Money in Football

 Money in football has increased massively over the past few years. Does this money create a divide between the teams across a country and a continent? Does this money ruin the competition as the richest clubs stay at the top and the gap in quality between the teams grows and grows. 

In football cash is king. For cash certain thing can be ignored. Football has been trying and striving for more equality in the game however the world cup this year is being held in qatar - a country with a questionable human rights record, surely this isn’t right? The money says it is. 

Some have accused different countries of sportswashing. Sportswashing is supposedly where a state owned company buys a football club and improves the club and makes them more competitive so they view the owners positively and in turn view the state in a more positive light. Examples people use when talking about ‘sportswashing’ is Manchester City in 2008 when they were purchased by the Abu Dhabi United Group led by Sheikh Mansour, Paris Saint Germain in 2011 when they were bought by Qatar Sports Investment led by Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and most recently Newcastle were purchased by the Saudi Investment Fund led by Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi. Whether you believe in sportswashing and not the fact is that more money is being brought into football and ruining the chances for success for the smaller teams who have less money. 

The super league is a concept that has surfaced recently about all of the major teams from the best leagues go into a league together and always play each other. These games would generate massive viewership across the world and would bring in massive amounts of money. this concept would continue to bring in the biggest amount of money to the biggest clubs. With the biggest clubs leaving their national leagues it could cripple the finances of the leagues that they left behind because the biggest clubs bring in the most money that is then put back into the leagues across the nation. The idea that clubs that bring in the most money can leave the leagues they currently play in and have played in for years just because they want more money is a selfish idea that can ruin the smaller clubs in the league system. 

The owners of PSG have recently gave Mbappe a new contract to keep him at the club ahead of the Qatar world cup. 

This new contract that he signed is worth ludicrous amounts of money (around £65 million over three years as well as an approximation £100 million signing on bonus) The owners of the club are a Qatar owned business. The level of quality in the Qatar world cup team is not close to many other teams in the tournament so they are very unlikely to win the world cup, a team that is likely to go much further into the world cup however is France. France are the most recent winners of the world cup (won in Russia 2018) Mbappe is one of France’s best players and will more than likely be starting for the team. Some have speculated that if the Qatar team cannot win in their home country then they have tried to a winner be their star player from their state owned club. These kind of rumours have caused outrage for the footballing community because the vast majority as they do not want world politics involved in football with countries with the most money owning clubs and buying the best players to almost represent their clubs.