Fair Trade Soccer
Fans across cultures argue that soccer used to be a lot fairer. A middling team, fueled by gritty players and loyal fans, could emerge from nowhere to hoist the championship trophy. What’s more, these underdog teams often hailed from smaller cities, without massive stadiums or deep-pocketed owners. That level playing field, some fear, has disappeared ...
Fans across cultures argue that soccer used to be a lot fairer. A middling team, fueled by gritty players and loyal fans, could emerge from nowhere to hoist the championship trophy. What's more, these underdog teams often hailed from smaller cities, without massive stadiums or deep-pocketed owners.
Fans across cultures argue that soccer used to be a lot fairer. A middling team, fueled by gritty players and loyal fans, could emerge from nowhere to hoist the championship trophy. What’s more, these underdog teams often hailed from smaller cities, without massive stadiums or deep-pocketed owners.
That level playing field, some fear, has disappeared entirely. With their global chains of superstores and vast array of television deals, the big clubs have become wealthier, not just in absolute terms, but relative to the poorer clubs. Sales from Ronaldo’s and Beckham’s replica jerseys bring Real Madrid more income in a month than many clubs make in a year, so it’s no surprise that Real so frequently rolls over its poorer foes in the Spanish game. Indeed, the results of domestic competition are virtually preordained. Manchester United or Arsenal of London has won 10 of the last 11 English Premier League titles. If you support an Italian team other than Juventus or AC Milan, you wake up every morning with a depressingly accurate sense of how the final league table will ultimately shake out.
Such lamentations, which sound a lot like the left’s critiques of global free trade, are hard to resist. They have an aura of romance. But they simply don’t withstand close examination. The richest clubs have always dominated their leagues. They might not be the same rich clubs; neither Liverpool nor Atlético Madrid nor Borussia Moenchengladbach dominates as they once did. Even so, the ruling elite of European and Latin American soccer has been extraordinarily constant over time. Teams like Juventus and Manchester United only fall from their thrones for brief and historically insignificant spells.
Globalization has actually added a measure of mobility to the system. Foreign investors have created new powerhouses overnight. Chelsea, funded by Russian oil money, looks poised to break the monopoly in English soccer. Parmalat has used money from its international sale of dairy products to rocket clubs in Italy and Brazil to success. Of course, it is possible to overstate the glory of the new soccer order. A few years ago, a Swedish parliamentarian named Lars Gustafson nominated the game for a Nobel Peace Prize, unleashing a fury of ridicule. And his critics have a point. Soccer doesn’t deserve a prize for peace. It deserves one for economics.
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