UEFA Control on Football Club Transfer Fees Research Paper

UEFA Control on Football Club Transfer Fees - Research Paper Example The financially well off clubs would spend lots of money to sign world class players and offer them fat pay checks (Conn 2010, p.32). Regulating how clubs spend their money in buying and paying players can only be done through wage caps. A wage cap defines an agreement that puts a lid on the amount of money that any sporting organization or club can use on paying players. A wage cap could either be per player limit or an entire team limit, or both. UEFA s response to this was to formulate the UEFA Financial Fair Play Regulation in 2009. This process got undertaken by the Financial Control Panel wing of the governing entity (Conn 2010, p.32). Over the last decade, football clubs in Europe have picked up reckless spendthrift tendencies while utterly casting a blind eye to the financial logic by spending lots of cash for overnight success. This school of thought from the football club board members, to extend enormous transfer kitties to club managers thereby allowing them to offer exto rtionist transfer fees and wages, has led to many clubs getting into debt. ...Without these regulations, more teams are likely to overspend in pursuit of short term winning, rather than giving priority to long term stability. This common business practice of poor risk benefits analysis risks the fortunes of the club and weakens the reputation of the whole league. With teams frequently switching markets or regularly going bankrupt, negative precedence of instability may cloud the sport. This leads to loss of interest of fans, who may opt to switch their allegiance to a stable team. Football clubs should embrace realism and stop spending money which they did not make. This will enable football clubs grow and ensure that the glory of the beautiful game as we know does not get lost. UEFA should impose spending cap laws, and spell out harsh penalties to the football clubs that do not abide by these laws. Some of the harsh penalties proposed by football experts include transfer bans, fine s, withholding of prize money, and expulsion from the UEFA Champions League and UEFA cup (Rose 2012, p.9). These sentiments got echoed by UEFA president who stated that more than half the football clubs in Europe keep losing money. He explained that capping the spending of cubs is in the best interest of the club. Shocking research by UEFA has shown drastic increase in the losses accrued by European football clubs. Reports show that losses in 2010 peaked at â‚ ¬1.6 billion, with over 65% of the club leagues in Europe recording massive losses. This has been the case despite the fact that revenues of professional European football clubs have increased by an average of 9.1% annually, over the past six years.