreams. The difference is rolling two slightly different things in glitter. One just happens to be ginormous. 

But the absence of VAR, the chaos that has been seen this season, the relentlessness and the unpredictability makes it more enjoyable from a sporting perspective. There are still issues with parachute payments and how unfit owners have been dealt with, or not. 

That's before you delve into the financials and how unsustainable football is below the top-flight. Nearly every club is running at a loss. Football is fundamentally broken. It is a game that has been snatched from everyone and handed to the rich. 

That is the norm. The journey is too far gone to turn back. But supporters have to fight and stand up to the changes being made. 

VAR is another unattractive quality of the Premier League. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

First it was VAR. Then the failed Super League breakaway attempt. Then the desire for five subs. Then the increasingly inflated TV deals. Now the scrapping of FA Cup replays. The tradition of the beautiful game is being stripped inch by inch in exchange for piles of cash. 

The Premier League encapsulates everything that is undesirable about contemporary football. That is why there is a reluctance to see your team enter it. Especially when the 'prize' is years of mid-table mediocrity - ask Palace, Wolves or Brentford.

But all of that doesn't mean that City should be avoiding it. That competition is what fuels the dreams. They are one aspect of the game that cannot be cashed in. It is the hope that is more valuable to the game than anything else. 

The benefits for the long-term security of the football club are undeniably huge. The ability to welcome the very best to Carrow Road still exciting. But there is so much that is unpalatable. 

David Wagner and his coaching team are working for a Premier League return. (Image: Paul Chesterton/Focus Images Ltd)

It isn't a conversation unique to Norwich. It is being had by Leeds, Southampton and even Leicester fans. When promotion isn't seen as a real prize by supporters - that should be problematic for the game. But the money is blinding. 

Wagner is the latest City boss hoping to guide them there. And there is one positive - the eye rolling and groaning from the rest of the league if Norwich's name appeared back on the fixture list would be amusing. 

Here is hoping it is a debate that rumbles on over the summer, because it would mean Norwich have been successful.