Football is being dominated by greed. The recent European Super League proposal is proof. There has always been money in the beautiful game, but now there is a lot more of it and it isn’t shared equally. This is creating an imbalance that is destroying the unpredictability of the sport that the world dearly loves.
The blatant greed shown by the six English Premier League clubs who wanted to breakaway and form the ESL with several other self-proclaimed ‘big clubs’ across Europe was nauseating. The EPL condemned the six which was rather ironic as it too was born out of a desire to maximise income for a select few when it was formed in 1992. When it risked losing its main players, it wasn’t happy at all because it meant it would inevitably lose money.
Why? Because there would be less interest from football fans around the globe in the EPL without the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool and Chelsea. Less interest from fans would have meant income would be hit. How do you promote a league without its ‘best’ teams in it? Who would want to pay to watch that? That was the conundrum the EPL faced but the six clubs have backed down — for now.
FC Barcelona could not afford Messi's wages
However, Barcelona and Juventus over in Spain and Italy still want the ESL to go ahead. In fact, they need it because these two giants are billions in debt due to the astronomical wages they pay their players and the billions the new league would generate from all its commercial activities would have bailed them out.
In fact, Barcelona lost their best player Messi because they could not afford his wages. Before the formation of the EPL almost 30 years ago, there was more financial equality across all four of England’s football divisions and literally any of the teams could win the title as they were pretty evenly matched.
In the last decade of the old Football League, 13 clubs finished inside the top four spots. And now in the last decade of the EPL, that number has shrunk to just 7. We are seeing a concentration of success to just a handful of clubs.
The competition has turned into a predictable tussle between Man City, Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea. It has almost become a closed shop and this accumulation of wealth is destroying the game.
It is very unlikely that we will see another one-off title success as witnessed during the 2015/16 season when little Leicester City stunned the football world to be crowned champions.
In fact with the rich clubs getting richer, you can bank on that never happening again. Indeed, the beautiful game is now showing its ugly side.
