When big money takes total control of any field of human activity — be it art, science, literature, sports or whatever — out go the values that once had sustained the endeavor.
The news that Zinedine Zidane, whose two goals helped France to the dream victory in the 1998 World Cup Final, has been bought by Real Madrid from Juventus of Turin for $64 million raises again the question of values. In commercial terms, maybe, such a fantastic expenditure is justifiable. Real Madrid rivals Britain’s Manchester United as the highest-profile football team in the world. They have so far spent almost $154 million on new players in the last twelve months. The reckoning has to be that not only will star names bring in more money from TV companies and sponsors, but will also pave the way to further international football success, which is where the megabucks are earned.
So commercially, a wealthy club like Real Madrid has to speculate to accumulate — it has to invest. And on top of the money that it is paying Juventus, it will be paying Zidane himself a small fortune each week for his services, and will be disbursing another small fortune to insure him. The star could break his leg tomorrow and might never kick a football again. That risk has to be covered and insurance like that does not come cheap.
But what effect do massive signing deals like this have on the effect of football itself? Football’s international governing body FIFA has clearly been concerned for some time. It has tried to stem the ever-rising sums that the top clubs are prepared to pay each other for their stars. Its argument has been that by creaming off the top players when they are relatively cheap rising stars in smaller clubs and later trading them among themselves for figures that dwarf anything that a small club could ever afford, the Manchester Uniteds, Liverpools, Juventuses and Real Madrids of this world are endangering the long-term health of the sport.
The long-term implication of this is that the game will suffer because the average professional club will be unable to survive financially. Smaller clubs are turning themselves into nurseries for talent that can one day be sold. Club owners no longer dream of carrying off the championship, but rather a massive check when another Zidane they have discovered is snapped up by one of the few megarich clubs. Local and international support is becoming focused increasingly on a few dozen top clubs to the exclusion of smaller teams. There is now little chance for a small club to play its way into the top tier.
Thus we have the widening and potentially deadly fracture in the sport. If teams cannot succeed on their merits but can only make it by having someone sign a series of mammoth checks, the core element of competition has gone out of the sport. We are left with gladiatorial contests that have no link to the backyard kick-around leagues that were once the bedrock of the game.
If top clubs have fewer and fewer of their own nationals in their teams — one English club recently had a single Brit in a game — the distance between football and its roots is sure to become wider.
