Is there too much money in football?

The poorest football teams are unable to compete with the richest ones

Question: Is there too much money in football?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, there's too much money in football
Argument‹4 of 4: The poorest football teams are unable to compete with the richest ones

Money has become a block to success for the vast majority of teams. If one supports a team without much money, their only hopes of success are seeing a rich tycoon invest vast sums into their club

The argument

A club's success ought to depend on the merits of its team. But that's currently not the case in the world of football today. Clubs can't make it big simply by proving themselves on the pitch. Rather, the success of a club is now dictated by how much money they have. And most clubs simply don't have the money they need, while the few that do have it in outrageous excess. Among European clubs, ten clubs pay 220 million euros or higher in wages to their players. Then there is a 60 million or greater gap between those clubs and all the rest. Since higher wages correlate to better performance on the pitch, those top ten clubs have an almost insurmountable advantage. And gaps exist within individual countries as well. In countries such as England, Spain, and Portugal, the top two to four teams in each league pay anywhere from twice to almost seven times as much as the rest of their respective teams. Clubs with more money draw more and better players who have more of an incentive to play better. Their money pays for equipment, staff, facilities, and all sorts of amenities. Conversely, those clubs on the lower end struggle even to function on a day-to-day basis. This wealth gap creates a self-perpetuating cycle that ensures that the rich stay on top and the poor go defunct. Football is no longer a sport, but merely another business. And competition doesn't start when players step on the pitch, but well in advance in the pocketbooks of a few rich owners.

Premises

[P1]A club's success now depends on its wealth rather than its merit on the pitch — among European clubs, ten pay 220 million euros or more in wages with a 60-million gap to the rest, and within leagues in England, Spain, and Portugal the top teams pay several times as much as the others. [P2] Since higher wages correlate with better performance, rich clubs draw the best players, equipment, and facilities while poorer clubs struggle to function, creating a self-perpetuating cycle where competition is decided in owners' pocketbooks before players take the field. [C] Because the poorest teams cannot compete with the richest, there is too much money in football.

Counter-arguments

One can invest in all the facilities, get all the ads, and pay all the wages one wants. At the end of the day, what decides a football match isn't money. What decides a match is the players, and the quality of the game that they play. One can pamper a player, but it won't necessarily translate to good play. In fact, the opposite might be true. Money isn't the be-all end-all for success. If it were, we wouldn't see all the rags-to-riches stories we know and love in the game. Players like Pele came from nothing and made it big with their own talent. Clubs like Wimbledon rose to success from humble beginnings. With talent and drive, any player, or even any club, can make it big.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] A wage gap between clubs demonstrates an uneven distribution of money, not that there is too much of it in the game: the same disparity would follow from a smaller pot divided as unevenly, which is why the remedies usually proposed — revenue sharing, wage caps, financial fair play — address distribution rather than the total. [Rejecting P2] The link between wages and results is strong but not the closed cycle described, since modestly funded and newly promoted clubs still win matches and cups and occasionally leagues; the conclusion that competition is settled "in the pocketbooks" of a few owners converts a tendency into a certainty the evidence given does not carry.