I admit to only been a (very) casual fan of association football but it pains even me to see the parlous financial state that many of the top football clubs have put themselves in. I 'support' West Ham United, or the "Hammers" as we in the know call them. I support them not due to any family connection to the area the team hails from but because when I owned a copy of TIF 2005, I gave myself the challenge of getting a team through promotion from the English 1st Division to the Premier League with the eventual task of winning it all. Having no knowledge of the English football landscape outside the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool I simply closed my eyes, pressed the across right button on my controller and counted to 30. When I opened my eyes, the team fate chose to bestow upon me were the Hammers. Like I said, casual fan.
That said, I love all sports and it sickens me when I see finances overshadowing the spectacle that is the sport itself. And nowhere is this more seen than in football. As a financial model, the way many professional football clubs operate themselves should be outlawed. In his brilliant article for ESPN.com, "Is European Football eating itself" Leander Schaerlaeckens highlights the blatant financial mismanagement that is threatning to sink European football. He lists an extremely overinflated transfer market, with many clubs in the top leagues taking out heavy loans in order to obtain elite talent as one of the major causes of clubs across Europe sinking further into the red. A new phenomenon, is the recent spate of American owners, most notably of Manchester United and Liverpool fame who in their takeovers of the respective clubs, used the clubs as collateral in order to obtain the loans to buy the club. The result being we now see a Manchester United 'owned' by the Glazer family, who also own the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Glazer's stewardship of the club has seen the 5 years ago debt free Red Devils now owe over 500 million pounds, all of which is money owed to the bank to cover the loan the Glazers took out to buy the club in the first place. It is also worth noting that Manchester United, according to Schaerlaeckens pays the Glazer family around 20 million pounds annually to compensate them for running the club.. into the ground.
The problems are apparent, the way forward in order to solve them are not. I read calls for a salary cap of sorts in professional football on a daily basis. The argument put forward is that it works in the NFL (American Gridiron), a professional sports league whose financial clout is on par with that found in football. The NFL has a cap that rises yearly in relation to revenue increase. This salary cap is a success, with 5 weeks to go in the 2010/11 NFL regular season 18 of the 32 franchises had a mathematical chance of making the playoffs. That even spread of talent is not found in any of the major European football leagues. Let me tell you why a salary cap will not work nor be found in European football: There is too much vested interest for a bipartisan effort between the likes of the English Premiership (EP), the Serie A and the La Liga for an agreed upon salary cap to work. Those three leagues are the biggest in Europe/ the world, if the EP were to put in place a salary cap tomorrow and the Serie A and La Liga carried on the same, then the EP clubs would be financially handicapped when it came to retaining and bidding for the top talent. This would cause the value of the end product to decrease, (the actual football itself) thus companies would pay less to be associated with and the downward spiral would begin. That is why unless the three major leagues came on board and agreed to a cap this option will very likely never happen. By vested interest I mean why would the club of the Galacticos, Real Madrid agree to bound by the same financial constraints as a AC Milan, a Chelsea or god forbid a Barcelona.
The other area that needs cleaning up is the transfer market, the invisible hand (Maradona's?) has pushed transfer fees up at an exponential rate for too long. We now see a player such as Christiano Ronaldo been bought of Manchester United by Real Madrid for US$123 million. Thats not Ronaldo's salary by the way, thats Real Madrid paying Manchester United to compensate for Man U losing Ronaldo's services. To put that figure into perspective, the Spanish Government pledged US$48 million in aid to Haiti after the earthquake that killed over 100,000 people and caused widespread damage and chaos earlier this year. Here is where I do advocate professional football replicating the NFL system. In the NFL there are basically four ways of acquiring a player; the draft, a player trade, restricted free agency and free agency of which all but the draft (think about it) could possibly have a place in professional football. Imagine how many players Real Madrid would have have to have given Man U in order to obtain Ronaldo. Of course in free agency we would see mass bidding wars but it would be cleaner that a club paying a kings ransom to obtain a player then paying another kings ransom paying the player. Restricted Free Agency is a whole other deal, see here for the basics. FIFA could make it so that every player under the age of 25 was a RFA, with set price limits on salaries and compensation.
Professional football does have things in its favor though, for starters it is played throughout the world, it is a truly international sport/ pastime. Also the passion of fans when it comes to their clubs is a true cultural phenomenon. People across Europe become feudal when it comes to supporting their clubs, it must be in the makeup of the european psyche. As a result these fans will do anything for the clubs, meaning that whilst the main fan base is still not alienated, the game has a chance to learn from its largesse and move into the future practicing austerity instead. Ultimately, we need to remember that football above all is a game, and not just any game at that but the beautiful game.
BJH
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