TIME EUROPE
June 5, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 22
The Money Game
Even as football's cup runneth over, there is a growing sense of unease among fans that riches may ruin their sport
By JENNIE JAMES London
Like the ball with which it's played, soccer is on a roll. It's the sport that has embraced the global community and created a level playing field on which the poorest of nations can compete with the rich. As such it has become a magnet for the new entertainment-hungry media multinationals eager to exploit a vast audience that will be tuning in later this month to the Euro 2000 competition, second only to the World Cup in soccer's seductive lineup. Money is pouring into the game, as the numbers attest. In Europe, cradle of the sport, the top leagues have seen a sturdy surge in revenues, fueled by lucrative television deals. Spanish clubs F.C. Barce-lona and Real Madrid will each earn a reported minimum of $117 million over the next eight years; the leading Italian clubs will pocket around $44 million a year from 2003; German teams in the top division of the Bundesliga will on average share $284 million annually over the next four years. The next broadcasting contract covering all of England's 20 Premier League clubs is expected to top $3 billion over three years when the deal is done in July.
Money may not be the root of all evil, but its ability to taint is becoming acutely apparent. Soccer's rapid commercialization is producing a playing field that is not so even at the level that counts — the clubs that grow the talent and produce the stars to dazzle the crowds. The rich get richer because they can afford the high-priced players that attract the fans and investors; many of the rest dig deeper into debt as they seek to emulate that strategy, gambling that hired guns will lift them into the top bracket. Meanwhile, traditional fans find themselves shut out by exorbitant ticket price increases and costly pay-per-view TV charges.
Money problems are highlighted by prestige competitions like Euro 2000. Witness the rows between clubs and national associations over who should pay players' salaries while they play for their country. Players have to prepare for national competitions like Euro 2000 — run by UEFA, European soccer's governing body — but the clubs they belong to still have to pay them while they are on national duty — with the additional risk of huge losses should a player be injured competing for his country. Governing bodies remain unmoved, pointing out that many national sides would go broke if they had to meet the club wages for players they call up. "Norway has players in clubs in England, in Germany," says Lennart Johansson, UEFA's president, as an example. If the Norwegian Football Association has to meet those salaries, he says, "it is gone."
The rift is also between fans and players. "The money entering the game has driven a wedge between the traditional relationships," says Rogan Taylor, head of the Football Research Unit at the University of Liverpool. In the old days, he says, players earned more than the average worker, "but they also rode home on the bus with them." That's no longer the case: player salaries rose 32% in Italy's Serie A from 1997 to 1998, and 24% in France's Première Division and 29% in England's Premier League from 1998 to 1999. The average weekly salary for Europe's top 20 footballers is an estimated $50,000: players like Alessandro Del Piero of Juventus and Steve McManaman of Real Madrid earn $5 million or more a year. "The players think only of what they can earn," says long-time Real Madrid fan Rene Vic. Players counter that their careers are short, and ask why they shouldn't earn as much as other entertainers, such as actors (see David Ginola's Viewpoint.)
But football fans are more demanding than filmgoers; they argue that their sport is more a way of life than an entertainment. And many of them think money is killing it. Last season, Olympique Marseille's supporters confronted players with messages like ,"You merit only our contempt and our silence," after the generously financed club stumbled from one loss to another. "A bunch of mercenaries," howled Atletico Madrid fans last December, after their team failed to beat a Valencia side reduced to eight men by red cards. When Germany's Borussia Dortmund seemed in danger of being relegated earlier this year, players were jeered by fans for being "crap millionaires." And football fans are paying more and more. Last year average ticket prices rose by 13% in France and 15% in England. In Italy, they rose by 11% between 1996 and 1998.
Colin Whittle, 37, a lifelong supporter of England's Newcastle United, took the club to court, along with some fellow fans, when last year, as part of a stadium reconfiguration, the club said it intended to move them from their seats. Each had paid a $740 bond which they believed guaranteed them that same seat for 10 years. The club wanted the seats to make way for visitors on more expensive luxury or corporate packages — which now account for 10% of the seating at its St. James' Park ground, but 40% of revenue. Newcastle insists it offered a fair trade for the move, including three years of free tickets for knockout competitions such as the F.A. Cup. "I started coming when the club was struggling," says Whittle, who lost the case but is pursuing an appeal. "It's as if the club are saying, 'You made us what we are, but we're moving on and we don't want you anymore.'"
The typical response to these rumblings is that football is on the move. "Soccer is a global language, and sponsors want to speak to people in a language they understand," says Taylor. What's wrong with clubs milking their own worth like any other business? So what if ticket prices are soaring — up more than 10% on last season in some sections of Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium — when that's what the market will bear? So what if the new English and German top division broadcasting contracts contain pay-per-view slots for the first time, if viewers will still tune in? Football might only be starting to exploit its true value, says Stefan Szymanski, a lecturer at the Imperial College Management School in London and co-author of the paper The Americanization of European Football, which argues that football's commercialization is likely to continue. "It's going to cost an awful lot more to watch it in years to come," he says. There are people who will be upset, of course, but that's just the nature of change. "There's a huge number of people who believe they have a right to consume sport in a particular way," says Glen Kirton, a sports marketing specialist, "but nothing in the world can operate without revenue."
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June 5, 2000
COVER
Baby, It's Cold Outside
Tony Blair gave birth to a new Labour Party, but the Prime Minister's promise of a "modern Britain" is going to take much longer to deliver
New Kid on the Block
An open letter to Leo Blair, Britain's youngest celebrity
EUROPE
A Difficult Performance
David Trimble squeezes a close vote from his party to rejoin Northern Ireland's government
All Quiet on the Eastern Front
A decade after the end of the cold war, Germany plans to revamp its army
Guilt by Association
In an apparent postwar payback, a Serbian court jails a group of Kosovo Albanians for "terrorism"
MIDDLE EAST
Courage under Fire
In a defining moment, Prime Minister Ehud Barak makes good on his promise to withdraw Israeli troops from southern Lebanon
The Time Had Come To End a Tragedy
Israel's Prime Minister insists that withdrawing from Lebanon will not harm security, and he warns against a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state
AFRICA
Showdown to Savagery
After Ethiopian forces blitz their way into Eritrea, a bloody two-year war may be closer to its conclusion
Hope Springs Internal
African women may be the key to saving the chaotic continent
BUSINESS
The Money Game
Even as football's cup runneth over, there is a growing sense of unease among fans that riches may ruin their sport
For Love and Money
Why shouldn't a top-level footballer earn as much as an actor does?
Fertile Fields
Movers and takers
Beenz Counters
An upstart firm tries to make its new product the first legal tender of the World Wide Web
The New European Challenge
E.U. firms must grasp the opportunities of an expanding home market
THE ARTS
Dark Victory
At Cannes this year, the jury danced with Björk, but some fine Asian films made a lasting impression
The Art of Science
The eclectic but elegant Musée des arts et métiers reopens in Paris after a decade-long restoration
DEPARTMENTS
Techwatch
World Watch
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