IT is probably the transfer “deal of the century”, Brazilian football star Neymar’s €222 million (RM1.1 billion) world-record transfer to Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) last Friday. If money does make the world go round, as Liza Minnelli so raucously reminded us in Cabaret, it has a nasty habit of biting the hand that feeds it.
The previous world-record transfer fee of £89.3 million (RM498 million) paid by Manchester United to Juventus for Paul Pogba a year ago — his second spell at Old Trafford having left the club for Juve for a mere £1.5 million in 2012 — pales in comparison with the Neymar deal.
More disturbingly, in the space of a year, football transfer market inflation has burgeoned by a staggering 224 per cent.
If one considers that Maradona, a far more gifted player than Neymar, moved from Boca Juniors to Barcelona for just £3 million in 1982, the inflation multiplier would be off the statistical chart.
Imagine for a moment that the beautiful game was a country.
In inflationary terms, it would be deemed a banana republic, aka Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Are football and its governance akin to a banana republic?
No one begrudges what top footballers earn, especially in a short career span of 15 years at best. They are not even at the apex of the money pecking order. These are the top owners, administrators, broadcasters and agents — often in cahoots in furthering their interests, primarily at the expense of hapless football fans and viewing public, who are held hostage to their fortune. Mino Raiola, Pogba’s agent, reportedly earned £41 million from that deal. God knows what Neymar’s agent stands to net from his transfer.
The Neymar move, as layered as it is, may prove to be a transfer too far, and confirms that football has been transformed from a pursuit of sporting endeavour into a business brand by owners, whose motives and fitness and probity are at best self-serving and, at worst, undermining the traditional spirit of the beautiful game.
There is a sense of déjà vu — we have been here before whenever we have such excesses whether in transfer fees, scandals relating to football agents, match-fixing, doping, sports betting, players’ addiction to gambling and drugs — urging politicians, parliaments, governing bodies, anti-competition authorities to deal with this rampant and unfettered commercialisation and mismanagement of what is supposed to be the people’s game.
It makes a mockery of the Union of European Football Associations (Uefa) Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, fit and proper regulations for owners and football governance framework. The European Commission, through its Competition Commissioner and Uefa, is supposed to be in “permanent dialogue” to ensure “consistency between the rules and objectives of financial fair play, and the policy aims of the Commission in the field of state aid”.
Apart from the odd members of parliament, both in individual capitals and in Brussels, voicing their concern over the perceived corruption that has beset football and its governance, especially at the International Federation of Association Football (Fifa), Uefa and the Brazilian Football Association, football continues its march from one excess to another.
This is partly because the modern game is driven by money from Russia, China, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, whose owners are often fronts for sovereign wealth funds (SWFs), private offices of the royal court, hedge funds, private equity purveyors and oligarchs. They invest to make money and sometimes for geopolitical prestige, and they are secretive about their ownership and activities.
Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), the owners of PSG, makes no secret that it “is a closed shareholding organisation”, refusing to disclose its shareholders, whom we know the main one is Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), the SWF of the emirate, whose corporate disclosure is bereft of its investment portfolio and whose total assets under management amounted to US$320 billion (RM1.4 trillion) last month.
QSI’s board consists of four sheikhs, led by chairman Nasser Ghanim Al Khelaifi, and one woman, lawyer Sophie Jordan. The latter’s connections surely raise questions under Uefa’s FFP rules, for she is also on the PSG board and is deputy general director of beIN Sports France, part of the beIN Media Group. Her mandate is to transition the Qatar-government owned Al Jazeera Sport of the television group into beIN Sports international network.
PSG was fined £20 million in 2014 by Uefa for violating FFP rules relating to a commercial contract with Qatar Tourism Authority. Will the commission and Uefa indeed investigate the Neymar deal?
QSI mission statement is revealing: “Our aim is to contribute to the rapid growth of sports investments in Qatar and abroad. We aim to provide innovative investment solutions to ensure successful financial returns.”
Sheikh Al Khelaifi is Qatar’s riposte to Sheikh Mansour Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, the owner of City Football Group whose assets include Manchester City.
Is QSI’s brash activity in the high-profile European football transfer market the latest manifestation of the proxy war between the gang of four and Qatar?
With Qatar under a blockade, the investment wisdom of spending €220 million on a player where the return is neither guaranteed nor justified borders on hubris.
Neymar’s move is risky business. Like Manchester City, PSG is not a major club with an iconic history. The French Ligue 1 is nothing compared with La Liga and the English Premier League. In footballing and historical terms, Barcelona, Man United, Real Madrid, Bayern Munich et al are the pinnacle. Nothing short of winning the Champions League on a regular basis could offer the Brazilian star sporting fulfilment. Otherwise, it is all about money.
As such, whether QSI “sets the benchmark for all kind of investments, particularly in sports” as its aims, is as much a moot a point as it is outrageous.
Mushtak Parker is an independent London-based economist and writer. He can be reached via mushtakparker@yahoo.co.uk