UEFA

There's a saying: 'Money can't buy you happiness'. If you're a football club owner with the biggest budget on the market you can buy best players, that can make you happy. Now, if those players do not make you good profit, would that not make you happy? Not if you are a billionaire, what are millions in compare to billions.

With a net worth of $10, $20, $30 billion, are you to invest money and much of your time in something that may bring you profit over the years of no more than several hundreds of millions or losses in the same value? How could you spend a billion anyway?

You buy the most expensive cars, houses, yachts, airplanes, all that luxury still may not top $1 billion. Pleasure among machines, butlers, personnel, can make you feel like a saddened King from fairy-tales. There must be a more humanly joy.

You buy a media exposure, be in the spotlight where everybody are watching, you move masses of tens of thousands of people in the stadium as if they are marionettes and you are a wire-puller, you build your own fantasy world.

You make news headlines by being a super spender in the most watched sporting league in the world. Yes, you buy yourself a top football club and it wouldn't cost you more than a billion or so! You become a real-time Fantasy Football Manager.

Fantasy Football Manager is a football management simulation computer game first released in 1980s where you are the General Manager of your very own fantasy football team. Nowadays, most popular sports web-sites offer a chance for visitors to play the Fantasy Football League Management game.

In the real-time world, Chelsea FC was purchased by a billionaire in June 2003. Since then, the club is witnessing record losses, the billionaire's involvement with Chelsea is described by Wikipedia as 'to have distorted the football transfer market throughout Europe, as his wealth often allows the club to purchase players virtually at will (frequently at inflated prices), without regard for the effects on the club's financial outturn'.

How does this effect the reality of football? Football becomes a sub-real simulation of its own reality. With one club owner having limitless budget, his/her football knowledge, work and skills of managing a club do not effect his/her success in the business, billionaire can continue to bring in the expensive players, sack head-coaches upon his/her desire.

Even if the club suffers the biggest financial losses in football world, the club will not go to bankruptcy as the billionaire will add additional hundreds of millions since the football club's budget does not depend on its football performance.

How does this effect the game of football? There doesn't seem to be much sportsmanship for one club to buy world top players (so many that a half of them will be reserves) while many other clubs can't afford to pay one or two such players for their first team.

The beauty of the game suffers as well. In two and a half years with Portugal's FC Porto coach Jose Mourinho won 2 domestic titles, including the European Champions League title in May 2004 by eliminating clubs with far greater budgets. Several months later Mourinho, named the world's best coach in 2004, was brought to Chelsea.

In just 3 years he managed to win 2 league titles, including club's first championship in 50 years, 1 FA cup, 2 Carling Cups, along setting several Premier League records. Mourinho at Chelsea did more than simple buying world football super-stars like Real Madrid C.F. did at that time, he offered contracts to players who were to develop to some of the world's best team-players playing for Chelsea.

Chelsea as a sovereign ruler of England's football fields and a perfect football team was as if not offering enough excitement for the club's billionaire owner. After winning consecutive titles, Chelsea signed two major football super-stars, Shevchenko (for a British record transfer fee) and Ballack, both of which did not match Mourinho's concept of team play.

It was the beginning of one great football mind's end with Chelsea, Mourinho was fired as the most successful head-coach in club's history in the years of his success. Welcome to the real-time Fantasy Football Manager as a spectator, player or head-coach!