Breaking The Offside Trap 09.02.08: Money, Money, Money

Posted by Matt Snelling on 09.02.2008

The Champions League captivates millions world wide, bringing together the biggest names in world football. The astronomical financial rewards it offers however is meaning an end to competitiveness, unpredictability and excitement at football’s highest level...


The Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo

Set in and amongst the tall masts of the extravagant yachts and the car parks full of the world's most expensive automobiles, sits the Grimaldi Forum in Monte Carlo. It is here that the annual draw for the Champions League, Europe's premier club competition is made. On this day the ‘movers and shakers' from Europe's top clubs converge on the Principality of Monaco to find out their potential paths to glory in a competition awash with bundles and bundles of cash. On this day, the town very much lives up to its moniker as the ‘Millionaire's Playground'.

A glamorous setting then for a glamorous occasion, certainly one for a glamorous competition. Arguably the Champions League is seen as the pinnacle of football competition in the 21st Century – everything that is great and good about the game. It has the glitz and the glamour, the big names and the bright lights. Typically along the way it takes in the cities of London, Paris, Madrid, Milan and Rome. It's the place where you can see Manchester United vs. Barcelona, Chelsea against Milan, Cristiano Ronaldo facing Lionel Messi. It's also the place where you get money. A lot of money. Money is what makes the Champions League go round, just like the roulette wheels to be found in the famous casinos of Monte Carlo.

Represented at the draw were many familiar faces, teams with a healthy pedigree and considerable reputations in the competitions history. Former champions Manchester United, Real Madrid, Inter Milan, Juventus, Liverpool, Bayern Munich and Barcelona all line up for another tilt at glory. However on a closer inspection of the draw a couple of names stand out, names that are different to what we have seen before, names that people may not know a whole lot about. And that, on the face of it, appears a wonderful thing.

The appearance in the group stages this year of four debutants is heartening for those of us who would wish that football slowed down its apparent desire to be dominated by an elite handful. CFR Cluj, Aalborg, Anorthosis Famagusta, Bate Borisov. These four teams are the respective champions of Romania, Denmark, Cyprus and Belarus and are far from house hold names. It may be highly unlikely that any will get out of the groups they have been placed in, and I imagine that along the way we may see a couple of heavy beatings handed out but it is their appearance in the first place that is the cause for some celebration in a competition that does much to reinforce inequality and protect the status quo. Well, some would see it that way. As we will discuss later on, it may not necessarily be such a happy occurrence.

Last season, three out of the four semi finalists represented England and the Premier League. It was lauded as a huge achievement for English football and held up forcibly to show the strength and vitality of the Premiership, but, given the clubs respective spending powers it was hardly surprising. Indeed as German journalist Raphael Honigstein argued last year, for the rest of Europe, there was only surprise at the fact that it has taken English teams this long to reach such a stage of dominance. For the Champions League basically sees an extension of the situation that we now have in the Premiership, namely a monopolisation at the top.

Once again in this seasons group stages, the Premier League will be represented in full force, with all four of its permitted entrants making it in. I guess you can't name them though? Once again England will be represented by Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. In fact this has been the case for four seasons in a row now. The last time a side from England, outside the so-called ‘top 4' took part in the group stages, was Newcastle United back in 2003.


Look Familiar? Liverpool and Chelsea competing in last year's semi-final

The problem is then a reinforcing of inequality. In the Premier League the clubs who finish in the top four places receive the most money. This in turn qualifies them for the Champion League, through which their involvement garners them more money. This money is then spent on ensuring they qualify for Europe's elite competition again and thus continuously gaining access to the wealth on offer. No other team can break into the top four because they don't have the money to compete with those regularly qualifying as they are constantly getting more money. Short of finding a multi-billionaire or a team having the season of a lifetime the positions at the top are virtually impregnable, and the rich get even richer.

