"England, you shall face your karma for this!" and English clubs' abnormality that contributed to the problem of 2022 World Cup qualifiers

This is the word I may hear from some Argentine and Brazilian fans after the fixture between them in the 2022 World Cup qualifiers was halted. Well, we all know how: Brazilian police stormed the stadium, arresting Giovani Lo Celso, Emiliano Martínez, Emiliano Buendia and Cristian Romero after English football clubs filed a complaint about these players illegally left the clubs' base camps.

Yet Brazil and Argentina aren't the only ones who lost their best players because of the English. Colombia is suffering a denting hardship in the qualification because of the absence of their England-based players. Uruguay failed to produce the promised form in the qualification. The United States is struggling in the final round when the Americans suffered a blowing home draw to Canada - which are not even interested in the sport more than Americans. Luckier, but little changing, Croatia's England-based players Mateo Kovačić and Nikola Vlašić were the only few available options even though there are still plenty of good Croatian players in the EPL - which is attributed to injuries and English quarantine laws. Turkey, without its striker Cenk Tosun who is also England-based, struggled in the middle of the qualification due to Turkey's ineffectiveness. Japan's shocking home defeat to Oman was partly responsible for Takumi Minamino's inability to play in the game after returning from Liverpool. Egypt's struggling form in the early phase of Africa's qualification for Qatar 2022 was to blame for the lack of Mohamed Salah, Minamino's partner in Liverpool; a similar story is also being repeated with DR Congo, who fared with only a 1-1 draw at home to Tanzania, without Yoane Wissa and Arthur Masuaku. Far better, but somewhat sluggish, are the cases of Italy, Spain and France - who both demonstrated a common horrible form during the same qualification, as their England-based players fell fatigued after being exploited too much and potentially losing opportunities to play in EPL for some games due to England's refusal to fully comply to bubble travel during the pandemic.

These are only a few of the national teams greatly affected by England's clubs' decisions. Yet the English national team was given an exception when they could recruit players from the EPL within the country's own, even though English footballers contributed only 30% in the home competition, an irony. So much that many federations in the world are complaining about England's selfish privileges. And that made a question: why English clubs are far more reluctant in releasing players for the national teams in FIFA Days?

It should be noted that the EPL revenues in 2020 saw a huge slump, falling to US$4.004 billion, 9% downward from 2019. This was believed partly due to English clubs' increasing lack of success compared to their Spanish rivals from La Liga, in particular Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atleti. The slump in revenue also came with the cost: COVID-19. Because of the pandemic, many football activities had been temporarily suspended for three months before it was resumed. Unfortunately, the resumption of the activities brought little benefits for English teams.

Revenue is considered a major pillar for a football club. Without revenues, clubs would be dissolved. Revenue later also becomes a major pillar for a national league - clubs play, money flow for the federation. Since the 2000s, England's FA underwent a megaproject to refurbish the nascent Premier League in order to eclipse the success of Serie A and La Liga. Suddenly, the Italian football scandal of 2005 meant a golden opportunity for England. Not wasting it, England successfully displaced both Italy and Spain to become the brightest prospect of European football development. Large sums of money entering England allowed English football clubs to become tough nuts. The Premier League immediately worked to improve its images and infrastructures. Currently, English clubs are now the biggest rivals for their Spanish counterparts.

Yet Italian, Spanish, French and German clubs also had the same complaints about releasing players, not just English ones. So why are the English so conservative if not to say even radically willing to pay sums only to keep players stay?

Well, one challenge behind this was basically, the same old problem: revenues. You can imagine the current state of crisis of the Chinese Super League - the most popular football league in Asia. Revenues of Chinese clubs have been largely driven by the large sums of money used from the owners, outside fan supports and selling souvenirs. What drove the CSL high was largely the appearances of many foreign superstars in the country. Like the EPL, CSL survived by the bulks of foreign stars and state-based sponsors. When the COVID-19 hit these clubs, it unravelled as many Chinese teams went bankrupt, some dissolved activities, most notably Tianjin Quanjian, who already won the previous season. This forced the Chinese officials to tighten financial regulation and imposed harsher laws to improve the clubs' autonomy.

EPL is far better than CSL in having its clubs' full autonomous control, instead of relying on a sponsor. Yet English clubs also suffered a hard hit during the pandemic. Because of gathering more money than any other European leagues, save for Spain, English teams were hit particularly more severe: Chelsea, the club governed by Putin's ally Abramovich, was the only English team to got profit, in spite of falling revenues owning to the pandemic. The slump of 9% revenues in 2020 came with an effect. By contrast, La Liga lost 8%, Serie A lost 5% and Bundesliga lost 4%.

Such damage forced English clubs to take a tougher line than Spanish, Italian, German and French clubs.

Yet another reason for the feud is the fear of being competed again. Previous reports from 2010 onward revealed that the arrival of foreigners to EPL has left English footballers little space to play football. As we have known, only 30% of EPL players are English. Therefore, a widespread fear surged among English football supporters that the Three Lions could no longer be competitive when foreigners continued to dominate the English football market. Initially, the Premier League was born to improve the native players - ended up becoming a breadbasket for players from other parts of Europe and the Americas, sometimes Africa, Australia and Asia. The decreasing importance of English managers and footballers was ruinous for England, as seen from the missing of UEFA Euro 2008 and a string a horrible form for the next ten years.

Therefore, by barring the best players of some national teams from moving out of England to represent their nations in the qualification, except the Three Lions, it served England's own strategic goal: to help England to prepare the best for the qualifying campaign while decreased the manpower of so many opponents in the same qualification.

In the end, it's the problem with revenues and fear of being challenged that may have affected how English clubs decide the game. Throughout the tricks of playing the bubble travel for natives but not for foreign players, England ensured the qualification will be smooth for England - but not for the other national teams. Hence, so many people have become increasingly resentful of England when it has a successful performance in the current qualifiers despite the miseries the others are suffering.

Dear England, it is alright to fight the pandemic, but when you decide to utilise the pandemic as a weapon to weaken your football opponents, the upcoming 2022 World Cup, even if you qualify, will not end up happy for you. Don't play the same game in October and November.