There are a lot of things you can do with €118 million and, apparently, one of them is buying a footballer. This is the eye-watering figure Manchester United are ready to pay to acquire French midfielder Paul Pogba from Juventus. It will be a history-making transfer fee.
If the move materialises, it will take spending by the 20 teams in the English Premier League to more than €700 million this summer. That is roughly what Malta expects to collect from VAT receipts this year.
The impressive transfer fees and equally generous wages big football clubs are prepared to pay leave no doubt as to the commercial transformation of this simple game loved the world over.
Football is a business and this is not a recent phenomenon. Billions are generated through television rights, marketing, online betting, transfer fees, season tickets, advertising and tourism. It is an industry that, to a large extent, has embraced globalisation like no other.
Much as it is maligned, the onset of big money has helped improve the game and make it flourish and become accessible to wider audiences. The money also brought about the strong temptation of corruption, bribery and match-fixing. But when all of this is stripped away, what is left at the core is a game with 22 players on the field, battling each other within a set of rules, as they try to score and clinch victory.
This is the essence that embodied Gianni Bencini’s maxim “for the love of the game” when he founded Melita AFC in 1933 as an amateur club. That calling may have lost its lustre in a high-stakes game where money talks but, despite its commercial structure, football remains entertaining. This simple fact can easily be overlooked in the fog of lavish spending and superstar status afforded to certain players.
This is why the success of underdogs instils in many a sense of joy that the simple game is still very much about passion, hard work and dedication.
When Leicester City captured the English Premier league title this year, they had almost every rival – except for Tottenham, who were still hoping for a slip – rooting for them. It was a lovely story being written by a bunch of humble players, guided by an unassuming Italian coach.
The club’s expenditure on players was nowhere near the money dished out by the big clubs in Manchester and London and, yet, the sense of unity and can-do attitude adopted by the team delivered the coveted result. And as if Leicester’s success was not enough, footballing minnows Iceland and Wales had impressive runs at the Euro 2016 finals in France. This showed that football was not just about the money. And that was a welcome reprieve for those who love the game for the game’s sake.
Similarly, in Malta, Birkirkara FC wrote history when they were the first team to make it to a third round of a Uefa competition last month. They did it in a diligent manner, brushing off the likes of Scottish team Heart of Midlothian in the second round.
These successes should be celebrated because they inject a dose of humility in a game that has been tarnished by too many scandals over recent years.
Playing for the love of the game should remain the cornerstone upon which success is built. And even when the money rolls in and the investments balloon, administrators, coaches, players and supporters must never lose site of that core belief.