Episode 15: Tragedy in Argentina
By: Ian Rose | March 19th, 2008This week, we center on the tragic events in Argentina this past weekend, as Christian Reyes explains what happened, and tells us about his own experiences with Argentinian football and the violence that sometimes surrounds it. Also, Inara updates us on France. We give English football a rest for a week, but we’ll be back to it soon.
Remember, you still have until game time tonight to email in your predictions for our first Copa Libertadores predictor contest. SoccerPro.com has provided a copy of the DVD “Giants of Brazil”, which features Brazil’s teams in the 1950-1994 World Cups, and that DVD belongs to the person that best guesses the scores of the following matches:
Flamengo (Brazil) v. Nacional (Ecuador), March 19th
Club San Jose (Bolivia) v. Santos (Brazil), March 19th
To enter the contest, just send your guesses for the scores to both matches to us at podcast [at] theoffside.com, and the closest one gets the DVD. It’s a region 1 DVD, so if you don’t have a region 1 (U.S.) or region-free DVD player, let us know and we’ll work on an alternate prize. All entries recieved before the games kickoff will be considered. Please, only one entry per person.
Thanks again to SoccerPro.com for sponsoring us with the prize, and thanks everybody for listening. Good luck.
As always, you can listen to the show on the player below, or visit our feed to subscribe to the show.
Category: Weekly Podcast
Tags: Argentina, Football violence, River Plate, Boca Juniors, Clausura, France, Ligue 1, Hooliganism, Karim Benzema, Lyon, Weekly Podcast, Tag IndexSubscribe
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Just a quick correction on my part: in the podcast, I said that France’s A’ (B) team would play Congo, but actually they’ll be up against Mali while the A team is against England. Also, Bordeaux’s budget is 60m - I mistakenly said 50m.
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I realize just now in listening to myself on the Podcast that I was a little all over the place, so I hope that my points came across.
One thing I also wanted to stress was that Emmanuel was killed wearing the Velez shirt. Even if his murder was not football related, at the end of the day, it should be the responsibility of the the club to protect its members. Football in Argentina would not exist without fans like Emmanuel, and the best way to honor his memory would be for the club and the FA to ensure this never happens again.
The argument seems to be that violence is a reflection of the ills affecting society, and thus the blame should not be placed on football. But how much longer can institutions like Velez continue to allow the safety of their fans to be susceptible?
Football in Argentina was established as a way to serve the local community. If violence there is a reflection of society, then it is the responsibility of football to do its part to eradicate it.
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[…] Please check out Episode 15 of The Offside Podcast, where I discuss this past weekend’s violence in Argentina. … If […]
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I’d just like to attract attention to the fact that the financial rules that govern sports in France have been deeply changed over the past 3 years. Few newspapers have recognised it (blaming lack of success and stars on “finance” is so much easier), but there are very, very important changes that were voted in 2006.
The Union Financière de France Sport Conseil have a very good article on it : http://www.unionfinancieredefrance.fr/index.asp?rub=actu&srub=4&info=41
Just for those that can’t read French, I’ll sum it up :
For a player recieving 100,000€/month pre-tax :
- USA : club pays 101,950€, player recieves 64,900€
- United Kingdom : 112,700€, 59,650€
- France : 121,600€, 55,700€
- Spain : 100,900€, 55,600€
- Germany : 100,950€, 55,450€
- Italy : 128,900€, 48,800€As you can see, Italy has a far less advantageous tax rate. And yet they don’t bottle like French clubs do. (UFFSC is a financial company specialised in managing assets of sport players and sports companies in various countries, so they’re using the best “tricks” in their sums)
It’s also important to note that French clubs do not pay tax on bonuses. Whilst English, Spanish and Italian clubs do. Since result bonuses are becoming a substantial part of a player’s remuneration, this is also important to consider.
A lot of people think that France has kept the fiscal rules for football that France had in the late 1990s (where, indeed, the situation was dire). But between 2003 and 2007, various laws have been voted (the most important being the “Droit à l’image des indépendants” that allows a player to recieve up to 1/3 of his pay as “image”, and is tax-free), meaning that France are no longer “last” in the class. What’s more, with President Sarkozy’s decision to change slightly tax ratios (apparently 5-10% decrease in tax for people earning over 1 million €/year), France’s situation will just continue getting better.
The real problem is more that most clubs are very badly managed (not just on the pitch, but also in the offices), meaning that there are often superflous expenses and inferior results (e.g. Marseille have 4, yes, 4 people that are there to deal with kits. Manchester United only have one. And Marseille FORGOT THEIR KITS for a game once this season, and had to borrow their opponents’ away kit. Quality. Expenses. Superflous.)
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The problem is that taxes are prohibitive in France because of low budgets. In Italy, the top five or six clubs have a lot of money and can afford the taxation on those salaries whereas in France, Lyon is pretty much the only one (Lyon has 13 players in France’s top 20 highest paid footballers). But the bottom half of both leagues are financially interchangeable. Which is why you don’t see many French players play in poorer Italian clubs despite the superiority of Serie A whereas English relegation candidates like Wigan can attract some good French players (Mario Melchiot, I’m looking at you).
The recent chances will help in the long run, but it will take a while to implement, which is why French clubs aren’t seeing the effects of it now.
