Raheem Sterling and Asamoah Gyan Transfers Reveal Concerns Over The Future of Football?
By Alex McCain
The summer transfer window is in full swing; the annual appearances of both cash and controversy are well and truly underway.
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There’s a couple of recent stories that I can’t seem to brush off the fringes of my mind, to me it feels like they say a lot about what we can expect from the future of football and this entails some very ominous conjecture. Let’s get to the point here — I’m talking about the transfer movement of Raheem Sterling and Asamoah Gyan.
Let’s start with Raheem Sterling, the 20-year old who recently made the £49m switch from Anfield to the Etihad. The first thing that should grab your attention when reading back over that previous sentence should be the inclusion of ‘£49m’ next to the name ‘Raheem Sterling’.
Can it reasonably be said that the young England international is worth that much?
Well, even if some want to argue he is, it’s irrelevant in regard to the point I’m about to make. Sterling’s presence merely exemplifies the problem that financial giants Manchester City bring into football, having that sheer ability to hurl money at a club until they reliniquish a tranfer target could well extinguish the essence of the beautiful game.
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Clubs could become too reliant on money to improve their sides. Spending such fortunes on a single player has too many negative effects to outweigh the fact that one of England’s better teams are being bolstered.
As of the price tag being latched onto Sterling and the £49m transaction complete, the glaring light of the media engulfs him. Anything short of an emulation of Neymar will be regarded as a bitter disappointment, and the name of English football is further tarnished.
Moving on, let’s talk about Ghanian international Asamoah Gyan.
Gyan’s move from UAE football club Al-Ain to Chinese Super League outfit Shanghai SIPG casts doubt on whether or not future footballers will maintain a high level of ambition when confronted with the lure of money.
The Ghanian is reported to be earning the equivalent of £227,000 a week in Shanghai, making him one of football’s most generously paid athletes. His former club, Al-Ain, weren’t exactly stingy either…
But these aforementioned divisions, with all due respect, greatly lack the quality of the European divisions that the Ghanian had played in previously — leaving us no choice but to fall under the supposition that Gyan abandoned a high level of football for more money.
Money, the crux of the issue once again.
What if more footballers follow in Gyan’s undoubtedly expensive shoes? Will more footballers allow their ambitions to dwindle in order to have a few more wads of cash in their back pocket? It’s just a thought, albeit an unpleasent one.
To summarise, money seems to have the potential in football to vastly overhype players or drive them away from an elite footballing spotlight altogether.
Strange, really.