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In Another World.
By Toyin | July 25, 2009
The monetary values of this year transfers of major players have been unbelievable. What on earth could make a football club pay a massive 80million pounds for a single player?
The business side to top European sides has been glaring all the while but when Real Madrid under past and present president Florentino Perez began his ‘galacticos’ experiment, it was taken a notch higher with acquisitions of crowd pullers like Luis Figo, Zinadine Zidane, Luis Nazario de Lima (Ronaldo) and of course, the marketing enigma, David Beckham.
When Beckham joined the club in the summer of 2003, the Club immediately began a highly successful tour of Asia where David is held in awe and some have elevated him to the status of a god. From media sources, Real Madrid recouped their investment on Beckham within two months largely by the sale of jerseys and increased demand for tickets. Amazing!
Despite the fact that it took Beckham a whole four years to win anything with Real (a situation that engulfed Perez), his stay at the club has been described as highly successful particularly in terms of the economic gains to the club. Any wonder that when he moved to LA Galaxy in the MLS, it was as a result of his pull and the sum involved over the five years contract he signed was something else- He stands to earn 250 million US dollars over the period!
Since February last year, the whole world has been under the grip of a vicious recession that’s yet to abate even until now. Yet, we have been witnessing mindboggling transfers particularly in England and Spain. Kaka and Christiano Ronald both have commanded a value of 130 million US dollars. This coming from a single club makes it even more interesting.
In England, Manchester City (are they the new Chelsea?) has been very active. They brought in Robinho at the last hour during the January window and since then added Gareth Barry, Carlos Tervez and Emmanuel Adebayor. These players cost close to 100 million pounds. And from all indications, the Sheiks are not through yet!
What’s even more interesting is the kind of wages being bandied around to be earned by these players particularly those that moved to the blue side of Manchester. Adebayor, for instance, is rumoured be on 150 thousand pounds per week. We can imagine that Robinho and Tervez would be earning similar pays if not more.
This is happening when the whole world is groaning under the weight of a recession that’s been declared one of the worst ever. Wages and other earnings by the players in top European clubs run in hundreds of millions of Euros per year. As it is now, most clubs in that clime if not all are in debt; serious debt!
The UK government has increased the tax on virtually everything in order to generate enough funds to combat the recession. Of particular interest to them is the English Premiership. The other day, Andrey Arshavin, Arsenal’s new recruit was lamenting the heavy burden of the new tax regime in the country.
Despite this, we are eagerly awaiting the kickoff of the new season and it promises to be a very exciting one bearing in mind the level of activities we have seen so far.
Can this trend continue into the future? I don’t think so! When reality is not derived from actual, the burden of consuming the future today becomes stark.
Football, our beloved game should reflect the status and the experience in the world. Our clubs and players must also know that greed and indiscipline could put our sport in jeopardy. They must however be ready to put back into the society a portion of what they earn. A little help here and there won’t hurt at all!
Topics: Biz Football, Success Pills, Who Will Win |
July 26th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
As they say: The bubble will soon burst. The world economy cannot be isolated from football and before long the reality will catch up with the game!