Pass go collect £200, get a hotel on Mayfair, come second in a beauty contest (we can all dream of such heights and to be honest I would take third place!), the fight over the racing car, working out what roll of the dice avoided prison and an obsession with collecting all four stations just to tax Dad to the max are all memories from my misspent youth on a rainy day. A board game I happily downloaded as an app in my adult (I hear my wife laughing at this) years, striving to own every property so that you can sit back laughing like a Megalomaniac as you send your own family to the poor house. Of course in the real world Monopolies are outlawed in the spirit of fairness and competition and for the average man owning one property is somewhat a dream, football however is a very different beast.
It is widely accepted that football changed with the creation of the Premier League. Aspects of the game have improved for the better without doubt, but with the smooth comes the rough and while in other aspects of our lives we love a bit of rough, football remains sacred ground. You may well be wondering what this waffle is about but trust me when I say it is relevant, and is in fact something that currently grinds my gears.
As a Liverpool fan in January, I sit in hope that the club spends some cash to bring in reinforcements to occupy the deficiencies in the team, which at present are several. Don’t misunderstand, I am more than happy with the owners of the club and for the first time in a long while I believe the club has direction and is being run in the correct manner, unfortunately this brings restrictions that will see at best a couple of players brought in when realistically we probably need four or five. This is life, I want a PS4 and an Xbox One but my finances (and my wife) wont allow for this. Bastards (finances that refers to I promise, not my wife, honest). We all have to plan appropriately with clear focus, yet this is something that some seem exempt from and it is jeopardising careers, and ultimately, this being the clincher for the FA, the international game, yet not the FA, nor UEFA nor FIFA seem the slightest bit inclined to step in or take action.
The straw that broke the camel’s back is innocuous enough and centres on Lacina Traore’s seemingly imminent move to Everton, West Ham United or whoever Monaco decide to sell to. This is a 23 year old who followed the coin to Anzhi, and surprisingly that didn’t work out, where next? Oh yeah Monaco, who don’t really want him, that’s why he is off on loan! So rather than letting an Everton or a West Ham buy him where he is wanted and where he will probably play, no Monaco, a club with a stadium capacity of 18,000 who spent £150m on three players recruit another. Makes sense.
What about the worst offenders? Chelsea Football Club, not unlike Hull City are a planning a name change, but instead of opting for an animal they want to be known now as Chelsea Stockpilers FC. They have over 20 players out on loan. These include Romelu Lukaku, Thibault Courtois, Christian Atsu, Victor Moses, Ryan Bertrand, Lucas Piazon and Marko Marin. The latest reports in the press are that Kurt Zouma will be the latest young player to join Chelsea and go out on loan, when will somebody do something?
Competition is spoiled and slanted in favour of the spenders! Romelu Lukaku for example is tearing the league up this year at Everton after previous success at West Brom, putting teams to the sword and creating problems, everyone suffered, that is except Chelsea. This year Everton are challenging at the top. Prospering under a quality manager (for once….) and subsequently having a serious impact on the title race against the likes of City, Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool yet have to approach each game against Chelsea without their focal point.
On New Years Eve, amidst the celebrations, those who didn’t make parties or clubs will have seen that Chelsea announced a loss of £50m for the financial year ending June 2013. This is before they signed Schurrle, Willian, Eto’o and most recently Matic, yet despite their losses, they’ve continued unchallenged hovering up young talent that would command starting berths in 95% of the Premier League clubs with no intention of playing them. Fortunate for the FA that Liverpool prised Sturridge away given England’s lack of international strikers!
The question I pose is this; what will it take for an authority to take action against clubs? Has the horse bolted and as football’s soul just withers away even more, are clubs, particularly rich clubs just too powerful?
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