Where has all of the money gone? Transfers in the age of recession and protest

Last week, the world's wealthiest football club, Real Madrid, paid a world record one-hundred million Euro for an unproven Welsh footballer, albeit one coming off of a standout season in the British Premier League with Tottenham Hotspur.

For the fifth time in the history of professional football (more times than any other team), Real Madrid broke the world record transfer fee for a single player. Madridistas may be celebrating that the long protracted transfer is over, but the rest of the world should be gravely concerned by what this means; and not just to football.

Gareth Bale, left, alongside Real Madrid owner Florentino Perez at his official unveiling Monday, September 2, 2013. Bale became the world's most expensive signing of all time when Madrid paid Tottenham 100 million Euro for his services. Photo: Getty Images

 

 Like so many young talents before him, Gareth Bale, a speedy Welsh winger who has developed into one of the world's most promising players, dreamed of the big time. And who can blame him? To achieve great things we must possess ambition, especially in football. The only problem is that Real Madrid's ability to pay for the "big time" is not only creating an enormous disparity in talent between clubs in Spain's La Liga, creates an inequity in television rights, and frankly, is an embarrassment for a country mired in a half-decade long economic slump.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators stage a protest against austerity, near the Spanish Parliament in Madrid, February 23, 2013. Photo: Juan Medina/REUTERS/

In an era where recessions, austerity measures, unemployment, anger and massive protests threaten the old pillars of capitalist democracies, the mega rich see fit to continue slapping everyone else in the face with astounding nonchalance. In this sense, Real Madrid's Midas touch gives them the biggest hand with which to slap everyone else in what has become an irreversibly bloated transfer market in club football.

To spend one-hundred million Euro on one player (and 188.761 million Euro on summer transfers) should be seen as a middle finger to everyone notwithstanding the owner and inner administrative circle of Real Madrid. Singling out Real Madrid, however, would be wrong.

Madrid are joined in the highest peaks of financial muscle by other mega-rich clubs, such as:

-Paris St. Germain (who on July 16, spent 64 million Euros on one player--Edinson Cavani);

Striker Edinson Cavani at his official unveiling in Paris after Paris St. Germain paid 64 million Euro to Napoli for his transfer. Photo: Jacques Brinon/The Associated Press

 -Barcelona (who paid 57 million Euros for the 21 year-old Brazilian prodigy, Neymar);

The 57 million Euro man, Neymar, waves at a packed Camp Nou in Barcelona at his official unveiling.

-Chelsea (63.5 million Euros in summer transfers);

-Manchester City (88.9 million in major summer transfers); and

-Monaco (165 million Euro)

Combine the summer transfer spending of all of those clubs and you come out with a staggering 627.16 million Euro spent on the transfers of just over a dozen players in little under three months. While that may not be enough to fix Greece's economic woes, it highlights how little empathy wealthy football clubs have for the suffering of the economies (and indeed in many cases their own fans) in their home countries.

The ultimate goal of a profession sports team is to win. And in theory, how they manage to do so is their own business. Yet the problem with these clubs is not that they have money, but the way in which they so arrogantly spend it while millions of people (often their own fans) suffer.

At a certain point forking over hundreds of millions of Euros in the face of parlous economic conditions becomes symbolic. It should even make us think about the role of sport in society and the reasons why we turn to sport for entertainment.

While professional football is not necessarily "the opiate of the people," we should not rightfully stand by and let neoliberal economic logic turn the game into a completely lopsided reincarnation of World War II. The summer transfer market shows just how much of a farce club football has become. Hopefully UEFA's Financial Fair Play Rules (which come into effect this year) can rectify these shortcomings, but considering the corruption which has mired football's world governing body over the past half-decade, one cannot be so sure.

Berlusconi the biggot: Why we are not living in a post-racial age

Newly-signed AC Milan striker, Mario Balotelli, was again the source of controversy this past weekend, but not for something he did.

"Super" Mario Balotelli unveiled at the Milanello.

