Financial Fair Play takes hold

The challenge for those who govern football is how to keep it alive as they attempt to tackle the sports’s debt crisis.

There is no more optimistic day in the sporting calendar than the opening weekend of the Football League season, when clubs of every size and every budget can justifiably claim the dream is still alive. But analysing how to protect that fantasy is a serious challenge as Financial Fair Play begins to take hold.

Southampton’s summer of sales has underlined just how difficult it is for supporters to keep on dreaming in an era when big clubs with big funds can cherry-pick the best players, even from rivals who appear well-run and well set up. But the rise of the south coast club from League One to the top eight of the Premier League has also been a huge encouragement for any fan whose team is currently languishing in the lower divisions — but who has faith that one day it will be ‘their turn’ to rise through the ranks.