Uefa’s president wants to improve competitive balance but the top clubs’ financial dominance equates to power too, and it is unlikely his mooted measures will make a significant differenceFor football people raised on the foundational European Cup feats of Manchester United’s home-schooled Busby Babes and Celtic’s 1967 triumph with a team of local lads, the modern Champions League is a mixed blessing. Over the last 23 years the tournament has constructed a glittering stage for Lionel Messi and the world’s greatest players but European football’s concentration of wealth is delivering the final rounds and trophy itself to the same few richest clubs. Related: Chelsea given painful reminder of declining European status by Barcelona | Dominic Fifield The measures Ceferin has...
The fees being paid now are eye‑watering, the wages are unthinkable, the top agents’ fees – often payable to their bases in tax havens – difficult to accept, but most clubs are in fact living within their outsized meansOne way to contemplate the mind-boggling millions Premier League clubs have spent signing footballers in this record-breaking transfer window is to reach for the handy device of the illustrated dictionary. Look up the word inflation now, and it gives you a picture of Kyle Walker. Amid the maelstrom of arrivals and departures as the clubs have repeatedly dipped into their deeper money pots – leaving Paris Saint-Germain’s excesses to one side as a special case – Walker’s fee, £50m, stands as a...
The summer splurge on full-backs is a reflection both of ever-expanding wealth and of Antonio Conte’s tactical success with Chelsea last season. How rivals respond will be fascinating to watchThis is the age of the full-back – and that says a lot. For years full-backs were scorned as players who were not defensively sound enough to play in the middle of the back four nor technically good enough to play in midfield – “Nobody,” as Jamie Carragher has observed, “grows up wanting to be Gary Neville” – but this summer an astonishing amount of money has been spent on them. Most of the money, admittedly, has been splurged by Manchester City, who made Kyle Walker the most expensive defender in...
Rewarding players based on a team’s performance – rather than individually – makes sense in the modern Premier League. But how many clubs are prepared to risk it? It was a classic local newspaper story from the mid-90s, joyfully regurgitated for the social media generation. “I’ve had enough Yorkshire puds, says United star Yeboah” ran the clipping from a 1996 copy of the Yorkshire Evening Post which did the rounds on Twitter last week, along with the story of how the Leeds striker’s unique bonus – two puddings per goal, plus one for each for his team-mates – had ended because “the Ghanaian hotshot’s goal-grabbing exploits have earned him so many puds he had to say ‘no more thanks’.” Related:...