Similarly when you look at those sides who can realistically win the Champions League, the list is small. The largest sides, with the biggest resources have always been hard to beat in the competition. Back in 1995 Ajax were able to win the competition by producing a fantastic home grown side, cultivated from within, but then that side was ripped apart by all those clubs around the continent splashing the cash. In the old days of the European Cup, sides like Bayern Munich, Real Madrid and Liverpool won the competition a lot but we also had winners like PSV Eindhoven, Nottingham Forest, Hamburg, Red Star Belgrade and Celtic. Since the tournament became the ultra lucrative Champions League 16 years ago and the prize money on offer went through the roof, 11 of the winners have come from Italy, Spain or England – unsurprisingly the three richest leagues. After that Germany has had two winners (also one of the richest) while Portugal, France and Holland have one win apiece.

The teams that get the farthest in the competition are also the ones that get the most money. Clearly, rewards and incentives like everything in life go to those who succeed and win, but with the richest clubs then getting more of the huge sums of money it becomes near on impossible for all the rest to compete. We then have this situation where the same sides meet over and over again, variety is strangled and competitiveness on a large scale goes out the window. The Champions League rightly excites those all around the world by providing ‘dream contests' between the powerful clubs of Europe that captures the imagination. A lot of the appeal is that we see these rare encounters that sides don't get back at home and fans get to see their players against new, different and exciting foes. However, with a situation where the same teams will be qualifying over and over again and where the same teams will be reaching the latter stages just how ‘special' will these matches continue to be? Variety, as they say, is the spice of life.

So that's why it would appear to be a good thing that some new and fresh names, from some of Europe's more unheralded corners are getting their chance to shine on the biggest stage. These clubs will also be getting access to some of the vast riches on offer, which in theory will help them to build their squads and infrastructures and maybe help them become more competitive with the bigger names that we currently have in the future. I guess this is a pretty optimistic line to follow though, as astronomical sums would be needed to help a number of those smaller teams in Europe compete with those at the top, just like how many countless millions it would take for Wigan for example to break into the top 4 in the Premiership.

So maybe the sums on offer from the top table of Europe will not necessarily change the situation in who challenges for the Champions League but it certainly can have an effect on the domestic leagues of these smaller nations and that is not necessarily to their benefit. Looking at France and Portugal and in the past Norway, as well as others you can get the clearest examples of how the riches from the Champions League can distort the domestic football of a nation and create situations which make the Premier League seem like a haven of competitiveness and unpredictability.

The French league, whilst not always being able to be called the best league in Europe (due in part to the substantial drain on the top talent moving away) used to be one of, if not the most competitive. Crazy and unpredictable, a wide range of clubs could harbour realistic ambitions of winning the league – title winning sides could be built with hard work, coaching ability and from local resources. Just look at the list of French League Champions from 1991 to 2002:

1991/92 - Olympique de Marseille
1992/93 - No champion (Olympique de Marseille stripped of title)
1993/94 - Paris Saint-Germain FC
1994/95 - FC Nantes
1995/96 - AJ Auxerre
1996/97 - AS Monaco FC
1997/98 - RC Lens
1998/99 - Girondins de Bordeaux
1999/00 - AS Monaco FC
2000/01 - FC Nantes
2001/02 - Olympique Lyonnais

For someone from England, or indeed Italy or Spain that list seems incredible. Maybe it was a sign of lower standards and maybe French sides were not troubling Europe's top competitions but can anyone really deny that a competition where for ten years no-one retained a title and there were eight different champions is a bad thing? What the above doesn't show you however is that since Lyon captured their first league title in 2002 they have now won seven in a row. The ultra competitiveness of the French top flight has given way to a severe case of monopolisation. If this was the business world there would be laws against it.


Lyon celebrate a 7th League Title in a row

Lyon's success has come on the back of the club being run incredibly professionally and by some sound and savvy decision making at the top as well as impressive coaching and player recruitment policies. Jean-Michel Aulas took control of the then second division club in 1987 and invested with the objective of turning Lyon into an established Ligue 1 side as well as developing the club on a European level, within a time-frame of fifteen years. Whereas a number of France's other leading sides (notably PSG and Marseille) have been run disastrously in the recent past, Lyon have been the very model of professionalism and consistency and the league titles, cup's and Champions League runs have been their deserved rewards.

