Money cannot buy everything: Manchester City’s Champions League defeat proves it again.

Financial doping – was a term coined by Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger against the money pumping efforts of football teams like Chelsea, Manchester City and Paris Saint German. He along with many managers and other football icons were disturbed with the effects of billionaire takeover of some mediocre clubs in the worlds highly rated leagues. When Europe is struggling with economic recession and inflation, the football clubs are forced to spend huge amount for buying players. One side, some teams are spending huge money without any concern about the income and expenditure balance and on the other side, clubs are bursting with financial meltdown and going under the control of administration. UEFA, the European football authority is trying to stop or control this mad spending spree by introducing ‘financial fair play’ concept.

Manchester City’s draw against Real Madrid in UEFA Champions League proves that the richest club cannot win everything with money power. For the second consecutive year, Manchester City failed to move up to the pre-quarter level of Champions League and this was after spending GBP 930.4 million after the takeover by Abu-Dhabi billionaire in 2008. Financial spending power of clubs like Manchester City, Chelsea etc., creates a ripple effect in the football transfer market and trouble the clubs who tries to keep their balance book properly. Spending on players made an inflationary tendency in the transfer market and forced the clubs to raise their spending power beyond their income. The traditionally dominating clubs in major leagues in Europe were challenged by the new comers and forced to change their mode of operations in the transfer market. Many of them including Real Madrid and Barcelona are dominating in their respective leagues but are struggling with huge debt.

The story of financial doping started with Chelsea in July 2003 by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich who spent GPB 140 to control the stakes. While reaching a decade mark, after spending more than GBP 1billion till date Chelsea recorded their first profit this year with a modest GBP 1.4 million. After the takeover, Abramovich regime focused on buying the best players in Europe and elsewhere at any cost and keeping them in the club by paying huge salary which was unmatchable to other teams. It took nearly a decade of time for Chelsea at the cost of 8 managers to win the Champions League trophy.

In 2008, when Manchester City was took over by Abu-Dhabi billionaire it became a fight between two billionaires. City emulated the same way of Chelsea in the road of success and spent millions of money for buying players from various places and keeping them with exorbitant salaries. With money power, they forced the players of traditionally dominating clubs to move out and join them to earn more. City’s strategy worked well in the Premier League and gave serious challenge to high spending Chelsea and traditionally performing clubs like Manchester United, Tottenham and Liverpool. Under Roberto Mancini, they won the Premier League for the first time last year and successfully defending it so far this year against high level challenge from Manchester United.

But, consecutively second year, they are getting out of Champions League before knock out round begins. Champions League is the lucrative area for any team to get back some part of their large spending in the summer. Knocking out from Champions League means they will either move down to UEFA cup or if they finish as the last team in the league, they will end up with nothing. How such teams will recoup the money they spend as transfer fee and wages? If UEFA’s financial fair play comes into effect, they will struggle to keep the account book properly.

In many cases, the players are the victims of such heavy spending spree by their own clubs. Wenger put it correctly by using –Financial Doping. They will offer good transfer fee to the selling clubs and offer better salary than any team in the league. But the movement the same club finds another big player better than him, the club will go for him and most probably dump the earlier player either on the bench or loan him out to a small club. Such players will face severe identity crisis and struggle to get out of the trap of existing financial status. Their exorbitant earnings from such clubs will prohibit themselves moving out to other clubs who cannot afford such salary. They have to make a compromise in their salary and lower down to the limit of the interested club. Loaning out is an option usually accepted by such players who moved out from the first team of Manchester City or Chelsea. Even the player who crosses 30 also faces problems in these clubs. The clubs will prefer young blood and will keep them in the bench or with reserve team. For the player, best option is to move out from the team itself and find a better team for themselves but their salary will become a stumbling block for such moves.

Manchester City and Chelsea can buy best players from anywhere by paying huge money and built a strong team of best players. Their market involvement creates inflationary tendency in the market and make things really difficult for other small teams. Still, the Champions League results show that there is enough place in football for other teams to get better out of these teams. The results of Ajax against City and Shakhtar Donetsk against Chelsea were decisive against those high spending teams. The defending champion Chelsea still have a narrow chance to move up and grab the second slot in pre-quarter but City lost their way completely and most probably end up in the fourth position in the group table which means they can concentrate on Premier league title without any other distractions. If Chelsea finishes third, they will play in UEFA cup which meaning they will lose huge amount of money comes from Champions League.

