The only business booming in the Credit Crunch (Money in Football)

Member Name: paulie1975

Product:	Money in Football
Date:	22/01/09 (114 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It puts money into the economy

Disadvantages: Its a false economy and relegation equals the threat of financial oblivion

Money in football is ridiculous there is no doubt about it, whilst the rest of the world is curling up in a ball and trying to deal with the credit crunch, businesses are crumbling, employment is flying, football clubs are still spending ridiculous amounts of money.

I'm sorry if i'm overusing certain words in this article, but I read that Manchester City, bought Nigel De Jong from Hamburg yesterday for £15m, he is a strong defensive midfielder with good skill but £15m is excessive, what made me laugh is that he is nearing the end of his contract and had City been willing to wait until the summer they could have got him for £1.5m.

When you add this to Manchester City offering over £100m for Kaka, Spurs spending £30m on two players this week, it makes you wonder whether there is a credit crisis.

Unfortunately there is and the reason clubs can afford to pay these sums, is either rich, incredibly rich owners, or the huge amounts they receive in revenue from Sky deals. Man City and Chelsea are lucky to be owned by ridiculously rich people, the club is a plaything and money is no object, for smaller clubs, the tv revenue is essential, therefore once in the Premier League they must spend big to stay there, because if they get relegated, revenue falls to a point where it is difficult to run the club as a business.

As we have seen with clubs as varied as Charlton, Ipswich, Southampton, Leeds and Derby, once relegated you have huge wages and have to offload your best players to stay afloat, this limits your ability to challenge for promotion and is why so many clubs have been promoted in the last few years, people throw everything at their one season staying in the Premier League and if they fail, they fail big time and basically bankrupt themselves in the process.

So yes, the money is ridiculous, but the clubs are almost forced to pay it as it maintains their revenue, if Spurs were to get relegated now, the revenue they lose would be enormous, they would lose all of their best players, but even their average players are paid such outlandish wages, they would struggle to cover them, hence why they put so much money in.

Are footballers worth what they are paid, not at all, but is it their fault they can get such sums, no. If you or I were offered crazy money to do something we love, would we turn it down?

But with the money comes responsibility and the players should give their all for their clubs, be mature, professional and honest, thats my only quibble, they get paid the cash, but there are far too many who seem to care more about money than the sport!

Summary: The only business booming in the Credit Crunch