‘Tough action will be needed if we want football competitiveness again’

Over the past decades the competitiveness in European and domestic club football has sharply declined. It spoils the fun of the beautiful game and ultimately brings in to question what is deemed fair play and what we want club football to be like. Tough action will be needed if we want football competitiveness again, or otherwise we will see the same two dozen or so clubs dominate the game each season.

Last evening I ended up watching the BBC Icons of Football documentary on John Robertson. Aside being struck by the shere talent and impressive career of the left winger, it also hit me how different the game was in the 1970s and 1980s. Back in 1979 teams like Nottingham Forrest FC ended up playing teams like Malmö FF in the European Cup final. No matter how bold you want to bet on a game, in today’s day and age no one would think a club like Nottingham Forrest or Malmö could ever reach a European final.

We don’t necessarily have to go abroad to see what a lack of competitiveness does to a competition. In Scotland Celtic FC and by some distance Rangers FC, have dominated the domestic finals and top spots for years. And it seems foolish to think this will change. If yesterday’s opening match round showed anything, then it is that Celtic appear near undeafatable by nearly all of the domestic teams in the Premiership once more.

This made we wonder, why was it so normal in the 1970s and 1980s that regular clubs from small towns and cities had the chance to win prizes, but nowadays you see the same clubs play for the prizes each year. Today the game is almost predictable, and less fun to watch for the average fan overall. A rather obvious key factor is the role that money plays and the different abilities among teams.

In the 2011 season UEFA introduced Financial Fair Play regulations into the game. This essentially meant that clubs in Europe have to prove they do not have debts and break-even on their expenses each season. A number of clubs have broken these regulations for several seasons in a row, without significant consequences to date. So far teams like Manchester City or FC Barcelona have not been given any significant sanctions, while their finances over the past decade have been put into question several times.

Back in the days of John Robertson it was normal that players stayed at clubs for numerous seasons or all their life, and buying and selling players for hundreds of thousands pounds or even millions of pounds was pretty rare. This shows to me that the capitalization of football into a market of buying and selling the best players on a continious basis is one of the key factors that creates this monopoly at the top.

If we were to curb the number of players clubs can buy or sell in a season and to equalize the amount of money a club is allowed to spend on new players this may come a long way in bringing back the days of John Robertson and football competitiveness. Imagine each club in the Premiership had up to 5 million pounds to spend on players, could only buy or sell one foreign player each season and had to meet the same training and facility criteria. This would not only boost the smallest clubs and bring new investments and jobs to local towns, it would make football far more competitive.

If one competition implements more stringent Financial Fair Play regulations it will likely make few difference in improving football competitiveness. But when introduced on a continental or global scale this will have an impact. Without tougher restrictions on Financial Fair Play and limitless possibililties for a few clubs, and few to no possibilities for the rest, we will keep seeing the same clubs dominate domestically and in Europe. Imagine being able to watch Kilmarnock play Celtic or FC Barcelona and realizing they actually stand a chance at winning silverware. In today’s world that is unheard of and deemed complete lunacy, but with some will we can bring back the competitiveness, fair play and ultimately the fun that did exist in football for decades.