UEFA president Michel Platini has called upon the European Parliament to make Football a special case and allow him to introduce spending cap in the sport. Platini has already spoken against Manchester City's astronomical bid for Kaka and raised the issue again in the Parliament. But for all his passionate cries, the free market guys in the Parliament are not going to fall into Platini's demands. The European Club Association(ECA) earlier has demanded to set a cap of 50-60% of their revenue as spending cap. What a noble idea, you might think! But hold on that may not be as noble as you think. All these cries and yelling for salary cap and spending cap came after one specific event in the last year, the acquisition of Manchester City by Abu Dhabi United Group. I have wrote an earlier article about the merits and demerits of it; Have a look - Million Dollar Clubs. This is the age of Russian billionaires and Middle East Oil tycoons who are ready to pump huge amount into the clubs. But why then there is huge cry when Manchester City went after Kaka; why nobody raised a question apart from Manchester United when Real Madrid went after Ronaldo in a similar fashion and still does? Why no one complained when Chelsea was taken from being an average team to an extra ordinary team by the wealth of its Russian owner? That's where the apartheid in ECA lies.
ECA is an organization formed to protect the interest of European clubs; especially the big ones. Hence the call for a percentage cap on spending by ECA does not come as a surprise. What it effectively does (if implemented) is that the bigger clubs don't have to worry about the smaller ones anymore. At this moment Manchester City can spend any amount for any players because of their owners; this coupled with the financial crisis other clubs are facing would definitely put Manchester City in the forefront. Clubs which have rich history like FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Liverpool etc had build up a financial and sporting base on their own. But smaller clubs cannot replicate that and the proposed revenue cap will make sure that they will never reach those levels. There only hope to compete with the bigger clubs is to hope some heavily rich guy takes over and spend heavily to acquire the resources to challenge the big guns. Michel Platini is playing into the hands of ECA by aligning with them and not foreseeing their hidden agenda. The only optimal solution would be to introduce a spending cap similar to all clubs - big or small. Every club should be asked not to spend more than X million dollars in a season. That will be a much more democratic approach to this problem; but Platini will do a world of good to him and European football if he ponders a bit more on Blatter's proposal of home grown players. If that is adopted (not as Blatter told) that will automatically tie down the clubs from spending unnecessarily.
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