No English clubs left in the Champions League? Blame it on the financial crisis....
Written by The Indian Express
2 min read
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Five minutes past halftime at Old Trafford on Wednesday night,a young Brazilian named Rafael da Silva tugged at the shirt of Bayern Munichs winger Franck Ribery,and got himself sent off. As a consequence,a 10-man Manchester United allowed the German club through to the semi-final stage of the Champions League to meet Olympique Lyonnais from France. The other semi-final? Italys Inter Milan versus Spains FC Barcelona. Not an English club in the lot,something that must have been at the back of Manchester manager Alex Fergusons mind as he accused two Bayern players of persuading the referee to send off da Silva in a typically German manner. The two Bayern players in question were French and Dutch.
For almost a decade now,the English Premier League has dominated European soccer; not since 2003 has the Champions League gone to semi-finals without an EPL club. EPL clubs spent big,and won big; a permanent gap seemed to have opened between them and their European rivals. Is this year a blip,as Chelsea FCs Italian manager insists? Or a permanent decline,as Bayerns president Uli Hoeness claims?
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Whatever happens,one point deserves close scrutiny,made by Hoeness among others. The Premier League is suffering from the same disease that the rest of England is a sudden fall from grace following the credit crunch. During the good years,they built up debt,just as the British government did; now,suddenly,the pound isnt as strong as it used to be,theyre sitting on a mountain of debt and taxes are going up. Portsmouth went bankrupt this year. United owes 650 million. English teams may have been outplayed and outthought on the pitch this week but thats because they can no longer outspend everyone else. Michel Platini,the former French captain who now heads European football,intends to introduce financial fair play regulations soon. The crisis seems to have done some of his work for him.
