FIFA are being investigated for corruption and criminal
mismanagement by the FBI. There is a possibility FIFA President Sepp Blatter
could be implicated in this investigation and face punishments. If Sepp Blatter
loses his job please do not campaign for UEFA President, Michel Platini, as the
new FIFA president. Platini created an elitist oligarchy in the Champions
League with Financial Fair Play (FFP), or what I like to call ‘Financial Unfair
Play’. I will give another choice for FIFA President and a poll at the end of
this article.
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| Can Messi do it on a hot summers day in Qatar? |
José Mourinho recently spoke about FFP, "I think Financial
Fair Play is a contradiction because, when football decided to go for Financial
Fair Play it was exactly to put teams in equal conditions to compete. But what
happened really with the Financial Fair Play is a big protection to the
historical, old, big clubs, which have a financial structure, a commercial
structure, everything in place based on historical success for years and years
and years.
“And the 'new' clubs - I call them 'new' clubs, those with new
investment - they cannot put themselves quickly at the same level. Clubs with
new owners cannot immediately attack the control and the domination of these
big clubs."
FFP was a good idea but it supports and helps the most powerful
clubs like Manchester United, Barcelona, Juventus, Real Madrid and Bayern
Munich get richer. These are historical teams that often win their domestic
leagues and dominate in the Champions League. This has given them a large global
fan base who spend money on their goods and profitable TV deals that allow them
to spend huge transfer fees on big name players. Real Madrid are the world's
wealthiest club by income, and Barcelona, the fourth richest, together take
about half the annual La Liga TV money of 650 million euros (£482million).
FFP should be trying to make predictable leagues like La Liga a
more competitive league, rather than punishing PSG and Manchester City for spending
more money than they make. Out of 23 La Liga seasons since the Champions League
replaced the European Cup in 1992-93 Barcelona have won 11 league titles and
Real Madrid 7. Atlético Madrid and Valencia both only won 2 leagues in this
time.
With the ridiculously unfair amount of TV money Barcelona and
Real Madrid get in relation to their Spanish rivals they can afford to buy the any
player they want and create excellent teams/academies to help them win trophies.
Most clubs around the World cannot match Barca or Real Madrid’s power or money.
Real Madrid spent €100M on Gareth Bale in 2013, a ridiculous sum considering
his disappointing 2014-15. They also spent €79.5M on James Rodriguez, which
seems excessive for a good player but not as hard working or talented as
Ronaldo, Neymar or Messi.
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| Gareth Bale & Cristiano Ronaldo hug |
Barcelona bought Neymar for €57.1M and Luis Suarez for €94M. Few
other clubs can compete with Barcelona or Real Madrid in transfer fees or wages
because most clubs lack the funds. Even if they had the money they would risk
punishments if their money comes from a rich owner, rather than their own
club’s profits. Barcelona have bought players they did not develop like Ivan
Rakitić, Neymar and Suarez. They were already established stars before they
arrived at Camp Nou. Yet still the myth lives on that Barcelona are a club who
only develop academy players.
The 2 horse race in La Liga will not change until ambitious,
successful and well supported clubs Sevilla, Atlético Madrid, Valencia,
Athletic Bilbao, Real Sociedad and Espanyol campaign/strike to earn more TV
revenue to close the gap between them and Barcelona and Real Madrid.
The monopoly of one or two Champions in the other major leagues
is equally worrying for people who like entertaining competitions, and who like
the underdog to win. Since the Premier League began in 1992-93, Manchester
United have won 13 of 23 league trophies. Their major rivals have won far
fewer, 2nd place is Chelsea with 4, Arsenal with 3 and Manchester
City with 2. Manchester United have spent heavily in the
past few years, breaking the British transfer record with €75M for Angel Di
Maria and spending large amounts with £37.1M for Juan Mata, £30M for Luke Shaw,
£24M for Robin van Persie and £27.5M for Marouane Fellaini.
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| Radamel Falcao scores for Manchester United |
There seem to be two different rules for Manchester United and
Chelsea. Chelsea have had to sell their players for transfer fees before they
can buy new players due to FFP. Chelsea sold promising, talented players like
André Schürrle (a World Cup winner with Germany in 2014, who Chelsea have
missed in their attack in the 2nd half of the season) for €29.1M,
Romelu Lukaku for €35M and David Luiz for €62.6M. They suffered the handicap of
losing Juan Mata to a direct rival, Manchester United. These players were loses
to Chelsea, shown by their successes at their present clubs. David Luiz came
back to hurt Chelsea with PSG, his goal and top performance knocked Chelsea out
of the Champions League this season. FFP has meant Chelsea needed the money from
their sales to buy Cesc Fàbregas €39.8M and Diego Costa for €40.1M, for their
experience of winning trophies.