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Hmm, unless I’m mistaking something, quite a lot of players have left L1 for “not so glorious or rich” Italian sides…
De Melo is going from Le Mans to Palermo, Nsiabamfumu (Rennes-Ascoli), Lepiller (Le Havre-Fiorentina), Lavecchia (Le Mans-Messine), Oguro (Grenoble-Torino), Hioune (Lens-Reggina), Malonga (Monaco-Torino), Cristea (Le Mans-Cesana)… And that’s just those that went to “little” clubs since 2006. Gourcuff, Tiago and other Wilhelmssons didn’t count, because they went to “big” clubs.
And the return? Less, I’d say. Camara from Parma to Le Mans, Grosso and Boumsong to Lyon, Almiron and Cufré to Monaco, Menegazzo to Bordeaux… And that’s it.
Sure, money is a big factor in the modern picture when looking at football. And the sheer clout of English clubs means that, as you pointed out, even mid-table clubs in England are very good destinations for some of the best players in the French Ligue (John Utaka, I’m looking at you). But with Italy and Spain, such comparaisons aren’t really there. Since Italian and Spanish clubs negociate on a club-per-club basis, it means that whilst Lyon get less money than they would if they were in Italy or Spain, Le Mans, Nice and Metz get a lot more. So we should see a flux of “average” players towards the French league from the Spanish and Italian league. However, that’s not the case. So I think prestige plays a lot. If France regularly get not just one, but two clubs into the last 16 of european football, as well as a few clubs having decent runs in the UEFA Cup, then I’m sure you’ll find that players will come to France.
After all, Tapie didn’t mind about the bad taxes when he brought Woddle, Abédi Pélé, Boli, Deschamps, Völler, Francescoli, Deschamps, Allofs and Cantona together…
I agree with you that the effects of this tax reform will become more and more noticeable as the years go by, but it’s interesting to notice that between 2003 and 2007, average L1 salaries have increased by 40%… And are well on par with the other “big 4″ leagues, whilst they used to be 15-20% lower.
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Of course the better championships will attract more players from France than vice versa, and I’ve always said that L1 receives only rejects from the bigger foreign leagues (Baros, Grosso, Tiago, Carew, Wiltord - and that’s at Lyon). So even when French clubs have money to burn, they aren’t always able spend it outside of France because Spanish, Italian, English, and German players don’t want to play in L1.
But my point was there aren’t as many French players going to the poorer ranked teams in Italy than compared to those going to say England. And Palermo, Torino, and Fiorentina are certainly better than Le Mans, Grenoble, and Le Havre. I think only Monaco to Torino is a downgrade, but not by much, given the way Monaco has been playing the past few seasons. The bottom dwellers of the Italian and Spanish leagues aren’t that much more attractive than a midtable French side.
Anyway, I think we’re arguing about two different things, so I’ll try to explain myself better. While I agree with your point that France’s difficulties in attracting players would be greatly eased if they could achieve more European success and that money isn’t the root of France’s problems, it’s a huge part of it. And that includes wages and taxation.
Just take a look at the favorites for the Champions League. The clubs likely to win the competition have a lot more money than any French club, even Lyon. In the UEFA Cup, money isn’t as big of a factor, but again, there is a huge difference financially between midtable French sides with those of other leagues. Of course surprises are always possible, but those are rare.
While salaries on average have been steadily increasing in France, in terms of Champions League and UEFA Cup success, what counts is what the European bound clubs can pay, not what the bottom dwellers can. As you also said, in France, smaller sides get more money on average than bigger sides, so while Metz might be better off than say Cagliari, Bordeaux lags far behind Roma.
And that’s the problem. It’s the top sides that achieve European glory. Not the bottom ones. L1’s parity is nice from an idealistic standpoint but cripples us in reality. Unlike France, the other big four leagues are all financially top heavy. The top six sides in Spain, Italy, England, and to a lesser extent in Germany are far richer than the top six French sides – that is, the clubs that end up in the Champions League and in the UEFA Cup. The European applicants of these bigger leagues can better afford to have a deep bench. They can better afford the salaries and the accompanying taxes necessary to keep their teams competitive not just for one season but for multiple seasons.
This is important to maintain regularity. Italian, Spanish, and English leagues tend to send the same clubs to Europe every year with very little variation. However, Lyon is the only French club which features in Europe regularly - forget progressing - while the others make sporadic appearances and so can’t establish any continuity. France’s other three wealthy clubs who could afford a better bench if they tried - PSG, Marseille, and Monaco - are seriously bipolar and can never expect to end the season in a European spot (something due to poor management, as you also pointed out).
Many of the French clubs that often do end up participating in Europe don’t belong there simply because they don’t have the financial resources to compete both domestically and in Europe, and often have difficult achieving a repeated strong run the following year (hence why so many European clubs “crash” a year after they’re in Europe).
For example, as much as I’d love to see clubs like Nice, Le Mans, and Nancy get into Europe, it would be worthless at the end of the day because they won’t get far. Better to have Marseille, PSG, and Bordeaux because they have a chance at least. And yet the parity of the French league means that any team can do better than any other team except Lyon.
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Also, about Tapie…he’s not an example that anyone should ever follow. Yes he had a lot of success, but he was a very corrupt man who achieved those things the wrong way. He also left Marseille in heaps of trouble and got them relegated to L2 thanks to his poor financial mismanagement. Spending money you don’t have will do that to you.
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