Inflation is Ruining Football2 min read

The last couple of years in world football have come to a complete surprise with the value of players on the market and the amount clubs are willing to pay.

Though Zinedine Zidane possesses a very expensive squad, long gone are the days of Real Madrid’s constant hunt of Elite players for big prices such as Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, once one of the most expensive players in the world.

With financial takeovers from foreign investors dominating football in the last decade, price inflation has shot up rapidly in the beautiful game.

Last year when Paul Pogba surpassed Bale’s record by returning to Manchester United for €105m, we all thought that it would take at least another four or five years till the transfer record would break again.

Yet in the Summer transfer window of 2017, Qatari-owned Paris Saint-Germain defied all odds by the purchase of Neymar from Barcelona, for a shocking fee of €222m.

Days after the Brazilian winger’s departure from the Blaugrana, Barcelona acquired young French starlet Ousmane Dembele from Borussia Dortmund for over €150m.

PSG weren’t finished with their madness as they planned to purchase in-form Kylian Mbappe from Ligue 1 Champions AS Monaco for €180m.

However, Financial Fair Play regulations have forced the Parisians to loan out Mbappe for a year before they can purchase him in order to avoid a penalty.

Now PSG look stronger than ever with their demolition job both in the UEFA Champions League and in France.

However, to all of us watching at home supporting our local sides, it seems these dealings are highly unfair and shows that the FFP regulations are ineffective to super clubs.

Financial fair play was introduced to European football only seven years ago and the rules state that if a club cannot manage to balance their finances between buying and selling, this could lead to either a transfer embargo, competition ban or hefty fine.

Sure, super clubs such as Barcelona and Atletico Madrid have slipped up before but the rest in the top tier of European Football are able to completely afford and avoid regulations, no matter how much they spend.

Smaller clubs on the other hand face the difficulties of maintaining their finances while the FFP breathe down on them.

Embargos or fines can lead these small clubs into extinction, ruining the football experience for their locality.

Sport governing bodies need to do more in order to prevent big clubs turning into household corporations.

The primary way they can do this is to put a cap on transfer fees and player wages.

That way, clubs have more to invest in the football team itself including improvements in training grounds, stadium expansion, helping out the local communities as well as putting emphasis on academy players.

We’ve put so much emphasis in trying to introduce world beaters at the highest level that a lot of the time invested in developing youth at academy level has become obsolete to some super clubs.