Balotelli was the subject of a racist statement uttered by club co-owner Paolo Berlusconi (brother of AC Milan owner and ex-prime minister Silvio Berlusconi). Paolo Berlusconi used racist language to describe the volatile Italian striker in a political rally for his brother's prime ministerial campaign. The statement, which was captured on a camera phone, at best translates to, "let's go and see the new little black boy of the family play," and at worst, "let's go and see the new little (n word) of the family play."

Paolo Berlusconi speaking at a political rally last week. Berlusconi invited the crowd to "go and see the new little negretto of the family."

While the Berlusconi's have never been tactful orators (see Silvio's description of Barack Obama as having a "sun tan", or Berlusconi's interview alongside former U.S. president, George W. Bush), this new incident represents a new low. It also highlights the pervasiveness of racism in football and in European society in general. Combine this incident with Real Madrid fans' racist taunting (monkey noises) of Dani Alves (who claims that he's experienced similar racism in la liga for the past ten years) last week, and one would be quite accurate in asserting that racism in football is here to stay.

Barcelona and Brazil defender, Dani Alves, claims that he's experienced racism in Spain's la liga for the past decade.

Racism was once a hallmark of football matches. All-time greats, such as Pele, Eusebio, Ruud Gullit, Lillian Thuram, Thierry Henry and others, have described the racist atmospheres in which they played. These players even came to expect such treatment. That racism was a hallmark of football's past, does not excuse its presence in the modern game. Indeed, it shows us how little has changed since the first days that non-white players played in professional leagues.

Former Spain National Team manager, Luis Aragones, for example, once famously commanded midfielder Jose Antonio Reyes to tell "that black shit [Thierry Henry] that you are better than him." Balotelli himself had previously attempted to walk out of a Serie A match against Juventus three years ago when confronted by racist chants from the Juve faithful. Liverpool forward Luis Suarez was fined and banned for several matches during the 2011-2012 season for continuously calling Manchester United defender Patrice Evra, "un negro" on the pitch (language that is somewhat acceptable in the Rio de La Plata region, but not in multiracial societies). In the fall of 2012 ultras from the St. Petersburg-based club, Zenit St Petersburg, created a petition protesting the purchase of black and homosexual players. And perhaps the most egregious recent incident occurred during the 2011-2012 season, when London police brought criminal proceedings against Chelsea defender John Terry for his racist remarks aimed at Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during a match. Terry was also fined and banned several matches for his behavior. 

Luis Suarez (left) was banned for several matches in 2011 and fined for calling Manchester United's Patric Evra a "negro" multiple times.

Despite these recent occurrences, there are some, including FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who would claim that racism is no longer a problem in professional football, that the above incidents are isolated, or that racism is mostly restricted to sporadic bigotry from an Eastern European ultras section. The above examples, however, would suggest otherwise.

There is some truth to FIFA President Sepp Blatter's assertion that racism is a social problem. It is, however, also a "footballing problem." It doesn't take a sociologist to realize that football is not an insular institution immune to wider social problems. If anything, football is a microcosm of the social, economic, and political features of society. The global economic recession, for example, has financially compromised, and even bankrupted certain European clubs, while an exclusive group of wealthy clubs have been generally unaffected (99% vs 1% anybody?). Insofar as it is an integral part of culture and society, what better place to address racism than in a football league?

Certain incidents have prompted harsher punishments from national and international football associations, such as multi-match bans on fan attendance, fines, and threats of tournament exclusion. Both FIFA and UEFA have created anti-racism public relations campaigns ("Kick it out"). The global sportswear giant Nike followed suit in 2005, creating the "Stand Up, Speak Up" anti-racism campaign that they cashed in on by creating advertisements featuring professional footballers wearing their "Livetrong style" black and white bracelets. Yet in spite of all of these efforts, racism continues because none of these actions were sufficient.

Chelsea defenders John Terry (left) and Ashley Cole (right) "do their part" to fight racism. Terry was the subject of an investigation into his alleged use of an epithet towards QPR defender Anton Ferdinand in 2012.

