According to the Premier League, it can bestow no “higher individual honour” upon a player than an induction to its Hall of Fame. Swinging the door open to a new place of prestige is now the utopia to seek.
“A place in the Premier League Hall of Fame is reserved for the very best,” said chief executive Richard Masters when the inaugural names of Alan Shearer and Thierry Henry were announced last April. “It will be an occasion for our fans around the world to look back over the years and help us celebrate some truly exceptional playing careers.”
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If the Premier League has already mastered hype, now it is aiming to recognise history. “The home of the greats” is the modest tagline for what is currently an online celebration in the corner of the Premier League’s website.
As well as Shearer and Henry, who scored 435 Premier League goals between them, Eric Cantona, Roy Keane, David Beckham, Dennis Bergkamp, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard all got the public vote to join a “Class of 2021” at the end of last season.
Another eight will now join them inside the next month to create the Class of 2022. Wayne Rooney and Patrick Vieira have been assured of their places today and will be joined by another half dozen from a shortlist of 25. Again, it will be supporters from around the world who have the final say in a vote that will run until April 3.
This is the Premier League’s nod to nostalgia, an attempt to give their ever-growing brand added depth.
A vehicle that started moving in 1992 somehow still feels very modern and new. A period of three decades is not quite long enough to constitute a compelling history but creating this Hall of Fame is an attempt to convince you otherwise.
The past, as the international fan bases that follow Manchester United and Liverpool can attest, has undoubted charm and value, and here is the Premier League beginning to celebrate that before turning 30 in August.
It is at pains to make clear that, for now, this Hall of Fame is only an online tribute. There are no plans to build a museum or tourist destination. Three times in the FAQs, the Premier League stresses that point, saying the Hall of Fame is not here to rival the English Football Hall of Fame at the National Football Museum in Manchester.
That, it says, “rightly celebrates the entire history of English football and the English football pyramid”, with a list of names that stands at 156 former male and female players and managers following its inception in 2002.
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Included are those whose careers began in the 19th century, including former Manchester City and Manchester United winger Billy Meredith, whose playing career concluded at the age of 49 and spanned a greater period than the Premier League has been in existence.
The Premier League’s Hall of Fame, meanwhile, is merely “a place for celebration, admiration and nostalgia” for all things post-1992. That Budweiser has come on board as a sponsor, lending its logo to commemorative black and gold shirts, does little to dilute from the commercial ambitions of the project.
Not that recognition counts for nothing. Shearer, a columnist for The Athletic, said he felt “very honoured to join the Hall of Fame” last year. Henry said it was “more than special”. Rooney had similar sentiments 12 months on. “It’s a huge honour to be named in the Premier League Hall of Fame alongside an incredible group of players who have already been inducted,” he said. “It’s not bad company to join,” observed Vieira, captain of Arsenal’s Invincibles in 2003-04.
Henry and Shearer were the first inductees last year (Photo: Premier League)
Like every other addition to the Hall of Fame, there is now a tribute video to both on the Premier League’s website. The fortunate few can also expect a personalised medallion and the opportunity to donate £10,000 to a charity of their choice. All eight newcomers will also be recognised at a Hall of Fame event next month.
There are criteria to be met before the debates begin in the comments below. Only players who are retired are eligible and they need to have amassed 250 Premier League appearances unless they have earned any of the other specified milestones, which include winning the golden boot, a top-flight player of the season prize or three Premier League titles. The also-rans need not wait by the phone.
Rooney was not eligible last season having only retired as a player with Derby in January 2021. Vieira was but failed to win enough of the public vote when initially among a shortlist of 23 names last year. The Class of 2022 will be completed by public vote and bring the total number of inductees to 16.
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The plan is for that number to grow year on year but the Premier League’s Hall of Fame has already encountered its difficulties. The original launch date, planned for March 2020, had to be postponed due to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, before one of its likely first inductees, Ryan Giggs, was charged with assaulting two women three days before the opening names were announced.
Giggs, who denies all allegations and faces a trial in August after pleading not guilty to all charges, is second only to Gareth Barry in the all-time Premier League appearance list and won the title 13 times during a distinguished Manchester United career.
Giggs was overlooked as one of the first two inductees, with Henry said to be drafted in as a late replacement, and failed to make the last shortlist.
The Premier League is already getting in on the act with NFTs (non-fungible token), with the top flight’s digital asset collection currently out to tender to try to launch next season, and so perhaps it makes sense for its Hall of Fame to be online only for now. But if it is seeking inspiration for what a bricks-and-mortar version could become, it only needs to cast an eye across the Atlantic.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame was established in 1963 and is located in Canton, Ohio, the birthplace of the NFL. The project began on a humble footing but has gradually become a destination for American football fans in a project known as the Hall of Fame Village.
A newly constructed 20,000-capacity stadium, adjacent to the original Hall of Fame museum, hosts an induction ceremony every summer in front of sell-out crowds. There is also a hotel, conference centre and indoor water park. Although not for profit, it is big business.
Every Hall of Famer, a term that has come to separate the NFL’s great from the good, is presented with a gold jacket. The latest round of inductions brought the total number made to 362. It is an accolade that confirms an enduring place among the elite.
Peyton Manning receives his hall of fame rings in September 2021 (Photo: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports)
Each of the leading North American sports has its own Hall of Fame. In Cooperstown, New York, you will find the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The Hockey Hall of Fame is located in Toronto. Both pre-date the Second World War and have inductees in the hundreds.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts has become another sporting monument to honour its icons. Visit there and you can play on a full-size court inside a building that includes an impressive spherical structure modelled on a basketball.
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Unlike the Premier League, though, those sports all have a deep history. They have reasons to visit that pre-date 1992 and have far more in common with the English Football Hall of Fame, already welcoming thousands every year to the National Football Museum in Manchester. There you can find Geoff Hurst’s shirt from the 1966 World Cup final on display, as well as Pele’s winners’ medal from 1962. Now that is history.
Could the Premier League justify a real life Hall of Fame in time? Perhaps. This season sees a 30th title winner crowned and every passing year stacks up the drama and the memories. Give it another decade or two and those early participants might feel worthy of a nostalgic tribute.
One factor working against the Premier League would be the obvious lack of variety within any Hall of Fame or museum. Only seven clubs have been crowned champions to date and three of those (Liverpool, Leicester City and Blackburn Rovers) have only won it once. The two Manchester clubs have won 18 between them. The Premier League does not have the cyclical success stories found in US sports shaped by annual drafts. Would a fan of a club that has only spent a season or two in the Premier League be bothered about visiting?
The Premier League’s canon remains limited, even allowing for Masters’ assertion that the launch of a Hall of Fame “captured the imagination of fans around the world” last year. For now and the foreseeable, its audience will be reserved to those online.
(Lead image designed by Sam Richardson using Getty Images)