Chelsea are still a ‘smaller horse’ in terms of success than
teams like Manchester United who have 62 trophies, Liverpool 60 and Arsenal 42.
Chelsea are on 28 and it is unlikely they will ever catch these teams’ records.
Despite this Chelsea are determined to create history. You cannot easily get
the best coach in the world, strong motivation, ambition, belief and team
unity. Chelsea fans are hoping that some of the young English talent from their
academy, which won the 2014-15 UEFA Youth League, can get into the 1st
team and help Chelsea/England compete with the elite and win trophies.
Serie A is slightly more competitive. Since 1992-93 Juventus
have won 9 Championships, AC Milan 6 and Inter Milan 5. Unfortunately the other
teams win much less frequently, with Roma and Lazio both winning only one league
in this time. Juventus have won the last 5 Serie A titles so the future is
looking very bleak for their rivals. Former giants like AC Milan, Inter, Napoli
and Roma have had too much chaos in the management, with the constant sacking
of managers. They need big improvements in their motivation and team spirit otherwise,
Juventus’ domination will continue.
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| Massimiliano Allegri guided Juventus to the 2015 Champions League Final |
Bundesliga’s competiveness is ‘nicht gut’, since 1992-93 Bayern
Munich have won 13 of the 23 Bundesliga seasons. Dortmund have won 5 and the 3rd
best is 2 from Werder Bremen. Bayern lacked a strong rival in 2014-15 after
Dortmund’s fall from the Champions League places, so in Germany it is hoped
that Wolfsburg will become a genuine rival after winning the 2015 German Cup
and finishing 2nd in 2014-15 Bundesliga. Also Dortmund can find
their old form under new coach Thomas Tuchel. He showed he is very talented at
FSV Mainz, who lack the resources of most other Bundesliga clubs. He took them
to Europe despite them only gaining promotion to the Bundesliga for the 1st
time in 2004-05.
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| Thomas Tuchel at Mainz |
Clubs who have had recent success are crippled by FFP, as they
are not allowed to strengthen their position, so instead lose their players to
their richer rivals in their own leagues. A good example of this is Dortmund
who lost their star players Mario Götze and Robert Lewandowski to a direct
rival, Bayern Munich.
There have been some memorable stories in Champions League. Marseille,
Dortmund, Porto and Chelsea (vs Bayern Munich in their own stadium &
Chelsea finishing 6th that season) were massively unexpected winners
in 1993, 1997, 2003 and 2012 respectively. These were exciting Finals and apart
from Porto they were 1st time winners. Let's make football more enjoyable
by getting rid of the corrupt men of FIFA and UEFA. People like Blatter and
Platini have been in power for years and changed little. Look how long it took
goal-line technology to accepted, when it was used by tennis and other sports
years before. They have let these competitions become predictable. Every season
media and fans make Real Madrid or Barcelona the favourites to win the
Champions League because of their power and wealth.
We need a person who has achieved in football and can change
FIFA/UEFA to make it more open minded and modern (referees can view video to
punish terrible challenges that went unpunished). Luís Figo would be a great
choice for bringing back some youth (he is 42), excitement and passion missing
in football’s unprogressively traditionalistic leadership. He knows the game
better than most because of his success in winning the 2000 Ballon d'Or and 23 trophies
for Sporting, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Inter Milan. He has lived and worked in
Portugal, Italy and Spain so understands the different football cultures.
He
would be a useful communicator to UEFA countries as he is fluent in five
languages, Portuguese, Spanish, English, Italian and French. His leadership skills could be seen when he captained
Portugal to their best World Cup performance since the Eusébio era in 1966 to
the semi-finals of the 2006 World Cup. He is anti-Blatter, saying he has “no
integrity or honesty”. He claims to have seen incidents that "should shame
anyone who desires soccer to be free, clean and democratic". This should
make him the perfect choice for cleaning up football’s image.
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| Luís Figo with the Champions League |
Should Sepp Blatter stay in charge of FIFA?
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