A Perpetual Two-Horse Race

Forget the halo, even the blessed Barcelona are tainted by greed

By Martin Samuel

Stranded in Tenerife for a week or so, you start taking an interest in foreign news.

Last Wednesday, for instance, some fed-up looking gentlemen emerged from what transpired to be the Liga de Futbol Profesional headquarters in Madrid and issued a statement.

They represented 26 clubs, and the majority of what we call La Liga, and they talked inequality and imbalance. Their statement branded the difference between Spanish football clubs 'extraordinary, unfair and artificial'.

There were eight not represented, although more are now voicing support, but the attack was really only aimed at two. Real Madrid who, as we know, represent all that is morally bankrupt in the world of football, and the blessed, the morally superior, the wonderful, Barcelona.

Again in football it turns out that the good guys are not always as pure as painted and the bad - and when compared to Barcelona this invariably means the elite of our Premier League - may not be so rotten after all.

The Spanish league table affords the clue. There are 25 points separating Barcelona, first, and Valencia, third; 31 points separate first and fourth. In England there are 23 points covering the top eight and Spain has four matches remaining, so La Liga's gap could increase. The reason for this dominance, the 26 clubs believe, is that Spain permits individually negotiated television deals, making its big two disproportionately strong.
Since 1996, when the process began, the muscle of Barcelona and Real Madrid has been steadily growing. Today the pair collect an annual sum of £103.4million each, while their nearest rivals, Valencia, receive only £38.7m. Valencia are spectacularly in debt from trying to keep up.
Atletico Madrid are the fourth biggest earners with £36.2m, Sevilla fifth with £17.2m. The same singularity has imperilled the Italian league, which will return, wiser, to collective bargaining next season. England, France and Germany have never strayed.

Indeed, Manchester United are particular models of selflessness, because if they agitated successfully to negotiate alone it is unlikely another team would win our league again.
So it is rather ironic that Barcelona are portrayed as all that is righteous and ethically desirable in football, while actually being propped up by an iniquitous system that increasingly guarantees a two-horse race.

Barcelona's players are outstanding, but the reason records are tumbling so frequently in La Liga is that the odds are stacked in favour of their club. When the fifth best rewarded team commands less than one sixth of Barcelona's television money is it any wonder none can compete?
In Europe, it is more difficult, as Barcelona have discovered. Without the incompetent intervention of referee Tom Henning Ovrebo at Stamford Bridge last season, Barcelona would still be searching for a first Champions League win under Josep Guardiola.
Tonight brings the return leg of the Champions League semi-final with Inter Milan and we will be implored, once again, to cheer for the Catalans as guardians of the game.
Yes, if Barcelona play football from the stars at the Nou Camp as they did against Arsenal earlier this month, we will salute their progress. If they do not, however, and Inter win deservedly as happened last week, dry those tears.
Big test: Barca trail Mourinho's Inter Milan in the Champions League semi-final
Barcelona are a fine football team, but that is all they are. The club are no better than a great many of the wealthy and powerful, and a lot worse than some. They are not so high-minded that they desire an even playing field. Give them a trophy, yes, but not a halo.
Yet already, Inter's win in the first leg has been reinvented as a triumph of brawn and intellectual pragmatism over beauty and high ideals. It is forgotten that the Italians were the better side, Barcelona scored against the run of play and only got into the game when chasing it, desperately, in the last 15 minutes.
It was the same last season. Chelsea had the beating of Barcelona over two legs and lost because one of UEFA's Over-Promoted Useless Scandinavian Officials turned in his standard display.
Fortunately, Jose Mourinho, coach of Inter Milan, had the presence of mind to remember this when Xavi whined about an offside goal in the San Siro. He should have mentioned Daniel Alves's penalty-area dive, too, because so few commentators did. Another way in which Barcelona are not so very different from the rest.


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Martin and I agree on many things. :)  They've been very lucky in the Champions League the past few seasons, and if they manage to eke out a win against Inter, it will most-assuredly be due to some refereeing problem.  But I'm already on record as to my feelings about the Catalunyan Cheats.