Is Football now about the Money?
By Ayman, Sports Staff Writer
These days talent is not the main reason teams dominate leagues unlike the previous football eras where it was mainly about the talented players on each team and how the team works together. Instead, football is mainly about having the money to afford a world class player and the owner being rich so the club, with a rich owner, are more likely to have more money invested giving the club a higher budget to sign top class players and masterclass managers.
Firstly, the main problem with football is if you want to buy a player the value of players in general keeps on increasing as many clubs like PSG, Real Madrid and Barcelona have very rich owners so they can keep on increasing the price of the players they buy, putting sellers of world class players in a position where they will increase the average price of them so they can make more money putting clubs with not much money in a position where signing a high-profile player is impossible. Football should be about which team has the best skills, chemistry and collaboration, rather than the team with the most money to get top quality players.
Proof that the prices of players is increasing is the transfer history of Chelsea legend Didier Drogba. When he first joined the London club he cost them £24 million which at that time (2004) was a club record and the striker scored a whopping 157 goals, which now is a rare phenomenon compared to the signing of Chelsea striker Fernando Torres who was signed 7 years later, scored only 46 goals. Compared to Drogba, Torres’ tally looks measly but because of the increasing average price of players Torres was over double the price of Drogba (Torres cost £50 million) but scored less than a third of what Drogba did.