Chelsea FC Chairman Bruce Buck has certainly made his feelings on the concept of more financial regulations very well known. Speaking at the Leaders Sports Business Summit at Stamford Bridge, Buck lashed out at the attempts to make football more equal, and he did so in the most elitist and thoroughly condescending way possible.
Buck railed against the idea of more regulation that he believes will lead to a “dumbing down” of the big clubs, and relegate the rich teams to the “great unwashed.”
“In terms of competitive balance, which is always viewed in a negative way, I personally believe for the development of football, marquee clubs and marquee players are important,” Buck said on Thursday.
“It is important in developing fan base. It is important encouraging young people to engage in this sport and it also important in terms of the large clubs having the ability to put a lot of money into good causes which they do.”
“So I am not, as a general proposition, in favor of dumbing down the large clubs in order to make all clubs the great unwashed.
“They have done that in the U.S. over the last 20 years and it has been to the detriment particularly of baseball.
“I just don’t think it works for the long term. Clubs have to seek their natural position in the football order. No matter where you are in that, you want to improve, but I don’t think we should assume that, because every club is not equal, therefore it’s bad.”
A study from The Independent found Chelsea to be the seventh most valuable club in the world, so it makes sense that you would hear words such as this from a sports franchise that resides in this fiscal stratosphere.
Chelsea was only able to move up into the elite of elites class when they were purchased in 2003 by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, one of the two hundred richest men in the world, according to Forbes.
The Abramovich era led to extremely heavy investment in player payrolls, which then paved the pay for the club’s first English league title in a half century, and European title ever.
The excessive spending at Chelsea led UEFA To institute new Financial Fair Play rules.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, is currently a regular contributor to SB Nation, WGN CLTV and Chicago Now.
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