Translated material
Favorite game of millions. Dollars
The richest Russian clubs, famous for their crazy transfers of players, have already faced this problem: having bought players at clearly inflated prices, the club management is then forced to either sell them much cheaper (as was the case, for example, with Spartak with the Argentinean Fernando Cavenaghi), or endure, paying these players a salary that is not commensurate with their skill, talent, and sometimes dedication. But for Russia this problem is not yet as acute as for the leading clubs in the world. However, if the spending of billionaires, who are increasingly willing to buy up teams of the main national championships, should not particularly worry us, then the fate of the players, who often become hostages of these competitions with “tight wallets,” raises concerns.
The beginning of the current football season in Europe was marked by several scandalous transfer wars. Moreover, although such scandals seem to be no longer something out of the ordinary, their number and degree of severity are clearly increasing.
The London “West Ham” (in common parlance “the Hammers”) categorically did not want to let the Argentine national team forward Carlos Tevez, acquired from the Brazilian “Corinthians” in a completely leftist way (the scandal about this transfer not subsided to this day), go to Manchester United. As a result, Tevez left (the agent agreed on terms with Manchester United, and West Ham did not have enough financial and lobbying power, as well as playing appeal, to retain their main star). In retaliation, the Hammers' bosses ordered the removal of all belongings from the house that Tevez had rented while he was playing for Argentina at the Copa America. The same Manchester United was involved in another episode of transfer wars. The Argentine defender of the Mancunians, Gabriel Heinze, categorically did not want to play for his club, wanting to move to Liverpool. And the management of the team from Manchester just as categorically did not want to strengthen one of their main competitors. As a result, the player had to literally be assigned to Real Madrid, which this year spent almost a record amount in its history on acquisitions. Heinze himself did not want to move to Real Madrid, and now it is absolutely unclear how his career will turn out.
The transfer of one of the best full-backs in the world, Brazilian Daniel Alves, whose ambitions have become small for Sevilla, may turn out to be just as “sudden”. Active attempts to buy the player from Real and Chelsea were blocked by the management of Seville, who considered the price offered by the giants for Alves to be insufficient. A similar situation, but with the opposite sign, is with Andrey Shevchenko. Milan seemed to want to buy him for half the price at which Chelsea sold the Ukrainian forward to Milan a year ago. But Roman Abramovich, with all his wealth, did not consider it possible to lose 50% on the deal. Now Dynamo Kiev is not averse to renting the famous forward from Chelsea, but Sheva himself would hardly like such a turn in his career: it is too obvious a decrease in status.
So it turns out that the exorbitant amounts of transactions in today’s big football leave many talented players with virtually no chance for the natural development of their careers. They may be sold against their will or, on the contrary, they may be forced to keep them on the team. And this is a completely natural payment for the mind-boggling numbers in the salary slips, a natural “golden cage”. Natural from the point of view of club owners who want to own the best football players in the world for their money, without caring too much about what the players themselves are like. Actually, when you are paid a salary that 99.9% of corporate managers, not to mention ordinary workers, cannot claim, it seems like no one is obligated to think about your moral well-being.
At the same time, the widespread fashion for the purchase of football clubs by American, Russian, Thai, Icelandic and other billionaires has led to the fact that there are more and more teams capable of creating “golden cages” for already established and future football talents. And there are fewer and fewer opportunities for capable players to avoid such a trap.
Of course, such trends do not prevent not-so-rich clubs from developing talented players and then selling them to the giants at exorbitant prices. But the constant pressure of millions paid for you, the fear of not meeting expectations or, even having met them, being hostage to the war of commercial interests of club owners, agents, ambitious coaches who are ready to spend other people’s money to create a dream team, puts players in an extremely difficult position. Transfer wars can ruin the careers of many football players, who are now not just highly paid professionals, but also extremely expensive piece goods in the hands of envious, influential and extremely cynical buyers.
With the exception of pure geniuses, of whom there are extremely few in football, as in any other field of human activity, everyone else now really exists practically in the position of a commodity, and not just employees. It’s hard to say whether this never-ending, escalating competition of billions will spoil football. At the very least, the threat of breaking the fate of talented players under the influence of this financial Moloch is becoming more and more noticeable.