Capitalism is killing international football
Last week Manchester United were linked with teenage Brazillian twins. They aren't in their late teens like Theo Walcott or even Wayne Rooney. Rafael and Fabio are under-15s and will actually arrive at Old Trafford in three years' time. Twenty or 30 years ago, both kids would really need to have played international football to have caught the eye of Alex Ferguson or the club scout. But the kids are middle-class enough to have agents at that age, and the club sharp enough to find them. They spoke of the responsibility they bore to their families and the challenge they faced to make it as footballers. Football has changed. No-one needs international football anymore.
International football used to serve a purpose for the big clubs as a breeding ground for new talent and a giant scouting opportunity. Now football between countries is just a costly exhibition game as far as the clubs are concerned. Hence the G-14 group are trying to murder international football. In case you missed it, the G-14 group are the self-elected elite clubs of Europe who, for a couple of years, muttered darkly of rising unease among their shareholders with the governing bodies, first UEFA and then FIFA. For a while they seemed harmless enough. Like most self-elected elites, they met in swanky hotels and offered a twisted view of the world's football landscape, complete with fancy propositions of a European Super League. It seemed they were too bloated and fractured by self-interest to matter. Then came the Charleroi case.
The G-14 group (it actually encompasses 18 clubs but counting isn't the groups' strong point) became obsessed with international football.
They've been using Charleroi football club as a puppet, suing FIFA for damages after one of the Charleroi players got injured playing for Morocco. But suing for damages means they're looking for compensation each time a player is used for international football. It's the capitalist way to get paid for renting your commodity to another user.
The case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.
Just consider for a moment exactly what it means to ask for payment each time a player gets used for international football. A 23-man squad earning on average €20,000 per week, together for five weeks for an international football tournament means qualifying for the World Cup would cost €2.3 million in wages. That's before you hire a training ground in the Pacific Ocean with no training gear and a bumpy pitch.
Not many countries can afford that. Add in another eight weeks qualifying and we're bust. International tournaments as we know them will contract to the big countries bank-rolled by five or eight sponsors, who generate all the cash and work with the clubs to control the players. It'll become Brazil and Argentina versus Europe East and West with America and Australasia trying to beat China and Japan. Joy.
Some commentators claim that the fusty judges of the European Court of Justice will look at the fat suited men and their lawyers on either side and come to the judgment that football isn't a commodity, that it's not a business to be treated by the same rules as trading in sugar or oil. This is folly. Only the players can save football, with a bit of help from the fans. If we don't stop them, G-14 will kill international football.