The time has come and gone to "Kick It Out." Corporate anti-racism does not make it "cool" to fight racism. Fines will not change players' attitudes, or make them think twice about using epithets. Stadium bans do not underscore the severity of racism or change fan behavior. There is only one option; an unequivocal hard line.

Players who use racist language towards opponents should be banned for life. Racist crowd chants should be met with the strictest of scrutiny and lifetime team bans from international tournaments, such as the Champions League. While draconian measures may not always work in the criminal justice system (See Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow"), they have never been applied to football. In other words, the threat of exclusion could actually deter racism.

Perhaps Mr. Blatter is correct in asserting that racism is a social problem. But football is part of our social world, so racism is also a "football problem." And before we tackle racism on a macro level, it is also necessary that we tackle it on a micro one, which means applying the most severe punishment to those who engage in racist behavior.

There is no place for racism in football, nor anywhere else in society. It has been said that admitting to a problem is the first step towards recovery. It is therefore time to stop pretending that racism in football no longer exists, and time to get deadly serious about eradicating it from the beautiful game.

NBC's acquisition of Premier League TV rights a blow to American Soccer

 The television broadcasting conglomerate NBC announced on Sunday that, beginning in 2013, they had acquired the domestic television rights to England's Barclay's Premier League (EPL) for the next three seasons.

Allegedly, part of NBC Sport's selling point to EPL league chief executive Richard Scudamore was the "historical quality" of their international sports coverage. (I can only imagine that they're [somehow] alluding to NBC's Olympics coverage, which is about as biased towards American athletes and contextually shortsighted as possible.)

In any case, NBC Sports' deal with the EPL, worth an estimated $250 million, comes as a strong blow to rival cable television networks ESPN and Fox Soccer (FSC), who are the only two stations currently showing Premier League matches in the States.

Fox Soccer in particular, has been steadily losing its television rights to several other premier European soccer leagues. If the network does not act quickly to stop this bleeding, it may soon find itself in the same zone of obsolescence as GolTV, the once proud owners of television rights to Spain's La Liga (from 2004-2012), who now only show German Bundesliga and a few less-popular South American matches. As a result, Rupert Murdoch's satelite television giant DirecTV dropped GolTV from their broadcast packages.

Even with their extravagant financial offer, which was reportedly four times what any other network was willing to pay, NBC will feel confident that they can recoup expenses in a timely fashion given football's increasing popularity in the United States. While this might be music to the ears of English football fans on the "left side of the pond," who for so long had to illegally stream their beloved "Gooners," "Spurs," or "Red Devils,"it may actually hinder the development of football in the United States.

European football fans, such as myself, have long complained about the difficulty in watching European club football in America. Either you had to pay loads extra on your cable bill for a paltry selection of weekly matches, or you illegally streamed the trials and tribulations of your beloved team through your [faulty] internet connection. Depending on the specifics of the deal, NBC's EPL acquisition could change all of that.

As one of the largest broadcast networks in the States with a signal that is included in most basic cable packages, NBC could potentially deliver what Mr. Scudamore called, the "biggest and broadest programing." Yet nothing is universally "good." It's important to remember the "grey areas," or, what's good for one party may be bad for others.

In this case, NBC Sport's previous tenants, the MLS, will undoubtedly suffer from the "new deal."

Not only will the amount of airtime afforded to the less-developed, less-accomplished MLS decrease, but so will their profits and overall visibility. It's not that every American teen who plays soccer dreams of being in the MLS, but the MLS is all many of them have on hand; its teams the only ones that they can see in person, its players the only that they can tangibly look up to.

There's no denying that the EPL is among the world's best leagues. Some of the world's most accomplished footballers ply their trade for Premier League teams and dominate the limelight of world football week-in and week-out. It's also true that English football is more popular in the States and than any other league. But by effectively riding themselves of MLS, NBC is yet again embracing the "logic" of capitalist at the expense of contributing to the development of a national product. Such is globalization people!

Allow me to sum up the idea here if I have not yet been sufficiently clear...

