A sign of the future for North American sports? (long)

[Ajaxab]

This interesting article was posted over at sigames.com:

Abramovich Targets the World
The Beautiful Game
By Giles 04/02/2005

Back in December, Carlos Tevez, the latest player after Javier Saviola and Juan Roman Riquelme to be dubbed “the new Maradona,” finally completed a long expected transfer away from Boca Juniors. His move hardly registered with the British press, who preferred to concentrate on the Ferguson-Mourinho-Wenger ménage a trois and which of them was the latest to have thrown their rattle out of the pram. But dig a little deeper, and this transfer potentially has far reaching ramifications for the transfer world.

On the surface, there are two aspects to this transfer that are immediately unusual. The first is the club that Tevez chose to leave his beloved Boca Juniors of Argentina for: Corinthians of Brazil. It is extremely unusual for players to move between the two countries, especially when one considers the potential financial awards on offer in Europe. Tevez had been considered the top prospect in Argentina, finishing as top scorer with eight goals in the 2004 Olympics as Argentina won gold. He recently retained the South American Player of the Year award, and had been courted by the likes of Bayern Munich, Atletico Madrid, and Barcelona. Rather than joining a team challenging for honours, he chose a struggling club in debt. Not only that, but Corinthians failed to qualify for the Copa Libertadores, South America's Champions League. He will have a long wait for a worthwhile match: next year's Brazilian Championship only gets underway at the end of April. Until then he will have to make do with the São Paulo State Championship, a stage far below his true worth. Tevez will be playing in poor quality matches and on bumpy pitches with defenders all keen to make a name for themselves. It seems a huge personal risk for the forward to take. Corinthians are currently a club in trouble, which leads to the second unusual aspect of the transfer: how did a club who were £12M in debt afford a £10m transfer?

Shortly before the Tevez deal was announced, a London-based investment group, Media Sports Investments (MSI), announced that they were giving £20m (and future cash injections) to Corinthians in exchange for 51% of future profits and future cash injections. So far, so sugar daddy. But MSI are headed up by an Iranian business man Kia Joorabchain, and is believed to represent a group of English and Russian investors. One month before the Tevez deal, Abramovich was seen to be dining with Boca Juniors chairman Mauricio Macri in Buenos Aires, along with Tevez’s agent. Yet Abramovich’s press office says that he was in Moscow at the time!

South American football journalists believe that the Russian oligarch is trying to set up a network of feeder clubs around the globe, so that he can buy and allocate players around the world until needed, and then move them onto Chelsea. Indeed, Chelsea’s latest signing, Czech Jiril Jarosik, joined Chelsea from CSKA, and revealed that CSKA players considered themselves Chelsea ’s reserve team! Abramovich is the major shareholder in Sibneft, CSKA’s sponsor, but has been cleared of any “official” involvement by FIFA. FIFA directives do not allow any one man to own more than one club at one time, but the FIFA investigation did not go beyond use of the phone. No following of money trails. No analysis of accounts or phone records. Hardly an “investigation” at all!

However, Abramovich appears to be setting up controlling influences all over the place. Chelsea have forged strategic alliances with PSV and Porto, along with CSKA, and Feyenoord president Jorien Van den Herik recently revealed to the Dutch press that Abramovich had tried to invest in the Rotterdam club. The strands in this complex web continue to develop. Shortly after having signed Tevez, Corinthians splashed the cash on Brazilian striker Vagner Love from……CSKA.

It appears as if Chelsea and their billionaire owner are not content with being the leader in the transfer market. It also looks as if they will buy players they do not have room for, just to weaken their rivals. From a business point of view, they will probably look to buy non-EU players, who are generally cheaper than their EU counterparts, and aim to sell them at a profit to bigger European teams. For example, a situation could arise where Tevez will probably have no problem setting the Brazilian league alight for a year or so. He could then be farmed onto CSKA or PSV for another year, before finally ending up at Chelsea or another big European team. By this time, his value should have increased. Either way, Abramovich will either have a valuable asset on his hands, or he will have sold him for a handsome profit. This practice of moving assets around could also be used as form of money laundering, something Abramovich has already been suspected of in Russia.

