Dec 31, 2003 11:00 PM
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(Updated Dec 31, 2003 11:07 PM)
Football is the most popular game in the world. It is now one of the largest industries in the world where millions of people earn their daily bread from this game. After the development of satellite TV channels now there is much money in World football. In the past the main source of income for football clubs was ticket sale. So, every club wanted to have more people come in the stadium and watch the games. They always tried to arrange the football matches in a time convenient for the people. Now it has totally changed. The top football clubs of Europe are flooded with money from television, sponsors and selling of team jerseys and other items. Now football matches are played at a time good for television audience. Businessmen are also interested to buy big clubs. This season we saw that Roman Abramovich, a billionaire businessman and Chelsea's new Russian owner, Spent almost £100 million on players from Britain and all around the world - Glen Johnson (£6m), Geremi (£7m), Wayne Bridge (£7m), Damien Duff (£17m), Joe Cole (£6.6m), Juan Veron (£15m), Adrian Mutu (£15.8m), Alexi Smertin (£3.4m), Hernan Crespo (£16.8m) and Real Madrid's Claude Makelele (£16m). And then another Russian business man, Alexander Mamut, the founder of Russia's MDM-Bank, was getting interested to buy another English club, Blackburn Rovers.
This trend of spending huge amount of money has been going on for last 15 years when satellite television became popular around the world. Now in Asia many people watch the matches of English Premier League, Spanish League, German League and Italian League. People all over Asia watch these matches not only in Iran. The matches of UEFA cup are broadcast in North America, South America, Asia and Australia by the TV company ESPN. So, Television companies are eager to buy the exclusive rights to broadcast these matches in around the world. As a result there is much competition among TV channels in Europe to get the right and naturally the channel that pays most money get the scope. The TV channels get the money from two sources: (1) subscription of football fans to receive the channel and (b) advertisements during the football matches.
But at present TV companies are of this competition of big money because often they are buying the rights at a very high price. Sometimes, TV companies suffer loss because they can’t get enough advertisements and subscriptions. For example now TV companies are calling for decrease of sponsorship deals for broadcasting matches of English football. The same thing happened for UEFA Champions League too. This season UEFA is getting 15% less money from TV companies.
Another major source of income is sponsorship. This comes in two ways. First the clubs are sponsored by big companies and in return the name and logo of the club is displayed in the jersey of the club. Secondly, the clubs get a lot of money by selling jersey, shoes, books, videos, gift products and other items. The big clubs of Europe get a lot of money by selling these kind of products in South East Asian countries like China, Singapore, Korea, Malaysia and so on. In recent years European clubs also go to South East Asian countries to play exhibition match and get a lot of money this way. For example this August Real Madrid went to play in China, Japan, Thailand and Hong Kong some exhibition matches. It brought real huge amount of profit. And Real Madrid has signed an agreement with a Marketing company that will bring them 40 million euros in the next three years from South East Asia. In the last 10 years Manchester United has opened up 10 Mega stores in South East Asia. David Beckham is a very popular player in China, Japan and Korea. Now Real Madrid is enjoying the benefit in South East Asia. And now Real Madrid is planning to come to India to play exhibition matches and earn a lot of money. Soon, the big clubs of Europe will come to Middle East and America too.
The dark side of this money story is that only few clubs are getting it. Most of the small clubs in Europe are suffering financial problems because they have to pay high wages to their players too to stay in the premier division. And this money is limited to only European clubs. Clubs of Argentina and Brazil are not getting this kind of advantage. As a result many talented players like Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Roberto Carlos (of Brazil), Veron, Crespo, Batistuta (of Argentina) are playing in the European Leagues not in Brazil or Argentina. African clubs are suffering in the same way too. Thus often African and South American countries cannot get their star players when the play international matches because these star players have to be engaged into the Leagues.
This flow of money has both good and bad sides. It is making football more entertaining and attractive. However, it is also destroying the human side of the game. For example now the schedule of most football matches are organized keeping in mind of the conveniance of the television audience not that of the players or of the supporters who go to the stadium.
