| I wouldn't lay the blame for what is happening to football on Chelsea or Man Utd. It's more an evolution of what's been going on since the time the Italians (followed by the big guns of Spain) started throwing their money around decades ago and sweeping up most of the world's best players. If any one entity is more at fault than most, I would say television and the demand of the viewing audience are the ones to look at. It's TV money that is driving the football market these days and it is the consumer (in other words the ones who watch TV) who buy the goods that allows the manufacturers to spend millions on advertising. That advertising money eventually ends up as contracts that give truckloads of cash to the EPL (Wigan and Portsmouth and Chelsea and United et al). The 'big' four of the EPL are only doing what any other club in the league would be doing if the shoe (in this case the boots) were on the other foot (feet)!
Of course in the society of today....money breeds money...the more you have, the more you are going to get.....once you reach a certain plateau, it will take a disaster if gigantic proportions (like the collapsing of the stock market) to drive you into bankruptcy. In the case of football.....this would be akin to the TV networks pulling the plug on the sport and that is highly unlikely to happen any time soon.
With the American and Asian markets just about ready for the onslaught of more Beckhams, Manchester Uniteds, Liverpools and Real Madrids, allied to their own ever-increasing interest in the game, it is very much going to be more of the same, with the rich getting ever and ever more richer. Better get used to it sunshine.....football isn't the football of yesterday anymore.  |