Race for European riches resumes as end of boom forces Irish clubs to tighten belts

It’s a little surreal to see the Champions League return just as the licensing programme for the League of Ireland is, more or less, completed this week. The continent’s top 16 clubs will be back playing for prize and TV pool money that might amount to something in the region of €50 million to the winners by the time it’s all totted up at the end of the campaign. Several of this country’s top, meanwhile, will embark on the new domestic campaign with weekly wage bills of less than €5,000.

 

The situation with Cork City, as it happens, has severely dented the credibility of a system that many were already sceptical about. Certainly nobody can ever again be expected to take a deadline for any sort of payment set out by the licensing authorities here seriously.

 

And the tough medicine prescribed by the FAI for clubs continues to take the patient collectively to within an inch of its life. The association’s chief executive, John Delaney, said recently that he’d settle for a season without any major financial crises but on the one hand that looks incredibly unlikely while on the other it will take closer to a decade of trouble-free campaigns before the monetary mayhem of the last 18 months or so, begins to be forgotten about.

 

Most depressing of all, perhaps, as we contemplate this week’s European games, is the sense that so much of the progress made by clubs here in the qualifying rounds of UEFA’s competitions in recent years is about to start unravelling.

 

There have a few decent runs by the likes of Shelbourne, Drogheda and Derry but all three of those have since hit the rocks financially while the likes of Bohemians and St Patrick’s Athletic have also had to cut back severely.

 

The league champions (along with Shamrock Rovers) may still be about the best hope for a decent result or two this summer but Pat Fenlon does not have the same depth of squad as he did even last year when a momentary defensive lapse prevented them causing a significant upset by eliminating Red Bull Salzburg.

 

And the dream of making the group stages of a major European competition and competing against the sort of sides that will be in action over the next few nights, looks almost as far off being realised now as it did a decade or so ago when Ollie Byrne pretty much identified it as Shelbourne’s primary goal.

 

Chelsea, United and Arsenal spent something like £3.5 million, £2.5 million and £2.0 million a week respectively on players two seasons ago (the lowest figure of the three is about as high as any club here got with their annual wage bill) and the numbers across the water have continued to rise, at least until very recently. Almost all the serious contenders for this year’s Champions League are heavily in debt and Michel Platini’s talk of bringing in rules to ensure that clubs competing in the competition operate on a break even basis within two years seems just a little far fetched.

 

This week, only Lyon, who have a decent enough record against Real Madrid, look a good bet to upset one of the financial giants. The minnows at almost every level of the game will make way for those clubs with the biggest money behind them and the administrators, whether they are in Dublin or Lyon, appear increasingly powerless to do anything bar stand by and look on.

 

 

Bets

 

€25 double on Newcastle to beat Coventry City and Crystal Palace (0/-0.5) to beat Reading @ 3.92.*

* This is the price that was quoted earlier on on the Ladbrokes website but they’ve since been on to say that Newcastle should have been quoted at 1/2 rather than evens. I’m not sure I’d have gone them at that but in the circumstances I’m going to stick with it so the odds on the above bet should now read 2.94 rather than 3.92.

 

 

€20 double on Arsenal (0) to beat Porto away and Manchester United (0) to beat Milan away @ 3.83.

 

€10 treble on Arsenal and United as above plus Lyon (0/+0.5) to beat Real Madrid @ 8.05.

Categories: Soccer