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Those of us old enough to remember the arms race and the cold war years can’t help but feel the same thing is going on now in football.
That period saw the world divided into the East v West blocs and the United States and the then Soviet Union were racing to see who acquired more nuclear weapons, more countries into their blocs and who could generally make the world unsafe for the rest.
That is going on right now in football, with Barcelona and Real Madrid at it. Barcelona, under the guidance of Pep Guardiola, were able to bring to the boil the talents of Lionel Messi and so won everything they desired. Real Madrid decided to match that by paying Manchester United £80m cash to prise Cristiano Ronaldo from England.
Just before the end of the season, two seasons ago, Barcelona upped the ante again by signing the Brazilian Neymar. Real went back to England and paid Tottenham Hotspurs £75m, or whatever amount they chose to announce, for the talents of Gareth Bale.
Again, after the latest World Cup, Barcelona signed the shamed Luis Suarez from Liverpool. Real Madrid ‘saw’ their Suarez with the capture of German World Cup winner Toni Kroos from Bayern Munich, then ‘raised it’ with the £65m signing of the Colombian, James Rodriguez.
This ‘arms race’ by these two football clubs distorts the face of football for me. The Spanish League is already distorted because of the way TV money is shared – Real and Barcelona share 50 per cent of the TV revenue, while the rest of the league members share the remaining 50 per cent. Football needs to do something to keep the sport competitive as that is what makes team sports the spectacle that it can be.
Every season in La Liga there are really only two matches that the world wants to watch and from which they expect a proper contest – the two ‘el classicos’. True, Atletico Madrid won the title last season – a triumph of the TEAM over the individual – but they are already losing players because they do not have money to compete. So, next season we will be back to the duopoly again.
What I find incredibly baffling is the silence of Michel Platini and the Uefa Executive Committee. What happened to the much trumpeted FFP that was supposed to make teams spend only what they earn and to give the balance to home-grown players? How are Real able to make these signings? They have no oil sheikhs like Man City and PSG have; they were rumoured to have been close to bankruptcy not too long ago before the Madrid Council bailed them out. Spain as a country are deep in economic recession, so this makes no financial sense. Hopefully some smart person in football finance will help set me straight.
When few teams dominate or have the cream-of-the-crop players in their club, competition is totally lost in the sport or greatly reduced at best. This is a reason for me why many players, who have formed bloated reputations in European competitions, arrive at their national teams – at Brazil 2014 - and have their limitations badly exposed.
I have been watching some really gifted players playing for Real Madrid in their current pre-season tournament in the US and I just see that these players have little or no chance of playing for the first team.
Two European summers ago I wrote that football is eating itself and that an implosion is imminent. Nothing seems to have changed. A lot of financial accounting wizardry is being used to explain a lot of things while the presence of oil-rich benefactors seems to have diluted the market and covered up the cracks.
The cracks are still there. What it will take is for the rich benefactors to pull the plug on two of the clubs at the same time and we will have a Wall Street crash type of thing in football.
The competition is going out of European Football. Uefa need to act.
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