Cedars Art Production has been making well-received Middle Eastern films and television dramas since the 1950s but it was not until three years ago that the Lebanese company realised its full potential. Everything changed when Al Hayba was showcased at Cannes. The TV series, set in a fictional, smuggling-funded mountain village near ancient Baalbek, blended action, romance, feudal politicking, emotional intelligence and bewitching scenery. Netflix executives spied an international hit and acquired streaming rights.
Underpinned by themes sufficiently universal to resonate with globally diverse audiences, the Arabic soundtrack was given English, French, Spanish and Chinese subtitles. Soon Al Hayba’s lead actors, Taim Hasan and Nadine Njeim, were appearing in sitting rooms across North America, Europe and east Asia. For Cedars Art the stars had aligned. An ideal confluence of strong product and growing international appetite bridged the gulf between niche and mainstream.
If only English football’s power brokers are brave enough, a similarly transformative “Al Hayba” moment could see a rebranded Championship establish itself on an infinitely bigger stage than its current, largely parochial platform. This seems a perfect time for the second tier’s anyone-can-beat-anyone human drama to be properly appreciated, at home and abroad.
Admittedly narrowing the daunting chasm separating the Premier League and the old second division while widening the latter’s overseas appeal will take more than a trip to Cannes. Championship clubs need to divorce themselves from the English Football League, slim down and join a neatly trimmed top flight in a glossily repackaged, two-division Premier League, renamed PL One and PL Two.
At present falling into the Championship feels like dropping off the edge of the world. PL Two would change that – albeit at a cost. Collateral damage could hit hard lower down an EFL ladder cut adrift and although pain invariably accompanies gain, the transition period would require careful management. Even so, the answers to necessarily hard questions could provide surprisingly sustainable long-term solutions. Does League Two really need to be fully professional? Might it and the National League benefit from merging before splitting into northern and southern divisions? Should neighbouring clubs share grounds and training facilities?
Moreover, once the makeover was complete, PL Two’s new clout could reawaken the much-diminished enthusiasm of many television and newspaper executives for England’s lower leagues.
Despite European crowd surveys showing that, in some recent seasons, only the Premier League and Bundesliga have attracted more fans to games than England’s second tier, the Championship has been under-reported by a national media in thrall to the top flight. Yet a frequently overlooked division is studded with skill and excitement.
Middlesbrough are a modest 18th but Jonathan Woodgate’s sweet-passing, risk-taking side regularly excite neutrals. Who knows what will happen when the maverick new signing Ravel Morrison gets going in the creative department?
Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Nottingham Forest, Derby and – if they escape League One – Sunderland possess big enough fan bases and sufficiently illustrious histories to provide immense collective pulling power.
Brentford offer an enticing, analytics-driven version of dry Moneyball theory made mud-on-boots reality while a Championship managerial cast featuring Marcelo Bielsa, Slaven Bilic and Lee Bowyer ensures entertaining subplots aplenty. What thriller series could top Bielsa’s starring role in Leeds’ “Spygate” scandal? Who says this action-packed soap opera cannot capture Asian and American hearts and minds?
The Championship seems to be almost hiding in plain sight. It is certainly not making the most of itself. Doing so will involve detachment from the EFL before reducing the 24-team, 46-game format to a sleek 18-club, 34-game programme mirroring a similarly revamped top tier.
Such a rearrangement could only enhance the quality of domestic football while facilitating a proper winter break that would not jeopardise the FA Cup. A holidaying Jürgen Klopp need not watch a Liverpool replay on a laptop.
By reducing the number of PL One games fatigue would be minimised, quality enhanced and Champions League performance heightened. Added bonuses may include the kiboshing of ideas about England’s biggest teams defecting to join a breakaway “Super Club” European franchise.
Trimming clubs and matches has never been properly contemplated by Premier League chairmen anxious to keep the division’s incredible broadcast riches to themselves.
Throw PL Two into the equation, though, and the resultant, infinitely enhanced, joint TV deal would soften the blow of relegation while ensuring fairer wealth distribution, some of which should trickle into the EFL.
It cannot be right that the Championship has a £595m, five-year EFL deal with Sky but BT and Sky enjoy a collective £4.55bn, three-year agreement with the Premier League. No wonder second-tier chairmen feel their division’s broadcast value is chronically undervalued and the gap disproportionate.
Parts of Al Hayba are filmed on the physical road to Damascus; English football could do with taking a journey along the metaphorical version.