How football started for joy, turned into massive industry

CAIRO –12 September 2017: Football, or as they say the “people’s opium,” has recently turned into a business or a trade that has attracted a number of businessmen all over the world and even in Egypt.

The football matches in the past only attracted those who played for fun and pleasure, even among those who could afford to play for clubs. Most fathers told their children to concentrate more on their studies and schools.

Today however, many parents encourage their children to focus on their football training and athletic lifestyle because it may be a more secure career than ever before. Players such as the French young talent Kylian Mbappe, 18 who is expected to be sold in the upcoming transfer season for more than $ 150 million, are increasingly more common.

The forms of transforming the football to trade is not only the possession of clubs and investing in it because football professional leagues states that the clubs are owned by independent organizations unlike most of the Egyptian clubs such as Al-Ahly and Al-Zamalek which under the supervision of the ministry of youth and sports but also in the trade of players for huge figures, which considered by some exaggerated.

When we return with the time in the past in the Premier League local clubs was owned by local merchants whose business was linked in one way or another with football for example Liverpool Football Club, for example, was for many years owned by members of the Moores family, which had made its fortune from the Littlewoods football pools company, Manchester United during its 132-year history, has been owned by a brewer, a clothing manufacturer and a butcher.

But by the time this changed for example in 2003 the Russian billionaire businessman Roman Abramovich, which invests in oil and gas industries approached to buy one of London’s clubs Chelsea FC from its former owner Ken Bates in deal closes to £140 million ($233 million) back then, according to BBC website.

After the completion of the deal in favor of Abramovich and a good transfer market Chelsea reached to the second place of the Premier League and reached the final of Champions League, which lost against FC Porto which was coached by Jose Mourinho who became the next season Chelsea’s coach and won with the team the Premier League title for the first time in 50 years and the second in the team’s history, and after titles were followed as the team with Abramovich won 16 local and international titles afterjoining of a large number of the world's best players such as Didier Drogba first Jose Mourinho deals worth £24 million from Marseille, which was considered a large sum but later earned this figure,the Russian businessman has bought a number of top players from all over the world as he bought 72 players for a total of £713 million by 2013 including Hernan Crespo, Juan Sebastian Veron, Claude Makelele, Arjen Robben, Andriy Shevchenko and others, the Daily Mail reported.

Also, RasenBallsport Leipzig the German club is a symbol of how money can affect the football as the club rose from the fifth division to the first division Bundesliga in seven seasons only and in his first season Bundesliga achieved the second place.

RB Leipzig was founded in 2009 thus the club has no fans in a popular game in the first place, the team was established by Red Bull company for energy drinks, which now has five clubs in the world of football and they are New York Red Bulls, New York Red Bull II, RasenBallsport Leipzig, FC Red Bull Salzburg and Red Bull Brazil.

The fans of Borussia Dortmund is one of the largest audiences that register their presence in the games all over the world on the participation of a team, they did not go to Leipzig in the first match between RB Leipzig and Dortmund as an objection to the commercial structure of the opposing team.

Money can make teams compete in the major leagues strongly and as well can make other teams relegate and go down into oblivion like Italy's Parma which have faced the risk of not to complete the 2014-2015 season after the club announced its bankruptcy with debts of £72.4 million, the players have not paid their salaries for months, washed clothes for themselves and went to matches in their cars which resulted that some of them left the club especially after new club president Giampietro Manenti was arrested on charges of money laundering Parma was one of the strongest clubs in Italy and won the UEFA Europa League in 1994/1995 and 1998/1999 and since that time Parma didn’t return to the first Italian division.

Pumping large money in deals are not worth that amount increased prices of the players even if their football skills are modest. After the record of most expensive player in the world was recorded every period of time like Zinedine Zidane was globally most expensive for 8 years when he moved from Juventus to Real Madrid in 2001 with £46 million until Ricardo Kaka broke the record when he moved to Real Madrid also but from Milan in 2009 in a deal worth £56mand then overtaken by Ronaldo in the same year and then Gareth Bale in 2013 and then Paul Pogba in 2016 and last but not least the Brazilian forward Neymar Jr who was playing for one of the best teams of the world over which is the Spanish FC Barcelona has moved to a lower ranked league the French league Ligue1 as he moved to Paris Saint-Germain in the most expensive transfer in the history of football with a financial value of €222 million, the French team is owned by the Qatari business man Nasser Al Khelaifi.

This is what made football to lose part of its pleasure for some as most of the players took the football a job to make their living from not a sport they play to enjoy themselves and the fans, some players talk a lot about how they belonged to their teams and when there is an offer of more money from another team the player leaves his team easily or even go to play in small leagues leaving major European leagues such as the transfer of a number of players with fictional figures to the Chinese Super league which the Mirror called it (is nothing more than an irritant to the Premier League - it's just a fad) on January 22 Stan Collymore’s article title.

What usually happens that the best players go after getting older to the weaker leagues that pay a lot of money as did Gabriel Batistuta at the end of his career years when he moved to the Qatari league, but what is happening now is transferring young players to the Chinese league such as the Brazilian Oscar dos Santos who moved to Shanghai SIPG with £60m, Belgium's Axel Witsel who rejected Juventus to joinTianjin Quanjian FC and the highest salary in the history the Argentinean Carlos Tevez, who earns£32m a year, ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo, who earns £19 million only a year, Ronaldo won the 2016 Euro Cup and Champions League 2017, not only the players but also the coaches were aimed to China, the Italian Champions League winner Fabio Capello recently moved to the training of Jiangsu Sunning FC as well as Italy's World Cup winner Marcelo Lippi in 2006 who coached Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao from 2012 till 2015 before he take the control of coaching the Chinese national team on October 22, 2016, according to Transfer Markt website.

The positive side of what some consider very well in the matter of investment in football is the establishment of clubs academies to bring and train young people, especially in Africa because of the strong structure of youth and all what they need is health care, proper nutrition and proper exercises addition to good level of education is offered by those academies, for example Feyenoord Rotterdam the Dutch was one of the first clubs in this matter as it created the West African Football Academic in Ghana and established a club of the same name now competing in the Ghanaian first division, Feyenoord recently opened an academy also in Egypt on June 16.

Here in Egypt Wadi Degla Club is one of the most successful sports organizations in Egypt. It is one of the few clubs that meets the terms of football professional leagues in terms of owning clubs by private organizations, Wadi Degla opened a club branch in Nairobi, Kenya, the football academy is under the supervision of the English club Arsenal, the established academies in Kenya weren’t only for football there are also academies for tennis, swimming, athletics and squash which is characterized by the club as so many players of both genders participate in the ranking of the top ten on the world such as Raneem El Welily the second on the world.