Regulating the football market is necessary

Deja vu? Around a year ago, this column discussed the record-breaking summer transfer window, Pogba for €105 million, Higuaín for €90 million, and the reactions of coaches like Arsenal’s Wenger—“total madness and unethical”—and Liverpool’s Klopp—“I would never buy anyone for that price.” The author's analytical prediction that Pogba’s record would fall was fulfilled with Neymar’s €222 million transfer. The immediate effect - soaring fees for other players - came as no surprise. Manchester United’s coach Mourinho even boasted that he signed Lukaku and Matić early in the window because he sensed “something might happen that would change the transfer market forever. Neymar changed everything for the worse in terms of prices.”

Dembele, the world’s second most expensive player, would have cost a fraction of his €105 million price tag just six months earlier; the same applies to the rejected offer for Coutinho. The market was most distorted at the lower eight-digit level. Sigurdsson for €50 million? That’s the reality—not a joke.

It’s certainly a positive sign that top-level professional football continues to grow as an industry, fueled by record sales of broadcasting rights and massive global interest from consumers and investors—especially from populous Asian countries. The total sum of transfers in the summer of 2017 broke records again. Among the most expensive transfers in history, not only did we see the top two ever, but also eight moves in the top thirty and twelve in the top fifty. While it may be premature to call it a bubble, the transfer market has clearly been transformed, possibly permanently, by inflated fees.

Appropriate regulatory responses are essential after such a dramatic leap, as football needs competitive balance. While competition law applies to this sector, sport is recognized as having a special status. The aim is not to eliminate rivals from the market - stronger clubs still need weaker ones to compete against in domestic and European leagues. Otherwise, they’d have no one to play.

After a necessary review of Paris Saint-Germain (which was fined tens of millions for breaching financial rules just three years ago), there must now be not only strict enforcement of UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules but also tougher measures and further reforms. Loan deals with massive optional buyout clauses, essentially transfers in disguise, clearly violate the spirit of FFP. Possible solutions include limiting the total number of players in a squad and restricting the number of loaned-out players.

Overpriced transfers have long been heavily criticized by Bayern Munich chairman Rummenigge, who has once again raised the issue of salary caps, in the form of a set percentage of total revenue. A soft cap system already operates in England’s third and fourth divisions, but implementing one internationally remains highly challenging due to legal barriers and opposition from clubs. Barcelona, humiliated by Neymar’s departure, has even proposed setting fixed limits for transfer fees in international deals—an unrealistic move.

What matters is that UEFA president Čeferin has joined the debate on the growing gap between wealthy and poorer clubs. It’s in the interest of Slovak football as well to preserve as much competitive balance as possible. Otherwise, the group stage of the Champions League may soon drift further and further away from clubs in weaker leagues, including Slovakia’s.