The Monopoly!!

Football as i had written earlier is not just a sport but an industry... PLayers at their peak are worth million of dollars to their respective teams.... For example Zinedine Zidane cost Real Madrid a fortune... In fact his transfer cost Real an approximate 72 million US dollars... I can cite many such players involved in huge transfers like Rio Ferdinand, David Beckham, Luis Figo etc etc... We often see during the summer a lot of names being involved in these transfer rumors... A whole lot of players are talked about but actually only a few of these rumors actually materialise..

But the changes that we have seen seem to be rather drastic... Only a few clubs have the financial might to hold on to their stars as well as sign other new stars... We can literally count the no. of such clubs... Real Madrid, Man Utd, Arsenal, Barcelona, Newcastle United, AC Milan and a few other clubs based in either Spain, England or Italy... Even Italian Clubs are fast losing out on the transfers as they are not able to compete with the likes of the Spanish or English clubs.. As u all might have noticed i "missed" a very important club in terms of money and financial clout and that club is called Chelsea... Chelsea after their takeover the England based Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich has quickly turned into a class of its own... Mr.Abramovich has spent a fortune on Chelsea... He spent a staggering 140 mn pounds just to buy Chelsea Football Club... And he has spent a near equal amount on signing new players and increasing wages of star players like Frank Lampard etc to prevent them from moving onto other clubs...

Chelsea's financial clout has taken them to near invincibility in terms of the squad that they possess... They have got at least 2 estabilshed players for each position that you can think of in the field... They have the largest squad in the Premier League and obviously the strongest squad as well... Under their manager Jose Mourinho they have reached new heights... They made it to the Semifinals of the UEFA Champions league last season and they are favourites to win it this season... They won the EPL last season and lead the 2nd placed team this year by a healthy 11 points... They are on course for a treble this season and none of the teams looks like they will be able to quench their thirst for victory... The reason behind this recent revival of a long underperforming team like Chelsea has been the sudden spurt in the money that has been invested in them...

In the past few seasons only 2 or 3 teams in a league have been dominating the leagues that they play in though the Spanish League has been a bit of an exception... They have seen different champions like Real Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Deportivo La coruna in recent times... But even that adds upto only 4 teams... England has seen just 3 different champions including Man Utd, Arsenal and Chelsea... Italy has been dominated by the likes of Juventus and AC Milan only in recent times... France on the other hand has been under a monopoly for 5 years now... Olymique Lyon have won their league for 5 seasons now and they look well placed to win a 6th title this season.. Germany has been dominated by Bayern Munich for years now with the only exception being the title won in 2004 by Werder Bremen... And remember Scotland as well... Celtic and Rangers have been winning the championship from time immemorial and the last time at least 1 of the teams finished outside the Top 2 was in the early 70's..

So as statistics show football has become a rather one-team show... With the other teams just playing the catch-up game... Spending money on transfers is a requisite for most managers to bring in some fresh faces and invigorate their respective teams... But spending big money on it without thinking about the consequences have led to some of the teams reduced to shambles.. Leeds United for eg spent huge sums of money on players and they did get decent results... They were challenging for a lot of titles though they won none... But the directors didn't keep an eye on the money being involved and soon they were bankrupt... PLayers started leaving the club for petty cash as they couldnt even receive the salaries... Leeds Utd kept losing their matches thereafter and got relegated a couple of seasons back to the Football League Championship... They have lost a lot on their TV income also because of this relegation...

Anyways will be back to write more on football soon!! Keep waiting for more info!!