Ridiculous transfer fees will ruin the game

Does anyone else think that £80 million is a ridiculous amount of money to pay for one player? I mean Kaka was the world’s most expensive ever player at £56 million for about three days! There is nothing to suggest that the record fee paid for Cristiano Ronaldo by Real Madrid will not be broken again before the summer is over.

Considerable

With Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Barcelona and allegedly still Real Madrid, all looking to get their considerable cheque books out in the coming weeks, who knows where this particular transfer window will take us.

The amount of money involved in these types of deals is difficult to comprehend. I simply can’t imagine that kind of cash. I wonder what it would look like.

The money involved was put into some sort of perspective by a Manchester United fan interviewed on television as he walked past Old Trafford. Unaware of the news that United had accepted the £80 million bid from Real Madrid for Cristiano Ronaldo, the reporter broke the news to the fan and asked him for his reaction. After giving the question a little thought the fan replied,

“That’s a good deal really. I suppose we could go and buy Newcastle United now!”

That comment says it all about transfer fees doesn’t it? Cristiano Ronaldo is valued at a little less than the entire Newcastle United football club.

Rarely

I rarely agree with the dynamic duo of FIFA’s Sepp Blatter and UEFA’s Michel Platini, but when they express their concern over transfers such as this, we all have to agree with them that it can’t be right. I wrote earlier this year about the plight of clubs like Bournemouth in the fourth tier of English football who looked like going out of business with debts of around £5 million. At that time Manchester City had offered Milan around £100 million for Kaka.

I fully understand that the top teams are the ones that television companies are prepared to pay all their money to in order to get the filming rights. I fully understand that the top teams are the ones who attract the biggest crowds and sell the most replica shirts and attract the big investors because they are a much more sensible investment than a little club.

I fully accept that there always will be and should be big clubs and small clubs and rich clubs and poor clubs. That is the way of the world. The problem now is that rich have become too rich and the poor have become too poor. If we want the game to continue in the same way that we have loved it for many years, the balance between the two has got to be redressed.

Fans

In England there are more fans that go to watch Championship, League One, League Two and Blue Square Premier football than attend games in the Premier League. I can’t remember the exact figures but I believe that the English Championship is the fourth most attended league in Europe behind the Premiership, La Liga and Serie A.

We are in a position now where the financial situation at many Championship clubs is in meltdown. The lower down the leagues you go, the worse it gets. The news of the problems for Setanta television who own the filming rights for the Blue Square Premier League is frightening for many clubs down there who may miss out on a guaranteed income of £70,000. A difference like that to clubs with their sort of budget could be terminal.

Dangerous

Fans of the big clubs may well think, “Who cares?” I think that is a dangerous attitude because millions of people do care and the big clubs are in danger of forcing the smaller clubs out of the professional game. If we were left with just the Premier League in England, or even worse, a European Super League of some sort, then the game would be lost to millions.

I don’t know how to put right what is going wrong but I hope somebody does before it’s too late.