Manchester United’s debts have today been reported to be in the region of ₤716 million, Liverpool’s financial woes are well reported and Martin O’Neill has admitted that he will need to sell in order to buy at Aston Villa this January. In fact, as of this Monday, only ₤7 million had been spent on transfers by English clubs. The free spending ways of English football seem to be at an end.

A transfer that did happen this January which happened with little fanfare was Lucas Neill’s move from Everton to Turkish giants Galatasaray for ₤800,000. On the surface not a major transfer. However, considering Everton’s defensive injuries, it would seem to be a strange player to let go, especially for such a small fee (when you consider the difference in prize money for each league position you finish up the league). The devil is in the details though. Lucas Neill has unfortunately developed a well deserved reputation of being motivated by money, and Galatasaray was offering more money than was Everton. Easy solution, Everton match the contract offer and maintain squad depth, how much could a Turkish club possible afford to offer? The answer is ₤80,000-a-week, well out of not only Everton’s range, but most clubs in England, certainly those clubs interested in Lucas Neill.

This asked the question, is English football’s time on top of Europe coming to end? The Premier League may be a great spectacle on television, but it has resulted inflated ticket prices, ruling out younger fans and resulting in the average age of a Premier League season ticket holder to be in their mid 40’s. There was the famous example a few years back of it being cheaper for an English fan to fly to Germany and watch a Bundesliga game than to go and watch Chelsea. English football has priced the next generation of fans out of the game, and in a time when any computer literate person can watch any game in the world for free on the internet, attendances in England are more likely to go down than up in the next 10 years. Even Valencia, Roma, AC Milan and Lazio, who have all been European powerhouses in the last 10 years find themselves in serious trouble. The problem is not England specific, it is widespread amongst Europe’s biggest clubs

So is there a shift about to occur. German clubs are famously run with great fiscal responsibility, have fantastic attendances and clubs will illustrious history and would appear best positioned to take over from debt riddle English clubs. The Russian league is rich with private investment and is a very entertaining league, and as Ruban Kazan showed this season, able to compete with the best. However, the Lucas Neill transfer has drawn my attention to Turkey. This is a nation of 75 million people who love football, and a nation whose economy is still growing as they continue to integrate themselves into the western world. The capital city of Istanbul (where the tradition powers of Galatasaray, Besiktas and Fenerbahce are located) has a population of 12.5 million. These clubs are well supported and have a massive population to draw their support from. Turks are known to be very loyal, if not fanatical supporters of their clubs, and evidently these clubs are gaining the financial ability to match their supporters loyalty and expectations. You only need look at these clubs’ squad to see already the quality they are attracting, how long can it be before these clubs are challenging for football top honours?

Well what a disaster this is turning out to be! First of all, what is a region isolated from the majority of the country, with an armed separatist movement, in a country only eight years removed from a long civil war doing hosting some of the worlds best footballers. I understand the romance in having every part of Angola joining together to host a major international event, but surely someone must have thought something like this could happen. 

Secondly, the Togo national team needs to make a decision. This we are in, we are out deal has really gone to far now. No one is going to question them no matter what they decide, but a final decision needs to be made by the players, they are the ones who need to be mentally up to the challenge of representing their country. If they do not feel they can do it, then by all means go home to your families. If they want to play on in the memory of those murdered then do that, but get together and make a decision. Unfortunately, the country’s president seems to want one thing and the players another. It does appear that finally Togo has withdrawn, and everyone wishes the players and staff well as they deal with what must be shocking memories.

Unfortunately, I think this whole event has shown the gap in professionalism between UEFA and CAF, it is impossible to think of UEFA awarding the European Championships to the Balkans so soon after their civil war.  I do not think similar violence will occur in South Africa, far from on. I think on the field the World Cup will be a massive success. However, the warning signs continue to be there that off the field 2010 will not be remembered favourably. 40, 000 hotel beds to few is one such issue that is sure to be brought up this coming summer.