by Craig Armsworth

Created on: September 15, 2009

An activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively, that is a text book definition of sport. Soccer/Football ceases to be a sport when other teams feel that they can monopolise it with factors such as a big bank account. It is the sport equivalent of bullying, a bigger club comes along and feels it can make advances to a player which has a club and is developing under his/her current club. This is not a sporting practice, clubs that do this are preventing other clubs of lesser stature (in a financial sense)competing and developing into better clubs and bettering the sport. A chief example of which is in the way of a London club that I shall not mentioned feels it can "bully" clubs into selling prized young players and therefore robbing them of potential.

FIFA should recognise this and penalise the clubs that do this, encouraging teams to develop their own talent and bettering the sport. National teams would benefit from this as well and therefore improving the game as a whole.

Clubs should be allowed to develop their teams, the business side of the game has overtaken what this great sport is supposed to be; a competitive spectator sport. The game should be about tactics, skill, strategy and finesse not bank balances. It is FIFA's responsibility to enforce stricter rules and proceeds with regard to player acquisition and transfers. If a club breaches these rules then the club should be penalised where all clubs are equal and thats on table, separated only by their performance as a team. Financial punishments are not fair because not all clubs having the same spending power and it wouldn't deter the larger clubs enough.

I would also propose that football associations impose a draft system similar to the NFL. This is a great model as lot of great players come out of it. It is also difficult to monopolise the game this way and clubs would be merited on performance and would make the game more competitive for smaller clubs. I honestly believe that the game would be a lot more open and competitive in the area it should be; the pitch.

I understand many may not agree with my opinion however it is only my opinion and I suspect we may never see clubs penalised in this manner.

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