Football is primarily a business run by money. Every game, every seat, every member of staff, every bottle of water, and every minute you watch (live or stream) is powered by money. Lots of it. 

Just like any other money-oriented business, football thrives on the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. 

During transfer seasons, you see players being sold or being bought for millions of euros and sometimes it doesn’t even register that these are actual funds being spent on one or two persons. 

For smaller clubs or less fortunate clubs, the money bigger teams use in buying players can keep them afloat for years. 

Since the takeover by Abu Dhabi in 2008, Manchester City has spent about 2.25 billion euros in player acquisition, with a net spending of 1.4 billion at the same time and the numbers are similar to big clubs like Barcelona and Bayern Munich. To put that into perspective, that is almost 20 times what a team like Leeds United has been able to spend in the same time frame. 

Unlike the spectators who have the chance of winning some money at Ignition online casino, football clubs have to rely on broadcasting rights in the PL and the limited ticket sales in their stadiums to earn theirs.

Broadcasting rights are sold for hundreds of millions of euros every year. TV rights are worth a lot, depending on the teams.  

Is Money Ruining The Game?

In the top European leagues, some teams have dominated without remorse for the better part of a decade and more. A team like Manchester City has won the league 5 out of 6 times in recent years, while Madrid and Barcelona seem to have birthright to the league title. 

The driving force in these teams is their ability to bring in the best players and managers at any given time. Year after year they take the best players and put them in their squad, and if the performances are not up to par, the player is moved along, and the next best thing comes in. The most recent example of money at work in football is City’s signing of Haaland. See how much he earns weekly. 

Players are essentially commodities at this point. They are treated like goods in an auction. The highest bidder wins and the commodity has little or nothing to say in regard to what goes on during these deals. 

This process creates a vortex of unending displacements of players and families. On some occasions (depending on how big the player is) the players have a say in certain aspects of the deal. 

The bigger the team, the bigger the revenue. Without revenue, small teams can’t afford to improve their squad and the overall team. Make no mistake, it is not always about money, but money is the greatest motivation in football. 

There are so many ways to look at the effect of money on football. One way to look at it is how much better football is because of money. The kits are better, the training grounds are better, the stadiums are bigger and the competition is fiercer. 

Players and their agents thrive in a system where players make a ton of money with little or no kickback. In big teams, contracts are worth millions of euros for each player, these teams have to cater to the payment of these players by pushing to make more money. 

Small teams don’t have such luxuries. Many times they miss out on the players they need because of the monetary value involved in maintaining such a player. With this system, there’s little space for real competition between the big guys and the little ones.

More money or Less money?

No matter what side of the table you sit on, money will keep being the most important factor. Don’t get that twisted.  However, the way teams go about spending their money could be better managed. 

Football is the most watched sport on the planet, and many businessmen and women see it as an opportunity to make money. Companies don’t put their logos on a jersey because they are fans of the club, they put it because it makes them money as well as the club wearing them. 

The Money Effect on football could make the sport worse or better, no one knows what the future holds.

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