The Haves and Have Nots of Europe..

Thursday, 23 October 08, 10:56 AM · Comments(3)

Watching what passed as a competitive football match between FC Basel and Barcelona last night was rather embarrassing. Barca managed to leave the likes of Henry, Iniesta and Etoo on their bench and still they eased to a 5-0 away win in St Jakobs Stadium. This followed the Celtic manager, Gordon Strachan basically saying his side, Celtic, had no chance of competing with the likes of Manchester United (yet 2 years ago they were beating United at Parkhead). The Celtic fans are saying what we all know that the finance of the premier league has massively tipped the scales.

Now there were always bigger clubs in Europe (Real Madrid, Juventus etc) but sides as recently as 2004 (Porto v Monaco) were in with a chance of reaching or winning the Champions League. The swing has been so big that even some of the biggest Italian sides seem to have no chance and maybe only Real Madrid/Barcelona can really compete with Manchester United and Chelsea. I'm leaving Arsenal and Liverpool to one side as even they don't have the same resources of the other two Premier League sides, no matter how much of it is debt. Idiots like Tim Lovejoy seem to think it's just a natural cycle but the Premier League is now wiping certain leagues off the map. It wasn't that long ago that Ligue 1, the Bundesliga and Eredivisie could also compete but now it's a rich oligarch's or American businessmen's play thing. Even Cluj are financed to the point that they have a team full of Brazilians and Argentinians.

My favourite media hate figure, Lovejoy, was having orgasms over the wonderful attacking talent and football on show at Old Trafford through Rooney (~£30M), Berbatov (£30M), Ronaldo (£12m at 17) and Tevez (£30M) - it bloody well should be as it should at Chelsea. Real Madrid have been doing this for years but even they can't compete as they once could (God knows what their debt is).

So, in a way, let's hope the financial crisis kicks some bloody sense into the game and maybe even level the playing field a little.

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