An overview of football finances, and how money has changed the beautiful game
Is money ruining football? Do only big teams win titles? Does money really alter the beautiful game? These are one of the most debated topics in the world of football.
The Sport
Historically, football has been viewed as a fair sport. No team, regardless of skill, creativity and teamwork is guaranteed a win. The underdogs had a chance to win for a change. It was a game of pure enjoyment, but times have changed.
The widening gap between the top clubs have become a major factor in today’s world of football. There are the lower-league teams that are battling to stay afloat owing to financial difficulties, and then there are the large clubs that are spending as much as possible to acquire as many talented players as they can. Some clubs have even reported to have spent as much as a billion dollars behind players in order to increase their odds at winning matches. This has resulted in lower competitive leagues, where only a handful teams have managed to snatch league titles.
The Start
Since the emergence of billionaire club owners like Roman Abramovich who bought Chelsea in 2003, the sport has entered a new era in which rich teams and games have greater bearing on match and tournament outcomes than ever before. The evidence lies in the following years when Chelsea went onto win over 9 major trophies which includes 3 Premier league titles as well as the prestigious UEFA Champions League title. Manchester City also follows a similar pattern since they were purchased by a prominent member of the Abu Dhabi Royal family in 2009. They went on from being a middle-ranked club to one of the biggest powerhouses in football, and they went onto winning 6 Premier league titles over the last 10 years. And the list goes on. Other such financially capable clubs such as Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and FC Bayern Munich do not shy away from splurging out behind talents to uphold their club values.
Transfer Market
In order to bolster their football team, Chelsea FC recently dropped more than a record $600 million on new players. The entire football community was collectively in disbelief. This is not the first time an incident of this nature has occurred. Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) shelled out a hefty $145 million for Mbappé in 2018 and another $222 million for Neymar back in 2017, which essentially altered the entire playing field. Whenever a talented player rises, all the big clubs are running in to splash their money on them. To put this into perspective, the world record transfer in 2014 was just $100 million for Gareth Bale, which shows how much clubs are willing to spend to get big names and increase their changes of winning. Big clubs are often looking for the best fit for themselves and willing to spend all the necessary money needed in order to attract the players, be it with amazing salary structures or even massive bonuses. Most young players are often misled by these huge figures put in front of them and are willing to change their teams for it. This leads to major talents transferring to a bigger league. This is often easier for big clubs to pull off while small teams are busy focusing on scouting local players into their academies.
Most institutions have also turned this into a new market where they bring in talents, groom them and later sell them off for big money to major clubs in the world. Major teams who aim for these are Sport Lisboa e Benfica, Ajax FC, Porto FC and so on.
Financial Fair Play (FFP)
FFP was established by UEFA in 2009 with the goal of limiting a club’s spending in terms of their income in order to ensure their long term survival and maintain the competitiveness of the league. However, they have proven to be ineffective in maintaining that goal. Over the last decade, many clubs have taken advantage of the loopholes within the laws which were agreed upon by all the parties.
Recently, Manchester City was charged by the Premier League over breaching multiple financial rules between 2009 – 2018. The investigation will be done in private and if found guilty they will be fined heavily such as points deduction, UCL ban and even penalty fees.
The massive inflow of money has led to significant advancements in football, but has also led to more gap between wealthy and less wealthy teams. In a way, this inflow of money has made football more predictable than ever before, taking away some of the enjoyment of watching the game. The feeling of ‘anything can happen’ while watching the game has significantly decreased. Perhaps, the game of football will never be the same again.