Article by Varughese Rajan

After the acquisition by Abu Dhabi United Group, Manchester City joins the latest to enter the club of rich owners (let’s call them the Million Dollar Clubs). The group not only includes the clubs which started or looking to achieve greatness after their high profile takeover (Manchester city, Chelsea etc) but also the ones which have been more successful in terms of championship (Madrid, Barcelona, Milan, ManU etc). The supporters of these historical clubs are bound to oppose these takeovers questioning their morality. But more than the moral side; the actions of these big historical clubs are the one which makes these acquisition legitimate. They/their fans never had any problems in going in for any players in any part of the world but suddenly their moral sense rises when one of the newly rich clubs takes the same path. It is same as United States and United Kingdom asking Russia to respect Sovereign Borders of respective countries.

The yearly transfer saga hit a low point this summer with accusation after accusation being laid on each other. Manchester United complained officially to FIFA about the way Real Madrid approached Ronaldo. Manchester United may be right to approach FIFA; but then if we look into the broader perspective what moral right does Manchester United have to complain about Real Madrid when taking into consideration the Rooney and Berbatov saga. For this matter no club including Barcelona is different. Every club cries foul when they are the victims but never hesitates to use the same approach to get players out of other clubs. Real Madrid has been the one who made the entire situation worse. I am not referring to the way they bought out the Galacticos or the way they went after Christiano Ronaldo. They introduced the new method which is widely used in the transfer market at present. Let’s call it the” Proxy Transfer Market War”. This includes public statement of appreciation and admiration about a particular player (who is well settled in some other club) by members close to the club. This unsettles the poor player as he is also human and gets tempted away by the greatest riches in offer. The Adebayor saga is the prime example where our club Barcelona was also involved. Adebayor cannot be faulted for being tempted; but what it did to him is disastrous. Now he stands in a position where he has to desperately win back the fan’s confidence. Gone are those days when the entire transfer dealing were kept secret and was broken out only when the deal is almost fixed. But now most of the clubs effectively use the media to unsettle rival clubs and players. Just half of these media driven transfer takes place leaving a very disgruntled player and club working together.

There is no point in questioning the morality of these actions as we all justify the actions of our favourite clubs. Who cares whether it’s bad or good for football? But isn’t it time for everyone to take notice of these facts? The difference in terms of wealth and hence quality between the bigger clubs and smaller clubs have been at its peak now. Now the leagues resembles something like the F1 race where the teams like Jaguar etc are there to make the numbers. One way we can very well welcome the acquisition of Manchester City as from next season onwards as it will break the club of big four in England and restructure it to be the club of big five. Manchester City has already showed their intentions by buying Robinho and already started their process of unsettling Ronaldo, Kaka, Buffon, Henry etc. In that sense Manchester City may become a savior for Barcelona if they continue their pursuit of Henry.But is it good for football, I don’t know for sure. But I do believe that these entire obsessions with stars are taking a toll in the youth systems of these clubs. Most of these clubs are discarding the youth academies, many smaller clubs who is having excellent youth academies may also follow the suit as they see more of their talents getting stolen away. The only solution may be the youth academies getting a part of these talented youngsters enumeration for some year’s at least early on. But in all these mess Sepp Blatter and his proposed idea of limiting the number of foreign players may come as a savior. I have earlier written about my views on Sepp Blatter Proposals. I still believe if we can force the clubs to have a limited number of home grown talents in each playing eleven this could do wonders. This may resurrect the sleeping youth systems and will cut down the maddening rush after stars and we may see players staying in the club for more time and more over this should cut down expense which means lesser priced tickets for fans. Now how’s that for a dream?

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The author writes about F C Barcelona at All About F C Barcelona. The original article could be found at Million Dollar Clubs

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