NBC , a highly visible television network, acquires the rights to a more popular league (the EPL). Because NBC is included in basic cable packages (that are cheaper and more accessible than ESPN/Fox Sports), they will attract more viewers, and hence, generate more profits.

They will do this at the expense of the MLS, whose matches were previously shown on NBC. The MLS mostly consists of American and Central American players (it's where the majority of the Yanks and chavales from Central America have been cutting their proverbial "football teeth" before heading off to brighter pastures. In other words, less MLS exposure=less interest in MLS=less profits for the MLS=bankrupt MLS=big problem for the development of domestic talent in the US. Wow, I need to breath for a moment, that was heavy.

The other day I chronicled my first experience at an MLS match between Sporting Kansas City and the Philadelphia Union. The match may not have caused me to fall in love with the "beautiful game" all over again, but the unique passion of their fans encouraged me to give MLS another chance. I have no premonitions that the MLS will ever be a world class football league, but if nothing else, it's middling quality has served a decent purpose over the past decade by generating some solid American talent (Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard, Landon Donavon, Michael Bradley).

Things may now get more complicated for the MLS. If its survival and ability to attract domestic talent was dependent on gate entrances, advertising, and to a lesser extent, television revenue, it may now need to look elsewhere for funding. NBC shot the MLS in the foot with this one.

While this doesn't come as a complete shock, it is disappointing for those of us living and studying in the States who are attempting to break into sports journalism by covering soccer.

We're not in Kansas anymore?/An odd place for "hooligans"

I was in the middle of the Kansas steppe with flowing corn and wheat fields stretching for hundreds of miles on each side of a seemingly endless highway. The wind gusted through that flat terrain with an unseasonable, disconcerting warmth. And then, all of a sudden pearly artificial lights pierced the landscape. Chain restaurants and retail stores built in the cowardly faux neoclassical style, so typical of some newer sections of the United States, grabbed one's attention like a light at the end of a tunnel. Just beyond the cluster of shops and restaurants it appeared-a bright collasal pentagon made of concrete and white metal, with four sizable surrounding entrances....

This was "Liverstrong Stadium."

Livestrong Stadium

So what exactly were 20,000 screaming soccer fans doing here? And why did this stadium, as of October 24, 2012, still carry the name of a cheater's organization?

Ex-US Postal Service cyclist Lance Armstrong's well-documented doping scandal has left his legacy in tatters. He's been stripped of his record seven Tour de France medals and has been forced to relinquish control of his cancer foundation, Livestrong.

PR representatives from Kansas City's Major League Soccer team, Sporting Kansas City, say that they are not considering re-naming their home ground, Livestrong Stadium. Controversial? Maybe slightly. But what's really in a name? With the team now in first place, clearly not everything.

I recently had the chance to visit the well-reputed home ground of the team formerly known as "The Kansas City Wizards" (a name more fitting than "Sporting," which stinks of a crude attempt at Europeanizing a 17-year old club with no tangible connection to Lisbon, Portugal or its 106 year-old Sporting Lisboa soccer club) and came away from the experience with several new impressions of soccer in the United States.

A birthday present to remember with fun people

The pitch at Livestrong Stadium was composed of nicely-manicured natural grass (a rarity for American sports fields these days). It was surrounded by comfortable well-designed seats with unobstructed views in every row, luxury boxes for the well-to-do, and standing room areas with plentiful access to "food and drink," from where I observed the match.

My friends and I presented our tickets to the ushers and crowded into a surprisingly well-filled stadium. The stadium's atmosphere and general aesthetics were inviting, yet professional-professional in the sense that the design (overhanging roofs, readily accessible food and beverage stations, memorabilia shops at every corner) mimicked the most renowned European and South American stadiums-and inviting in the sense that this felt like a team's true home.