Personally, I do not believe that Abramovich and his billions are in any way, shape, or form, good for football. His Chelsea team are going strong and look invincible at the moment. While I do believe that some credit must be given to Jose Mourinho for the impact he has had on a squad of superstars, I think that if Chelsea finish first, they will not have won the title. They will have bought it. And that is a very sad state of affairs for the beautiful game.

I was really puzzled by the Tevez transfer as it made little logical sense, but this article sheds some light on the move. The question remains as to whether these kinds of arrangements are a long term problem for the game.

Could something like this be a sign of the future for North American sports as they become more global? It isn't inconceivable to me that someone like Paul Allen could buy up a debt-ridden Italian or Spanish basketball team for the ultimate purpose of coaxing their best players to come to Portland. It's not out of the realm of possibility for Steinbrenner to buy up a Japanese club to influence players to come to New York. The draft system certainly mitigates some of the potential problems with these kinds of deals, but I wonder if we'll be seeing these kinds of arrangements here in the next decade or so.

[ISiddiqui]

It sounds interesting, but it also borders on conspiracy theory. The author clearly shows his bias at the end, saying he considers Chelsea to have bought the title, as if other EPL sides have not made HUGE transfers that were important in their title winning. The uber-clubs all will have expensive transfer talent on their sides, so to single out Chelsea is kind of unfair.

[Crapshoot]

Seriously. There is some validity to the arguement, but given that Man U have spent more on their strikeforce than anyone else in the premiership- would the author consider them "buying" the title ? Abrahomovic is interesting no doubt, but I sincierly doubt he's trying to build a worldwide empire in football players.

[condors]

over the last 2 years Chelsea have spent way more than any other club.

That being said nothing is stopping another billionare from doing the same exact thing at another club. Manutd are not going to cry Chelsea has too much money but do everything they can to raise a trophy next season along with every other team in the EPL.

I don't see the EPL having a draft for competitive balance, revenue sharing?

While i love the NFL system because every year could be your teams year i can't see it in the EPL.

Don't like how things are going, can't afford to pay the players, sell the club to someone who can

[ISiddiqui]

And it also isn't the case that ManU or Arsenal can't afford expensive sides. They've shown that they are winning to spend and spend. Look for next year a few more expensive transfers to come to both sides (I expect ManU to get a top notch goalkeeper in the next transfer market).

[JonInMiddleGA]

I'm going to cherry pick a couple of things that stood out to me, the first part is from the article, the second is from Ajaxab's comments at the end. But the two seem to fit together with what I'm thinking.

Originally Posted by Ajaxab

South American football journalists believe that the Russian oligarch is trying to set up a network of feeder clubs around the globe, so that he can buy and allocate players around the world until needed, and then move them onto Chelsea. ... It isn't inconceivable to me that someone like Paul Allen could buy up a debt-ridden Italian or Spanish basketball team for the ultimate purpose of coaxing their best players to come to Portland. It's not out of the realm of possibility for Steinbrenner to buy up a Japanese club to influence players to come to New York.

Essentially, the other league franchises would be serving as a minor league for the "major" club. Given the familiarity of that concept in the U.S. because of baseball's structure, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see an Allen or Steinbrenner or some other enterprising owner do something along those lines. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be popular outside the U.S., I'm also pretty confident that (unless their were rules specifically prohibiting it) it would be no more than a minor ripple in U.S. sports. There's already cash on the table to coax top players out of international leagues into U.S. ones, this would just be a more organized extension of that effort.

[Big Fo]

The whole Abramovich and Chelsea thing is somewhat disturbing. To look at Chelsea's spending and liken it to Manchester United's is completely wrong. Manchester United operate at a profit, Chelsea are over $100m in the red just for the last year. Chelsea have been going around trying to "tap" players when they are still under contract at other clubs, Arsenal's Ashley Cole being the latest example. Last summer Chelsea spent about $80m+ on Veron, Mutu, and Crespo and when they weren't happy with them the players were shipped out for nothing. They money just doesn't matter at all to them. They are like the Yankees of soccer, only without a history of winning. And baseball has a lot more competitive balance rules than soccer. If baseball were soccer, the Yankees could give the Twins $50m for Santana rather than wait until he hits the market.

[Desnudo]

European clubs already have informal if not formal relationships with one club acting as a feeder. Look at the relationships between England and Holland. To bash, Chelsea as the only one doing it shows an obvious bias. Maybe they are doing it at another level, but to me it's just smart soccer.