As we have already discussed however, Lyon's machine like dominance of their domestic environment has meant more and more Champions League money has come their way and reinforced their position at the top. It has been so hard for any side to challenge their hegemony as now the club is constantly able to go out and snap up the best talents in the league. Nothing of course lasts forever but it is hard to see a situation where they are going to be challenged in the near future, with only Marseille seemingly having anywhere near the resources to really compete.

In the past in Norway we saw Rosenborg; consistent qualifiers for the Champions League win the title a staggering thirteen years in a row. The income provided through successive qualifications allowed Rosenborg to become by far the wealthiest club in Norway, always able to offer the most promising new players better terms than their opponents, as well as the prospect of playing in Europe. Rosenborg then were assured of future league championships and European qualifications and during this period, few clubs were ever able to mount a serious challenge for more than a season at a time. The access to the extreme amounts on offer can distort the competition for the many by its astronomical rewards to the few.

The counter argument would be however that the money is the benefit of achieving success - that these are the incentives for excelling in the sport and that football, just like life, rewards the winners. Furthermore, football has traditionally always been dominated by a rather small number of teams, and that monopolisation at the top has been around way before the advent of the lucrative Champions League. In England, between 1972 and the beginning of the Premier League Liverpool won eleven of the eighteen titles contested. Before the onset of the Champions League the majority of La Liga titles have been won by either Real Madrid or Barcelona, and similarly Juventus and the two Milan sides have always dominated in Italy but other clubs have in the past been able to compete and that is increasingly becoming a thing of history.

Indeed whilst the league winners medals themselves may have in the majority gone to a select band, so many other sides were able to challenge and indeed finish in the top three or four places of their respective domestic leagues. In the past sides like Ipswich, Nottingham Forest, Parma, Eintracht Frankfurt and Napoli were able to not just have successful runs in Europe but to win competitions. It's true that the same sides always seemed to squeeze home in the end but things were still unpredictable, leagues competitive all the way through. The issue in England is perhaps the most acute given that it is the same four clubs over and over. The argument Raphael Honigstein was making is that because it is the same four teams with the constant access to the cash that they themselves become untouchable. In other major leagues, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Lyon, Bayern Munich, PSV, Porto, Inter Milan and the like are all regular qualifiers but in these countries other sides are able to break in and get a chance in the competition.



Along with the Milan sides (incidentally AC not qualifying this time around) and Juventus; Roma, Lazio, Udinese, Fiorentina and Parma have all taken part in the group stages. Outside of Real and Barca; Villarreal, Sevilla, Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Real Sociedad, Athletic Bilbao, Real Betis, Celta Vigo, Deportivo La Coruna have all represented Spain. Different teams qualifying means those other teams can compete at the top, and even if they are not always successful you have the means for a more competitive, interesting and entertaining league. The Premiership is often lauded as being the ‘most exciting' not to mention ‘best' league in the world. Well the ‘top 4' are unquestionably amongst the very best in the world, that cannot be denied. How far the league will continue to be the most exciting and interesting though depends on your point of view and some definitions. It may just be that the shine of watching the same four (maybe even the same two) consistently unchallenged, with the other sixteen scrabbling around for crumbs from the top table may soon wear off.

The Champions League offers us some of the highest profile and indeed highest quality of football that history has ever seen. Billions around the world are captivated by the drama and the stories it produces. The vast amounts of money on offer for the clubs allow us to see a collection at the top of some of the biggest and best names around. However with the vast riches on offer comes the potential for a monopolisation of wealth and talent and a decrease in unpredictability, excitement and competitiveness – hallmarks of what makes people all over the world such avid and committed supporters and viewers of sport. If the same clubs are able to get hold of the vast amounts on a regular basis we have ourselves a hegemony and status quo at the top – countless fans of a number of teams all over Europe can no longer even allow themselves to dream as the cold hard reality of football at the highest level is that it's a closed shop.