Fair play in and off the pitch

Summer was a time when football took a break, to the relief of those who have more interesting things in life. These days, the beautiful game is, above all, a business for all seasons.

This summer we had the Copa America, the Fifa Women’s World Cup and the Fifa U-20 World Cup. Tours, training camps, challenge cups, sponsor tournaments; the list of events in search of advertising revenue and new markets seems endless. And then there is the player transfer market, a never-ending saga that keeps the fans surfing the internet in search of the latest rumours.

The in-word this summer is Anzhi. To be exact, it is Anzhi Makhachkala and it is no uttering from the latest Harry Potter book. Anzhi are a Russian premier league club founded just 10 years ago. The club is based in the capital of the Republic of Dagestan, some 2,000 kilometres from Moscow.

Anzhi had the guts (and the money) to make an indecent proposal to Samuel Eto’o, the four-time African Player of the Year and a three-time winner of the Champions League. The 30-year old Cameroonian footballer’s consent will earn him a net €20 million annually for the next three years. Eto’o’s pay is roughly twice the take-home pay of Lionel Messi, the Fifa Ballon d’Or for the last two years. Anzhi are fast becoming the New York Cosmos of Russia: Eto’o joins internationally-renowned players such as Roberto Carlos, Dzsudzsak and Zhirkhov. Since Makhachkala is not considered safe enough, Anzhi players live and train in Moscow and fly “home” for their home games.

Earlier this year, Anzhi were bought by Suleyman Kerimov, a billionaire who ranks 118th on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people. His personal fortune of about €5.5 billion is nearly the size of Dagestan’s gross domestic product. Mr Kerimov is not the only billionaire hooked on football. He joins the likes of the Agnellis and nouveau riche Silvio Berlusconi, Roman Abramovich and Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan.

Just when we were eagerly expecting the new football season to kick off, trouble is brewing in Spain and Italy. In the country that prides itself to be the current European and World champions, the players in the top two divisions have gone on strike. They are protesting that some 200 of them are owed €50 million in unpaid wages going back two years. The Association of Spanish Footballers is demanding that if a club fails to pay wages for three consecutive months, its players will be free of any contractual obligations. Many of these players are no Eto’os and their annual income is in the region of €50,000. Spanish football is in a financial mess. This is partly due to the fact that clubs are free to negotiate their own television rights. Real Madrid and Barcelona, the world’s richest clubs, obtained some 25 per cent of their €400 million-plus revenue from TV rights while Valencia, which finished third in the league, got only €40 million. Leading clubs Betis, Zaragoza and Racing Santander are in administration. Over the past few years, 22 of Spain’s 42 top-clubs have passed through administration.

By contrast, Italian football is in the pits. The Serie A failed to kick-off last weekend. The dispute is over a new collective contract between the top-flight clubs and the players over the new “solidarity” tax being introduced by the Berlusconi government and a provision allowing clubs to force players having contractual problems with them to train away from the first teams.

Football financial mismanagement is not confined to just Spain and Italy. Last year, the Premier League, which is the world’s richest, had a record turnover of €2.5 billion. Still, it registered a loss of €500 million with 68 per cent of its earnings going to pay wages. Only the leagues in Germany (surprise, surprise), Sweden, Austria and Belgium managed to break even. Uefa understands that this situation is not sustainable and it has introduced what is known as Financial Fair Play (FFP) to crack down debt-laden clubs.

Uefa realises that it has to fight off the over-commercialisation of football, even if it is the most to benefit from organising such tournaments as the Champions League. Uefa is committed to “grassroots” football and would like to see football clubs being owned by their supporters rather than by super rich magnates. FFP is being introduced as from the coming season. Clubs whose owners are willing to invest money in their shareholding will be allowed to record losses up to €45 million over a three-year period. For other clubs, the maximum allowable loss is €5 million.

Although FFP has been unanimously approved by the top clubs, some of them may still seek to bend the rules. Arsène Wenger, Arsenal’s manager, has been very critical of Manchester City’s recent €420 million, 10-year sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways and has asked Uefa to investigate it. The deal is about four times what Arsenal obtained from Emirates for a 15-year sponsorship. Some observers are worried that FFP will lead to more expensive ticket prices for supporters.

Uefa is to be praised for at least trying to protect football. It may not yet be too late. In our lives we need a bigger dose of fair play. Little wonder that football is a microcosm of society at large.