Article from member BlueWolfie.
I had thought about doing this article for quite some time, and even mentioned as such on some posts, and seeing as though the topic will never go away, I thought ‘why not?’ (although I make no apologies for the length of this article).
If you had said the name ‘Platini’ twenty years ago, football fans the World over would have told you about how great the guy was on the field, and would undoubtedly mention a World Cup game or two. Fast forward to today, and unfortunately you would get an altogether different response; some of the nicer comments (because after all this is a front page article) would be things as ‘idiot’, ‘English hater’, ‘hasn’t got a clue’, and from some of the more educated of you, ‘xenophobic despot’.
I do not need to go into any detail about what the man has been saying for the last couple of years, because it is well-documented, so the question is simply, ‘why?’
One could say that because he is French, it is only natural that he dislikes everyone, but the thing is, what have the French clubs done recently? Yeah, about as much as the Belgians, and this is where the problem lies. He has, for some reason, taken it upon himself to go on a personal crusade against the so-called elite clubs, stating that he is for the good of football, and for the regular clubs that can’t afford to drop several million on someone at the drop of a hat.
But let’s look at this. Real Madrid just bought Ronaldo for an exorbitant fee, and Manchester united have the money up front, and they have just given Wigan a bundle of cash for one of their players – £16,000,000 to be precise. Now this is nothing against Wigan as a club, but £16million? Never in their wildest dreams did they ever think they’d see that kind of money come to the club, and of course now that it has, it should (so long as they don’t blow it on hookers and booze) do them a World of good. Now I ask you, or should I say, Monsieur Platini, how is that bad for the game?
I suspect that if we had it your way, that small chain of events would have ended up with Wigan getting a tenth of that. Is that what you want? Would you like to ask the Wigan Chairman, Manager and fans what they think about that?
So we want to introduce a salary cap? How will that work then? If implemented, the ‘Sky 4’ would have a huge advantage over the rest of the Premiership, because they currently get the most TV revenue, the most positional revenue, and have a large fan-base (mainly due to them being a member of the ‘Sky 4’). But then what, of what players are paid? Let’s say a conservative estimate of £80,000 a week? Does that mean that contracts must be torn up and they are ‘only’ paid £25,000 a week? Can you spell ‘civil suit’?
How about transfer fees being drastically reduced? Does that mean Ronaldo or Kaka is now ‘only’ worth, say £5,000,000? How are the better (and I use this term loosely) now graded? Well, obviously we pay them more don’t we? A million a week? Two million? Because after all, the money saved on transfers can now be put on the wages. But let’s not forget the agents. Use to getting paid millions for their high-profile clients, are now only getting paid a few thousand. Again, anyone out there that can spell ‘civil suit’?
Essentially, this is something that Platini (and Blatter too) has a problem with, but yet for all their comments, can do absolutely nothing about, but yet they continue to moan and complain about it all.
Now that our beloved club can actually compete financially with the Euro Big Boys (and in all honesty, out-bid them all), there has been many Vital Manchester City members voicing their concerns that UEFA and FIFA will step in with something before we can attain the heights that we deserve and head for. Please don’t worry, for there is nothing to worry about.
After all, Vital MCFC member Mike Hunt put it best when he simply stated concerning Platini, ‘he’s a tosser’.
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