BadWolf wrote:As a long time football watcher I must say it's getting out of hand, money ruined any competition that was there.
Sadly there's no chance salary cap would work in EU. And the biggest teams works just say **** you to Uefa and do the Superleague.
That's the thing: It would be impossible to implement the type of competition controls we have here due to the breadth and depth of European (and world) football. We can do it here because all of our leagues compete in a closed ecosystem with zero competition for talent. But that's obviously not the case there. It would take FIFA stepping in to implement some sort of worldwide system, and I highly, highly doubt there's any appetite for that given the amount of money they're raking in. And from everything I read, attendance and TV ratings are all booming as well, so their attitude is undoubtedly, why fix what isn't broke.
But the financial disparity really is stunning. I remember reading some report UEFA put out a couple of years ago where, excluding Spain, Germany, France and Italy, England's 20 Premier League teams made more money than the next 50 European leagues COMBINED. Not teams -- entire leagues. So basically, 90-95 pct of Europe has been turned into a de facto farm system whose main reason for existing anymore is to develop prospects so City and Liverpool can have quality backup wingbacks for their squad rotations. I don't know, cultures are different and I see fans talk all the time about how they find other things to celebrate, but routinely having your best players poached would absolutely suck.
Hell, I said this in another thread recently, but I'm an Arsenal fan -- not exactly a small, poor club -- and when it feels like even they don't have the financial muscle to seriously compete -- and certainly, a huge, huge amount of blame for their current drought rests on their shoulders -- then something is seriously broken.