Thrilling Fight Back: Football is the Winner

Quiet long back, one Malayalam sports journalist wrote –if you watch a football match, you should watch it complete. Never try to leave in between because you might be losing the best fight back part. He was talking about one match between Paraguay and some other country in a world cup where Paraguay were trailing with two goal deficit and less than twenty minutes left. Most of his journalist colleagues made up their mind about the winner and result and decided to leave the press room and this was same with the crowd watching the match, nearly half of the supports of Paraguay He writes, in the last fifteen minutes with an introduction of three substitutes, the course of the game changed. I don’t remember the end result of the game but can recapture the end part of his writing. ‘After the final whistle, I looked around in the press room. It was almost empty but some senior journalists were there who enjoyed watching the game. One elderly journalist from them walked towards me and appreciated my patience and told me that the passion towards the game is the best quality of a sports journalist and watching till the end of the game proves it. Before leaving the room, he gifted me a pen’.

While reading through the news about the league cup in England, the match between Reading and Arsenal, I was remembering the words of Ramachandaran. In the first half, one team is trailing for 4-0 and they make a comeback in the second half with a galore of goals. I don’t want to get into the quality of the game whether such scoring game shows the weakness of both teams or because of their attacking quality in abundance. Leave those things to football pundits. I feel pity about the audience, especially Arsenal supports, who decided to leave the stadium after their team conceded 4 goals without any reply.

Couple of years back, I watched the Premier League match between Newcastle united and Arsenal which ended up in a 4-4 draw. It was an amazing comeback from deficit of 0-4 by Newcastle. This was nothing less than that one, only difference is in that game Arsenal fielded their first team players and this time they tried their luck with second string players along with some senior stars. Good part of the game was Reading showed the sportsman spirit by keeping the game open, including their defense. They never tried to shut down the game after scoring two goals and tried to attack more than ever. Unlike Chelsea in the champions league or Arsenal 15 years back, they played for scoring more goals and make the game attractive. They could have killed the game by defending the rest of the time by packing up all players in their own D, in Jose Morinho’s words ‘parking the team bus in front of goalpost. Thanks Reading.

Arsenal won the match which is supposed to be in their last priority. More than that, their two strikers who were completely neglected showed some kind of form after long time. Theo Walcott and Chamak played well after long time and helped their team to escape from big humiliation. 

Eastern European Football Success -Euro 2012 to World Cup 2018

The world has changed a lot since the beginning of European Nations Cup in 1960. Boundaries of countries has changed, some become many and in Germany the boundary between West and East disappeared. Interestingly, the country that won the first tournament is no longer existing. For the first time, two newly emerged countries since the break up of Soviet Union and Eastern Europe hosted this prestigious Tournament.  Poland and Ukraine has tradition of football but Eruo 2012 was a litmus test for them in hosting such a mega event. This was also a test dose for FIFA to learn how Russia will handle the World Cup in 2018. This was second time in UEFA's history the Euro moved towards East Europe. In 1976, erstwhile Yugoslavia hosted the tournament and the cup went to their neighbour Czechoslovakia.

English media was quiet biased towards the hosting countries. They raised concerns over issues like racism, hooliganism, law and order problems and economic and political abilities to handle such things by Poland and Ukraine. Many well established former players aired their unwanted opinion on racism and the young folks followed it. Some newspapers were more interested in following such news rather than news on football matches. 

If we go through the history of European Nation's cup and its winners and finalists, we can see the domination of Western Europe. In the previous 13 editions, we can see only two countries USSR and Czechoslovakia lifted the trophy in 1960 and 1976 and the remaining 11 champions were from Western Europe. Germany leads with three trophies and Spain and France managed two each. Unexpected winners were Greece in 2004 and Denmark in 1992 and major missing are England and Portugal.Who will win this time? 

Euro 2012 finals will have 16 teams and all major football countries of Europe is reached in the finals. Holding Champion and World Cup winner Spain had all their players of past victories. Holland the runners of the 2010 word cup joined with Germany, Portugal and Denmark which was called as death group. Interestingly, the first group were dominated by East European teams i.e. Poland, Russia, Czech Republic and Greece. The defending champion Spain grouped with Croatia, Republic of Ireland and Italy. England and France joined with Sweden and the co-host Ukraine.

