Soccer is a huge sport in Europe and continues to grow in popularity throughout North America. With all the lockout talks in the NBA and NHL, people tend to forget or just don’t know about the poor state of soccer in Europe.
All over Europe very rich owners acquire soccer clubs. Nothing wrong with that, you might you say? The problem is that we are talking about a small number of owners and a select group of elite clubs. The consequence: a small number of clubs are dominating the different leagues all over Europe, basically killing the competition.
As a sports aficionado it really bothers me. I won’t say that I don’t have a favourite team in soccer or that I don’t want any big teams with lots of money, that would be a lie. Nevertheless, I like real and fair competition — as fair as it can be nowadays.
Let me give you an example: in France, Paris Saint Germain (PSG), the biggest soccer club in the French capital city, just bought five players this summer for approx. 150 million euros. It represents 70 per cent of the money used by French soccer clubs in transfer transactions! It is crazy and no other club in the entire French league can compete with that kind of firepower.
The same phenomenon is happening in Russia, Spain, and England. Capitalism, anyone?
I’m not naive or leaving in a dream world. Money makes the world go round, and I doubt we will ever be able to change that. I want to enjoy great games against fairly equal teams, real competition, suspense, and excitement. There is little enjoyment that can be derived from watching the undisputed best team play a boring game against a team with only a marginal amount of resources, in comparison.
This is the state of soccer in Europe and it is scary.
The NFL system, with their draft, redistribution of 60 per cent of all league and team profits evenly shared between all the teams, and a salary cap, seems to be the right system for a healthy, balanced league. Any team can win the Super Bowl and that’s the beauty of the NFL.
Super teams are always attractive—see the Miami Heat or the Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA—but even for them there is a salary cap to follow. Meanwhile, FC Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain; PSG in France; and Manchester City and Chelsea in England are so ahead of their opposition financially that everybody knows that they will finish on top of their leagues, season after season. It can be boring and it certainly doesn’t encourage the fighting spirit and the greatness of real competition.
Luckily, magic can happen and teams can defy the implacable fate of the rich clubs winning. It’s rare, but it raises our love of the game and prevents us from turning off the TV. How long will we as fans wait for those miracles to happen? That’s the question.
Soccer is as big in Europe as hockey is in Canada, and the big clubs know that they have a reliable fan base. That’s probably a curse but I’ll keep waiting for magical moments — even thought I already know who is probably going to win it all.
