As we enter our first summer transfer window under our new ownership, could our billions cause us more damage than good?
Vital Manchester City regular, C1TY SL1CKER send us the following article.
As I am sure you all know, the transfer market is now fully up and running, and we have already started spending the vast amounts of money at our disposal. Because of this extraordinary transfer kitty, we are expected to be up there with the biggest money spenders in the world, but unfortunately, many people are starting to question the morals of spending so much money on the beautiful game. Therefore I raise the question, ‘could our billions cause us more harm than good?’
Football on a whole has received a lot of criticism in recent years about the amount of money being spend, all the way from player wages to ticket prices. Many people have said that millions of pounds are ‘wasted’ by people that are taking ‘a game’ far to seriously, and believe that the money should be spent on important thinks such as education and infrastructure. Therefore, every time a group of billionaires come and buy a football club, other clubs attempt to shift this grief, given by some members of the public, towards these clubs, in order to be able to gain some advantage from their lack of ability to contest this financial muscle.
Some clubs start to blame these clubs, such as City, for troubles in national teams, youth players coming through and financial trouble. Even though most of these arguments can be shown be to incorrect, it creates bad press, which could dampen City’s attempts to become a ‘world-wide brand’. It even has reached a stage where other clubs have begun to try and blame clubs for their own financial trouble, as they borrow money in order to try and keep up with these clubs.
Another problem takes place when people try to prevent this negative view being cast over the game when clubs make huge bids and give out huge wages.
When City offered nearly £100 million for KaKa, with rumoured wages of £250,000 a week, the UEFA president Michel Platini was quick to pounce on City in an attempt to prevent these few people thinking this is a negative thing for the game.
Many of us know however that this could actually have a lot of advantages for the game, due to television revenue and ticket sales, and the government, due to the huge amount of tax gained from the sport. Despite this, City still got the grief for a lot of people, either clueless or jealous, and it will happen again every time we go for another world class player with a large price tag.
Another problem faced is that players may not want to come to City, out of fear of being branded as ‘greedy’. Many players could easily look at the Gareth Barry transfer and be put off by the way people have immediately claimed that he must be in it for the money, not thinking that anybody could ever think people would like to come to City out of their belief in ‘the project’.
Also, the money being thrown at new players in order to persuade them to come to the club, could cause a lot controversy inside the club, with current players feeling that they are being hard done by, not getting the same wages or treatment as these new players. Examples of this have been seen in the contract issues with Daniel Sturridge and a small bit was seen in Stephen Ireland’s eventual contract signing.
Finally, we need to make sure that we don’t turn out like Chelsea by throwing a lot of money at the league, not getting instant success, and moving on to a new manager, and then throwing some more money.
We need to be able to spend our money carefully, first of all, to ensure success, secondly, to avoid horrendous press and discontent, where people blame us for many problems, and finally, to make sure we can build a club that can rival the likes of Real Madrid and Manchester United, with a huge deal of respect and worldwide support.
Many thanks C1TY SL1CKER.
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