A bale of money

The recent record-breaking purchase of the
Welsh winger Gareth Bale by the Spanish giants
Real Madrid FC for an estimated £85.3 million
has once again demonstrated the way in which
money has continued to pour into European
soccer at a rate which defies both prevailing
economic conditions and common sense.
There is no doubt that the British footballer is
one of the most exciting things to happen to
the modern game. Blessed with electrifying
pace, superb shooting skills and wonderful
positional play, Bale is truly deserving of the
praises heaped upon him. He is not just a star
player, but one who has consistently displayed
the capacity to carry the team on his
shoulders, as demonstrated severally during
his last season at Tottenham Hotspur.
As good as he is, however, there are larger
questions posed by the huge sum that was paid
for his services, and they are likely to impinge
negatively on football in particular, and sport
in general. The first relates to the way in which
football players are valued. What are the
elements that go into the valuation of a player?
Is it the number of goals scored? The
nationality of the player? Media hype? A
potent combination of “branding,” public
hysteria and sheer desperation on the part of
football administrators?
In the specific case of Bale, it appears that all
of these elements have had a part to play, in
addition to his undoubted talent. His
nationality makes him unique; he hails from a
country that is unlikely to ever appear in a
World Cup final, and is therefore less
susceptible to the club-versus-country rows
that disfigure the careers of players from more
prominent football-playing countries. He
played in a league that was outstanding for the
way in which star performers were lauded to
the skies, especially those from the British
Isles.
The adulation in which Bale was held by his
fans, and the grudging admiration of
supporters of rival clubs helped to raise his
reputation to the skies. And Real Madrid’s well-
known penchant for paying staggering sums
for individual players lent an air of inevitability
to the whole scenario; the Spanish team paid
world-record prices for Christiano Ronaldo
and Zinedine Zidane.
A situation in which the prices paid for players
increase almost exponentially may imbue
football with a certain dramatic quality, but it
does not augur well for the game in the long
run. For one thing, the money circulates
within the very narrow channel of the game’s
rarefied upper echelons: players, agents and
top clubs. Very little of it goes to the
grassroots, nor does it help to defray the
already-prohibitive costs of tickets and
branded merchandise. For a sport long touted
as “the people’s game,” this is an ironic
tragedy.
Stupendously high transfer prices also appear
to have negative knock-on effects. Player
salaries rise to the level where there is no
logical connection between what the players
are paid and what they do on the field.
Indeed, the careers of some players like Paul
Gascoigne, Diego Maradonna and Adriano often
bore an inverse relationship to the huge
amounts they were paid. As the wages of top
stars rise, they lift those of their less-talented
counterparts; money, rather than talent,
becomes the name of the game.
This inequality draws from the very fabric of
modern capitalism that has inflicted a huge
gulf between a few well-heeled persons and a
majority living in desperate circumstances, a
phenomenon worsened in the recent crisis
around the world.
Where does Nigeria find itself in all this? At
first glance, it would seem that the nation
stands to benefit. Even if most of its players
fall outside the ranks of Bale and Ronaldo,
they still attract very impressive prices and
wages. However, the inflation and distortion of
values creeping into the European game could
have even more negative effects in Nigeria.
Already, the corrupting influence of money has
begun to assert itself in the fixing of matches,
the exploitation of players and the debilitation
contests for administrative positions.  Money
is vital to the growth of football, but cannot
replace it.