That night Sporting Kansas City, who occupied first-place in the Eastern Conference of the MLS, would play third-from-last Philadelphia Union. The home fans were decked out in sky blue shirts. The supporter's section, filled to capacity, flew supportive banners and cheered on their squad with a fervent passion that I had not personally witnessed since Euro 2012. They even sang their own songs (in the spirit of their European and South American counterparts). Yet unlike some European and South American fans, these were better-behaved "hooligans," content to sing and cheer without resorting to the darker arts of flare throwing, racial abuse, or violence.

What began as a birthday present from a friend, ended with a new impression of a nascent soccer league still trying to establish a unique identity and appeal to a wider crowd.

While I can't say that I was initially excited by the prospect of attending an MLS match, I was impressed, however, by the venue and by the prominence and creativity of the Sporting fans. I can now even see how MLS could develop into an internationally-competitive league (certainly not on par with Argentina's Primera Division or Brazil's Serie A, but perhaps more akin to Mexico's Liga MX or Uruguay's Primera).

Improving this league, however, might require some difficult decisions. The difficulty will be in establishing a youth system that is unhindered by the demands of higher education and college sports. This in essence, is the key difference between the European/South American educational model and the American version.

Whereas European children generally specialize in a subject or pursue a professional track early in their lives, Americans follow the general education principle. It may be hard to unanimously defend either model, but European soccer clubs, who generally begin "educating" players as young as five, have clearly developed an enviable profit-making system.

I've never considered following the MLS, mostly because I've already chosen my loyalties and prefer to follow the established, high quality European and South American leagues. That's not to say that I'll never follow MLS, but I wasn't exactly encouraged by the quality of play that night. Even Sporting KC, a league-leading team, reminded me of the technically dull college soccer that has hindered the development of a decent professional league since the inception of the MLS. Many MLS players cut their teeth with college soccer teams, which given the learning curve for young players, seems like a waste of time.

As easy as it was so criticize some of the slack dribbling, lazy passing, and sloppy play of the Sporting KC and Philadelphia players, they were "doing what they loved and getting paid for it," as one of my friends reminded me.

Confetti rains down as Sporting makes it 1-0

In the end Sporting won 2-1 in a back-and-forth match that made me want to quit drinking the warm Budweiser, which was failing to quench my thirst, and step onto the pitch myself to show the world what I (maybe) still possessed. The blue confetti that reigned down in the Philadelphia half after a Sporting goal, however, snapped me back to my senses. The MLS has come a long way since its inception in the mid-1990's, but it's also got a long way to go.  Teams like Sporting KC and the Seattle Sounders, however, have started to do things the right way and maybe the models for the growth of this league.

An Egyptian In Terre Haute: Soccer's Presence In An Unlikely Place

              Four nights ago the world witnessed the colorful opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics.  Kenneth Branagh, Paul McCartney, and several other British celebrities were among the thousands of performers who, garbed in traditional British raiment from various historical periods, paraded onto the expensive, perfectly trimmed grass field in London’s new Olympic Stadium. 

Despite receiving heaps of praise from both the domestic and foreign press, the opening ceremonies were budgeted at an astounding £37 million pounds.  True, they cost £18 million less than those of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. However, such extravagant spending deserves a high level of scrutiny in light of the regime of austerity imposed on British society, including university students, whose recent protests against rising tuition rates have made international headlines. What better way to demonstrate fiscal responsibility during a time of economic crisis than by spending millions on a lavish two-hour ceremony in a stadium that cost nearly £500 million?

           

I pondered this while driving through one of the United States’ most economically depressed areas-southwestern Indiana. I stopped in a small city called Terre Haute, birthplace of the nineteenth-century socialist Eugene Debs and home to Indiana State University. Sports fans might recall that Indiana State is the alma mater of basketball legend Larry Bird. These days the city, with its multitude of empty lots, abandoned buildings, crumbling businesses, dilapidated houses, potholed streets, and rampant heroin use, is the epitome of how bad things in Middle America have become. 