The main difference between Euro and World Cup was the absence of Lionel Messi. In Euro, the Argentinean pocket dynamo could not participate. So, it was a question whether his counter part in Real Madrid will show his ability to fulfill the dreams of Portugal? Ronaldo did well but was not enough to become a champion. Holland was the first team to trash out from the tournament in the group stages itself. They lost out to all teams in their group. In fact, they were the pale shadow of their World Cup team.  

Spain kept some secrets intact until the final match. Their formation was different from the world cup winning team. The manager, Vicente del Bosque's decision to opt for a formation without a proved striker was a surprise for others. In the final match, Spain used their whole ammunition against Italy to underline their victory with huge margin of 4-0 against Italy.

Let the football roll over. The tournament was successful, entertaining and was with less controversies. The objections raised by the English media were all ended up as bogus. Isolated incidents were there and UEFA accepted it. But the question is, whether such things could happen in any western European countries and it happened earlier. UEFA president Michel Platini officially declared that this edition of Euro was a great success. So, there is not question of challenging the World Cup hosts for 2018 edition -Russia on the basis of the organisational capacity of East Europeans. In Russia, football is growing. State is supporting and huge investments are coming from rich Russian companies and individuals. 

2012 Presidential Election Victory of Hugo Chavez

Me and people in my age group had exposure to the developments in Latin America. Whether it was literature or Soccer that gathered our interest, maybe –that will be the answer. Beyond that, political developments attracted us our attention from time to time. Che Guerra, Castro and the Chilean coup were well-discussed topics in India. Many Latin American leaders visited India and addressed international events like the NAM summit etc. But, Hugo Chavez might be the first president to visit India and address a huge public gathering in a central university campus in the capital city, New Delhi. This was my first opportunity to publicly see and listen to a Latin American leader. A few years before that, then Brazilian president Henrique Cardoso visited India but he addressed only some selected gatherings in the government and institutional level.

Hugo Chavez, a person popularly highlighted by the international media for his maverick tendencies was like an enigma to us. Our generation was well impressed by his position against the United States imperial tendencies, and his effort for Bolivarian alternative against the neo-liberal approaches propagated by the United States and its supporters. In Indian media, he was projected as the champion of the leftist ideology –socialism and communism. The leftist students union of the university expected that he will talk about left legacies and importance of leftist unity. Interestingly, he delivered a wonderful speech which was focused on the importance and legacies of anti-colonial struggle of India and importance of nationalism. He quoted Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru and highlighted the importance of their worldview and compared them with Simon Bolivar –the Hero of the Latin American Independence movement.

That Chavez is elected for the fourth time and he will extend his regime for two decades if medical science allows him to do so. He started his first presidency during the time of democratic transitions of Latin America and consolidated it in the next decade. By electing for the fourth time, he is throwing challenges to the political science theorists who studied and analyzed the democratic transition of Latin America.

Chavez is a challenge to the liberal political and economic ideology which was promoted by western political thinkers and economists. Throughout the last fourteen years, he challenged the triumph of liberal capitalism and tried to create an alternative to the global system it controls. For the first time in the last one and a half decades, the unified opposition smelled a chance of victory by placing young Henrique Capriles as his opponent. As per the theories of democratization, the international media, observers, and international organizations, all were vigilant prior to the election and positioned with the current opposition. Health problems of President Chavez, the lack of equally popular second-level leaders, the dependence on oil production to run the entire economy and the decline of oil output, and above all, Chavez’s preferential treatment to Cuba by supporting them through selling crude oil much lower than the market rate. For a political scientist or an expert training in the theories of democratisation, all parameters for the regime change are fulfilled and the perfect time has come to introduce the change. The experience of changes in one-party-dominated political systems or other forms of authoritarian regimes suggested that Chavez will try to counter the opposition through some illegal methods. They expected that the desperate Chavez will definitely do some electoral malpractices to gain victory over Capriles.

