Following the big money take over at Manchester City, Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has spoken out about the fact that he believes football is in danger of becoming destabilised by the amount of outside investment coming into the game.
Wenger has always insisted that clubs should operate within the financial limits of the business rather than relying on ridiculous investment from wealthy owners.
“If you push that too far, there are no rules any more. Once you get to the prices mentioned in the media, where is the logic? There is too much destabilisation.”
With reference to Robinho’s hilarious press conference when he referred to the club he had signed for as Chelsea, Wenger said, “What is worrying for me is that a player signs somewhere and then the next day he does not even know where he has signed. You cannot say that is a good trend. Football is not a supermarket, we have to all understand that.”
Real Madrid’s long-running and very public courting of Cristiano Ronaldo has also come in for criticism from Wenger who was on fine form.
“You cannot come out and say ‘we pay £250,000-a-week to Ronaldo and £135million’, when the player has a six-year contract with Manchester United. It is not possible or acceptable. There is money in the game, and I take it in a positive way – but the football bodies have to make sure that money is ruled properly and used well for the ethics of the game. I always did fight for my whole life for the players to make as much money as possible, but you also have to respect what football is.â€Â
I rarely find myself agreeing with Mr. Wenger, although I totally admire his abilities as a manager. On this occasion I realised that I completely agreed with him and couldn’t argue with him at all. Then he went on to say one more thing.
“Football came out from the roots of the country through local communities who identified themselves with their team, and we have to be careful not to destroy that.”
I agree with that as well, but I’m not sure Mr. Wenger is in a position to criticise teams who have moved away from their local communities. Not too many North London boys have featured for Arsenal in his managerial tenure at the club have they?
(Source – BBC)
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