End of ‘Fair Play’: The Football Transfer Market

The recent shuffling and dealing in the football transfer market has caused some consternation. Football watchers in the Spanish press have saluted Florentino Pérez’s powers of conviction in getting the mercurial Portuguese player Christiano Ronaldo to move to Real Madrid from Manchester United, showing yet again that commitment from such players is only measured by bank balances rather than loyalty oaths.

Satisfying such basic hurdles as a medical and terms satisfactory to the player, the transfer should pocket an astronomical £80 million, or 94 million Euros. Previous transfers to that famed club will also be dwarfed – that of the French player Zinedine Zidane in 2001, and the latest Kaka deal from AC Milan, worth £56 million.

Such deals do seem obscene, resembling, in many ways, the art market and the way a false value is attributed to merchandise. Some Spanish papers decided to embrace the move, with Marca calling it “A signing from another galaxy.” That might seem so, but the signing is very rooted on planet earth, in a system that rewards oligarchs, emirs and the plain colossally wealthy. El Pais continued the cosmic theme, albeit on a cooler note, claiming that Pérez was himself of another galaxy, forking out a fee during a time of “global crisis” that exceeded “the budget of 16 of the Primera Division teams.”

El Mundo cast another light on the move, noting that the combined fee of both Kaka and Ronaldo was “the equivalent of the combined annual budget of the Prado Museum, Reina Sofia Museum and National Library.”

UEFA President Michel Platini is up in arms about the transaction, seeing the move as a “serious challenge” to the game, notably “the idea of fair play and the concept of financial balance in our competitions.” Evidently, Platini has also occupied some cosmic placing with Pérez, ignoring the obvious movements in money that have typified the game in the last two decades. If he does manage to do a considerable spring cleaning of the entire system, as he promises to do, it will be welcome but nothing short of miraculous. Roman Abramovich and company will not be pleased.

British sports minister, Gerry Sutcliffe, was also ruffled by Real’s galáctico acquisitions, thinking that such transfers divorced players from their fans. Evidently, Sutcliffe has been oblivious to a process of separation that has been taking place for years, one typified by English football itself. The days when player, club and fan were united in a holy, immutable bond are not merely numbered, but gone. The Ronaldo transfer merely confirmed that fact. Even Sutcliffe had to be admit that the economics had been tempting for Manchester United: “[I]t’s good business for the club to sign him for £12m and sell him for £80m.”

While it looks like Real Madrid should be bracing itself for the fall of a giant, it does not look like it will too soon. Many of Europe’s finest clubs are weighed down by enormous debts, but Real Madrid’s belief that their legendary label will continue to earn them victories persists. But if they fail to reap the rewards expected of these famed, cosmically gifted galácticos, such gilded, fickle creatures are bound to leave Real’s orbit for other, money-laden galaxies.

Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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