The Beginning of the End for the Sugar Daddies

The last ten years have seen a ridiculous shift in power in European soccer football. It all started with this Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich and what I like to call “Financial Doping”. As an Arsenal fan, I loved that the English Premier League was all about Arsenal and Manchester United. But I respected the Newcastles, Blackburn Rovers, Aston Villas and Chelseas of the time. They were run well, played well, and were competitive to say the least.

Remember Me?

But then came Mr. Moneybags himself, Roman Abramovich:

I buy all titles for you. Except Champions League.

Although I admit that Chelsea was definitely on its way up, he really sent them over the edge, bringing Jose Mourinho a new era to Chelsea, one where they won championship after championship.

But what that also brought was not-so-bright ideas to really rich people.

Anti-Glazer

The Glazer family started and succeeded in their takeover of arguably the biggest club in the world, Manchester United. The fact that a rich person buys a soccer football club isn’t bad in and of itself. It’s the fact that these guys did it using Leveraged Buy-Out (LBO) which in layman’s terms means they secured loans by leveraging the club’s assets. What’s worse is their purchase of the club is leaving it in huge debt – around $1.17 Billion worth of it. Hell, some mysterious wealthy supporters calling themselves the “Red Knights” even tried to buy the club from them to save it from financial ruin. So that failed.

Liverpool, their age old rival (except that they haven’t won the league in a LONG time) was bought out by messrs Gillett and Hicks, who now hate each other, have no money, and have left the club around $700 M in debt. Thanks to that, they’ve sold some of their best assets recently and might be looking to lose a certain injury-prone star striker of theirs. I’m calling that a fail.

Bye bye, Torres? I guess You Will Walk Alone after all...

English Millionaire entrepreneur Mike Ashley bought once-great Newcastle United, and much to the dismay of the Toon Army, brought them down to the Championship before coming back this year. Portsmouth FC has gone through several owners and went into administration last year, and unsurprisingly were relegated. Millionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed bought Fulham years ago and can say he has had moderate success with them.

One seemingly bright spot might be in Manchester. Manchester United’s step-sister neighbor, Manchester City, went through a few ups and downs, first when former Thai prime minister-cum-political prisoner Thaksin Shinawatra bought them, but then now with the ‘trillionaire’ Abu Dhabi group, things are looking up. Though they seem on their way up right now, they went through a lot of down, going through managers Sven-Goran Eriksson and Mark Hughes before recently settling on Roberto Mancini. Of course, having already secured Yaya Touré and David Silva, they seem to be close to securing the services of “Super” Mario Balotelli.  It must be nice to have a lot of money.  Then again, money doesn’t necessarily buy you wins.  Or Champions League trophies.  Just ask Abramovich.

So far there have been few success stories amid a myriad of decent results to outright failures. Abramovich’s Chelsea and arguably Manchester City have proven very successful, but otherwise, these so-called sugar daddies and their deep pockets have wreaked financial havoc on the whole footballing world. Transfer prices are inflated beyond belief (although La Liga sides Barcelona and Real Madrid have a lot to do with that), wages have spiraled out of control, and once prominent clubs have been left shells of their former selves.

But here comes UEFA to save the day (I never thought I’d say that)! With the introduction of financial fair play, within the next few years, UEFA will gradually force teams that want to play in the champions league to balance their books and have their wages break even with their revenues.

How refreshing! You mean, they have to pay their players only the money they earn? They have to run on a profit?

That’s right! Though club transfer policies seem to be able to bypass that, UEFA will slowly reign in wages and create a world where clubs can’t just buy their way into championships. Sugar daddies like Roman Abramovich will be less of a factor, and maybe then Arsenal, who might I add have been fiscally responsible and very shrewd for years, will win the Champions League.