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.