Clubs must be creative with cash

Back in 1996, just before Champions League cash really began to change football, an official from one of that season’s semi-finalists was caught in a discussion about the future of the game.

He was unusually dismissive on the financial aspect: “Football is a love and cannot be translated into money.”

It is a lovely sentiment — but also one sadly removed from reality, particularly in the context of when it was said. The words were uttered by Panathinaikos president and shipping magnate Giorgios Vardinoyannis, as his team prepared to take on defending champions Ajax in the last four. That scenario now seems improbable. Both sides were facing pressure from bigger clubs to sell their best players; neither team has reached the semi-finals since.

Economics trampled over any emotion like love. Now, the reality has moved on to a radical degree. In contrast to what Vardinoyannis thought, everything in football is now translated into money. It is far more than a cliché to say finance conditions the game like never before in history.

The latest figures on the 2012-13 Premier League campaign produced by Kieron O’Connor at the brilliant Swiss Ramble blog further indicate that. There are a number of fascinating details contained within his work, from the manner in which Manchester United are still managing their debt, to the true extent of QPR’s failure last season.

The defending English champions were the only one of the 20 clubs whose wages represented just less than 51% of their turnover. There is also the amount of cash reserves that Arsenal possess, and Chelsea’s surprisingly reduced wage bill.

A lot of this is intriguing, but the deeper interest lies in how much of it is relevant on the pitch? How difficult is it really for lesser-resourced clubs to compete? If money is now so conditioning, how much merit is there in any football achievement?

While many aspects of these things are open to interpretation, the majority of evidence suggests that league tables most closely conform to wage bills.

Because, while net spend can be more influenced by the fluctuations of the market and willingness or reluctance to buy, salaries better reflect the general resources of a club.

In that regard, even the distilled table alongside this article offers a lot of discussion. Most notably, there is the identity of the managers to have most ‘overachieved’ relative to resources last season: Steve Clarke, Michael Laudrup, Chris Hughton, David Moyes and Sam Allardyce. All have either been sacked or come under immense pressure.

At the same time, it is one of the managers who notionally under-performed last year who proves the folly of looking into any single season.

Brendan Rodgers didn’t have Liverpool playing to their maximum over 2012-13 as he integrated the squad to his approach but this season is seeing the benefit of that, and there is no disputing Rodgers is now exceeding economics.

That also points to deeper reality about financial resources, one summed up by his fellow overachiever.

“Of course it is about finance,” Everton’s Roberto Martinez said a few weeks ago, “but there’s no good in feeling inferior. I always thought you take what you’ve got and then take the most from it.

“It’s not about the number; it’s what you can do with the finances that come in... you have to be creative.”

That is the key. This season, all of Rodgers, Martinez and Atletico Madrid’s Diego Simeone have displayed that you can still temporarily match wealthier teams with superior thinking. Similarly, Mourinho has argued money is no guarantee of success. “Even with [everything], if the manager is not good, you don’t do it. So the manager also has to do a good work.”

Mercifully, for all Mourinho’s theatrics, there is objective truth to it. Money conditions a lot in football, but it still only provides the base. Beyond that, as the figures prove, managers and players can still have a conspicuous effect.

That has not been lost in translation just yet.