Flow of cash risks making game predictable

MILAN, Nov 17: It is what separates football from so many other sports -- the ability of the underdog to produce a surprise inside 90 minutes.

Yesteray Cyprus proved with their draw against Germany that, despite the changes of the past decade, the game can still be wonderfully unpredictable.

While national teams still produce surprises -- Greece are the European champions remember -- the problem facing club football is that the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few elite clubs is making some of Europe's top leagues all to predictable.

In France, Olympique Lyon could well become the first team in a major western European league to win six straight titles.

Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal once again inhabit the top three in England leaving fourth place the main, rather uninspiring, challenge for most of the other top clubs.

Last season in Italy, Juventus, Inter and AC Milan were yet again miles clear of their rivals throughout the season.

The current odd look to the table, with Palermo joint top and Siena fourth has only arisen due to the demotion of Juve and points handicaps on other clubs imposed following the match-fixing scandal.

SELF-PERPETUATING ELITE

There is a little more variety this season in Germany and Spain but the trend across Europe is for clubs boosted by cash from the Champions League becoming fixtures at the top of the table.

The danger of a self-perpetuating elite reducing genuine competition and creating a dull predictability has always been particularly high in the smaller leagues.

It is hard to imagine many of the Netherlands' top clubs getting in a position where they could match Ajax and PSV Eindhoven's resources and results. In Ukraine it is no surprise to see Dynamo Kiev and Shakhtar Donetsk as the top two.

The danger for many of Europe's leagues is that they eventually become as lacking in diversity as Scotland's top flight where it is now 21 years since a club other than Glasgow's Rangers or Celtic won the title. If the status quo remains in place then the rich clubs will continue to get richer and the smaller clubs will increasingly exist only to sell their best performers to the elite and compete for scraps in competitions like the UEFA Cup and domestic Cup competitions that are rapidly losing their appeal.

There are alternatives to the status quo.

American sports, after all, are organised in a manner which tries to ensure against domination by the few and permanent also-ran status for others in order to ensure the product, the competition as a whole, remains as interesting as possible.

MORE DIVERSITY

It is hard though to imagine U.S. regulations, such as the draft which gives weaker teams first pick of available players, coming into force in European soccer but there are steps which could go someway towards creating a more level playing field.

For a start, UEFA could adopt Michel Platini's idea of reducing the number of teams in the Champions League from the top countries and increasing the participation from countries that are increasingly left out of the elite competition -- that would get more diversity in the main competition itself.

More radically, some thought could be given to the distribution of the Champions League bounty, based on television and sponsors' cash.

Reducing the money that goes direct to participating clubs and channelling some of it towards the leagues, to be distributed evenly among clubs, would be a positive step towards halting the creation of a permanent elite.

Platini is standing against incumbent Lennart Johansson for the presidency of European soccer's governing body UEFA and his opponent has already hinted at taking some steps to redress the inequalities in the game.

''Perhaps we could look at the way the money from the Champions League is distributed in future,'' he said at a briefing earlier this month.

''Perhaps the other clubs in the league could benefit from a greater redistribution of the money -- not just the top three or four clubs.'' This seems then an ideal moment, with the top job in European soccer up for grabs, for the game to consider whether it is time to divert the flow of cash to the richest clubs and use it to broaden the base of competitive clubs and avert the risk that football becomes far too predictable.

Reuters