On Thursday, 4 October while concluding the electoral campaign, both, Chavez and Capriles addressed the people in their own stronghold places –Caracas and Lara respectively. The opposition candidate who was enjoying overwhelming confidence pointed all his guns to Chavez and declared: "I want to tell you: your term ends. I thank you infinitely from my heart that you, during this campaign, allowed me to see clearly the route we must take — the route of love, not hate; the route toward light, not darkness; the route of love and commitment to the people, not of insult nor hate." On the other hand, President Chavez counted his fate on a factor which was completely missed out by the experts and western political scientists. During the winding-up campaign, countered the arguments of opposition with his deep trust in people. He declared:  "You all know that there were several times that I was about to die for being faithful to the Venezuelan people. And that is my path. I will not fail you. I will always be faithful to the Venezuelan people."

On 7^th October 2012, the Presidential election got over and President Chavez won the election with a margin of 54 per cent. In the post-election declaration, President Chavez reached out to the people from the presidential palace by saying:  "I send my words of recognition to all of those who voted against us. I send out a special recognition for your democratic talent, for your participation, for the civic demonstration that you have given today despite not agreeing with the Bolivarian proposition. I invite you to dialogue, to debate and to the joint work for a Bolivarian Venezuela." Capriles accepted the defeat but suggested to Chavez that he too won the support of nearly half of the Venezuelan population and the president should consider the voice of that half.

It is interesting that all arguments of the opposition were countered by his belief in common people. In a democratic election, the people are the biggest component rather than election observers and international civil society organisations. If people believe that the incumbent ruler is doing better for them or they are getting better benefits from his regime, then they definitely will come out to support him. He proved through this victory that his social and economic reforms are reaching to the common people more than earlier governments. 

Lost Decade to Failed Citizen

The terms 'lost decade' and 'failed state' were very much familiar when we studied political science in graduate and post graduate level. These terms generally used to explain the position of a nation state in its welfare and developmental activities, industrialisation and economic development. Because of some political reason, some countries miss a complete decade or even a quarter of a century in its developmental activities. Or one can say the state failed to bring its developmental activities for the people rather than doing for some vested interests. This happened in authoritarian countries in Africa, Latin America, eastern Europe and in many Asian Countries. Military dictatorships, religious state hierarchy and individual regimes caused more damage than a democratic system. When the international economy or political paradigm changes, many of these countries failed to cop up with the emerging one and end up in disastrous condition. 

Even if, it is in the worst condition, the countries have a chance to come back from its lost decade status. The international community will support them with money and expert advice. If the state shows the will to manage it, in many occasions, many countries took it as a chance to come out from its old paradigm and make remarkable achievement in future. It is crucial, they need support from others. Lost decade is a long time to catch up with, still if the country work hard enough to catch up with the flow of international system, they can produce miracles. 

Failed state is another term used to show the political condition of a state in its daily activities. If the political leadership is not good enough to lead the country in a proper way, the common people of the country will struggle and the entire system will end up in protest and chaos. This won't continue for long. Either the opposition won't allow   them to continue in such situation for long or in the absence of an opposition, some formation will take place to create an alternative to the regime and later to correct the system. 

What about a failed citizen and a filed individual? Failed citizen is a person who failed to do the responsibilities for his country. When society is large in size and majority were doing well, the the failed citizen won't appear as a big question. Nobody will be bothered about the cause of his or her failure or no body will challenge the person for failing in his duties.But in a small society where everything is counted in black and white, the system will pull up the person and ask or he has to face the questions on his failure from different quarters. Failed citizen is not a failed individual. He failed only when it matters to do with the country or society. He might be good to his friends, subordinates, family etc. but won't be active or completely inactive when it regards the country or community. This also can be tackled with help of the people around him. 

The failed individual is a person who failed in all aspects of life just because of his inability to cope with the demands. He might be highly qualified in terms of education and with a better background just because of the support he is getting from his family of friends but he fails when it comes to working as an individual. On most occasions, the person won't have any personality, character, dignity or self-esteem. They will end up as parasites of their immediate relations and try to end their lives like that. There is no remedy for such people. Even medical science fails to motivate such characters. So, they don't require any kind of sympathy from the larger society. The only way for them is to perish as soon as possible otherwise, they are a big burden for their family as well as to their societies. How to perish is a question they should ask themselves. First of all, they should realise their position and should be able to decide for themselves how to go about it.