A Street in Terre Haute, Indiana

Attempting to find a decent restaurant with the help of my smart phone only heightened my impression of Terre Haute’s desperate state as I discovered that two well-reviewed restaurants had closed. Yet despite the rampant blight, some areas of town appeared immune to the economic downtown.  Resigned to checking out one more restaurant, I passed through several leafy blocks containing airy, Victorian-style houses, which lent an aura of pride, or at least exclusivity to the neighborhood.  “Magdy’s” a seafood, pasta, and meat restaurant that described itself as “Italian” sat on the edge of Indiana State’s frat row in a cavernous sky-blue Victorian. Its peeling dark wood interior, masterfully constructed curving staircase, fully stocked bar, and lack of diners were all testaments to a livelier past.   

 Magdy's in Terre Haute, Indiana

A tall, unanimated waiter/bartender led me to a table next to the bar and mixed a praiseworthy old fashioned before taking my food order.  The vegetable risotto and penne alla vodka that arrived half an hour later were tasty, fresh, and clearly homemade.  Anticipating a barely passable and enormously portioned meal, I was surprised by the quality of the fare-I had to know who this chef was.

After finishing my meal, a portly and sweaty olive-skinned cook emerged from the kitchen and filled himself a glass of sparkling water from the bar.  He asked me where I was from in a thick middle-eastern accent, and before I could answer speculated that I was passing through from Chicago “or something.”  I gave him a shortened version of my story, mentioning that I had lived in Argentina for a period, which prompted him to ask me if I knew about Maradona.  I explained that I was a budding sports journalist, that soccer was my beat, and that I considered “El Pibe de Oro” the greatest footballer of all time.  Although he admired Maradona, and even possessed an old school 1986 World Cup Argentina jersey, he seemed taken aback by my proclamation of Maradona as the greatest, preferring, as many do, the Brazilian Pelé. 

Pelé Doing What He Did Best

Before continuing our discussion of world football, I inquired about the chef’s origins.  He explained, with some reluctance, that he was from Alexandria, Egypt, and had come to the US several decades ago.  He had met a woman in New York City whom he married. She was from Indiana and they moved to her hometown of Terre Haute. The marriage didn’t last. Some years later, he married again, this time to an Egyptian woman. 

And here he was in Terre Haute, an old Egyptian football lover from Alexandria.  With a little more prodding I got him talking about his youth.  He told me about Egypt’s love of Brazilian football, their obsession with Pele, a cerebral goal-scoring maestro, who, “none would ever equal.” He reminisced about gathering around a television with hundreds of onlookers waiting for the famed number 10 to make good on his two goal pre-match prediction during a club exhibition game in Egypt. We discussed other Brazilian legends of the past: Garrincha, Sócrates, Zico, Ronaldo, whom he revered almost as much as the great Pelé himself.  Most fascinating of all, he recounted his football playing days as a child, describing Alexandria as a former hotbed of street soccer where children would improvise their own balls out of cloth and plaster and play from dusk to dawn, interrupted only by the protests of angry neighbors whose windows might have been smashed by rogue soccer balls, or by their mothers calling them in for lunch. 

Street Soccer ear Alexandria, Egypt

The conversation seemed to bring back a youthful exuberance and temporarily melt two decades of toil from his face. Yet this chef, like the town of Terre Haute itself, seemed stuck in the past, unwilling to praise today’s professional footballers (or in the town’s case, overcome the harsh reality caused by mass de-industrialization).  Even so, here in this Midwestern town that had seen better times, was the living embodiment of the “internationalist” spirit preached by the Olympics. Here was an Egyptian who professed his love of football, played the Brazilian way, with all of its classic skill, flair, and inspiring samba style.  That he could cook Italian food as well as an Italian was beside the point, but I nevertheless praised his excellent cooking and thanked him for his reminiscences that inspired this piece of writing.   

Before leaving Magdy’s we briefly discussed Egypt’s current political situation, a delicate topic, yet one that he somehow viewed with cautious optimism, shrugging off the military’s tight control of the country and the new president’s affiliation with the Muslim Brotherhood.  “I must stay loyal to my family, continue to work hard, and look to the future with a positive mind,” an attitude learned from the hardships of a migrant’s existence in a city that, at this point, can only improve.