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Cristiano Ronaldo: A £80 million price tag!!

Monday, June 29, 2009

You are the president of Real Madrid, having £80 million burning in your pocket. What do you do?? Well what you can do is, go and buy Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United for this whopping amount. Yes that’s what Real Madrid did and thereby created history. No doubt Cristiano Ronaldo is an amazing talent, probably a player one gets to see once in a lifetime but the question is whether shelling out  £80 million is justifiable or not. By doing this aren’t the clubs making the game of football a pure business entity. Something similar happened couple of years back when David Beckham was bought by Real Madrid for the sole purpose of branding. The Galacticos era as we all know with the likes of Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Figo, Owen and how can I not mention Zinedine Zidane.

It’s shocking, though, to see that a beautiful game like football is getting more and more commoditized. Billionaires like Roman Abramovich buying clubs for their own whims and fancies with limited passion for the game. Seeing this it looks like that color of money has taken over the game and big boys like Real Madrid, Manchester United, Chelsea, AC Milan, Barcelona  calling the shots. It’s a tragedy that even after so much of hue and cry about lot of money flowing into the game nothing substantial has been done. The FIFA and UEFA are coming up with rules and regulations but all the time clubs do find their way out.

So where is all this taking the game of football, is the question which we all need to answer and thereby ensure that this beautiful game continues to produce talents like Pele, Maradona, Eusebio and thus keeps entertaining its followers world over.

4 comments:

Ishtiba June 29, 2009 at 1:23 PM  

I totally agree with ur viewpoint. I think Ronaldo was much better at Man Utd and 80 million for a player is too much. If only those players used that money in a good way for example in return to society. Some of them do work for some causes n charity..but sometimes we wonder if its just for name sake or as a branding tool for their own image...

Businessman investing in football has spoilt the game and lots of kids just wana play football as a career as its become easy money ! n we as football lovers sometimes just get feel disgusted with all those strategies that has become part of the sports world nowadays..

Shaheen June 30, 2009 at 1:04 AM  

This can be seen in an another perspective. Such high price being tagged for players will inspire them to play better and command a premium. In this way also talent can be promoted. We have players like Cristian Ronaldo who are a delight to watch in the field. Also the publicity associated with such huge transfers will draw a lot of interest from all sections of the crowd and thus maybe attract them so as to see whats there in it that money is being flung around like scrap paper even in times of such recession. What say....

bobbygee June 30, 2009 at 6:23 AM  

It is about the money,. The owners are not in the futebol business for their health. Cristiano Ronaldo is a good player but on the world stage he stinks. Look at his record. Pele was the greatest player who ever lived. Why? Pele performed great on the world stage. Bobby Gee check out my blog
Of think of it this way Monet talks nd bullshit walks.
http://bobbygee.wordpress.com/

Ravindra June 30, 2009 at 11:33 PM  

Didnt quite get the part when u mentioned about FIFA and UEFA coming up with rules. As far as i can remember there havent been any rules involving transfer fees and budgets and all of that...

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