Transfer window fever

Barcelona signed Neymar for 57 million euros.

FOOTBALL is much more than a beautiful game. It's also big business. From maintaining pitches to paying the staff, a lot of funding is required to maintain a club or national side.

And yet more financial players are attracted pumping more and more money into the game. Nothing exemplies this more than the transfer window which sees crazy cash being splashed.

The most notable moves so far are Edinson Cavani from Napoli to Paris St Germain, Radamel Falcao from Atletico Madrid to Monaco and Neymar from Santos to FC Barcelona.

They are the best strikers in the world right now and they didn't come cheap. Barcelona signed Neymar for 57 million euros (RM247 million) while Cavani was brought in for 60 million euros (RM260 million)!

Further transfer sagas are being played out around Gareth Bale, Wayne Rooney and Luis Suarez, although Cesc Fabregas and Cristiano Ronaldo now appear to be staying put.

Just take a look at the proposed Bale transfer to Real Madrid. They are going around that he is going to be signed for more than 100 million euros (RM433.5 million) and recently, Tottenham Hotspurs chairman, Daniel Levy said that Bale is worth 100 million pounds (RM 503.28 million)

ESPN soccernet journalist and asian football expert John Duerden was flabbergastered.

"He is not worth the amount talked about but if Real Madrid want to pay that then that is what he costs.

"It’s not the player’s fault. He is obviously a top-class player who should be now entering the peak of his career and one of the hottest properties in Europe but he is overpriced," he said

Former Johor and Perak coach Steve Darby mentioned that the fee is just a number but he also had questions!

"The fee is more than double Suarez's fee, is he worth that? Is he twice the player Suarez is? Is there a gamble on injury history?"

Darby attributed high transfer fees  to the agents involvement in the game.

"As long as the money stays "in the game" the fee to me is irrelevant. Its the money going out of the game especially to agents which can pose a problem."

These kind of incidents will surely affect the financial landscape and recently russian club Anzhi Makchakla's owner Suleyman Kerimov announced that he is going to slash the budget of the club after the team failed to achieve his targets.

Duerden who has vast experience in asian football says it's just a continuation of what has always happened.

"The biggest clubs buy from the big clubs and the big clubs buy from the quite-big clubs and so on.

"The Champions League has entrenched this elite in terms of finance and pulling power.," he added

When asked whether the sheikhs or russian oligarchs were the cause for all this, Darby said they are not to be blamed.

"You can't really blame them as the really big fees have been made by the Spaniards!

"The overall wealth has changed the landscape of the game in England and to an extent France," he said

Duerden always felt that eye-raising transfers fees are a norm in football.

"These days, the money has a more international origin.

"Such ‘investment’ has opened the door for other clubs to get involved like Chelsea and Manchester City. But the process is the same," he said

Players like Cristiano Ronaldo, Fernando Torres and Kaka are top class players and when they moved to their respective clubs, they didn't come cheap.

Cristiano Ronaldo broke the world transfer record when he moved to Real Madrid from Manchester United for 93.9 million euros (RM407 million)

Darby says that even with high pressure causes by the price tag, some can deliver. "Ronaldo has been the obvious success story in terms of goals/per game for Madrid and in a way Beckham also ensured money spent by the club is returned off the field as well as on it.

"Torres was a success for Liverpool but not anywhere near that for Chelsea and players like Bebe who was "only" about 8 million have been real failures," said Darby

Darby feels that smaller clubs will continue to be feeders and it will continue for many years.

"For the last 20 years, small clubs have basically been feeder or development clubs for the wealthy.

"The only way to wealth and success now is via a benefactor (Chelsea or man city) as the wealthy clubs are going to dominate for years to come,"

Darby also said that Johor Darul Takzim FC should dominate the Malaysian League and become a super club with the money they have spent.

Duerden also agreed that it's going to be tough for small clubs to compete with bigger clubs.

"As soon as a player has a good season or two, he joins one of the elite and their massive squads whether it is good for him or not.

"It has always been a challenge. Smaller clubs in the past had success by hiring the right coach and building the right team but it is much more difficult to keep a team together these days,"

Imagine in the next 10 years, we might see a world class lad being purchased for more than RM1 billion!