The Credit Crunch Hits Home.

No, we didn't have trouble getting a mortgage and will be moving into our new house this fall. I am referring to the trouble that the world's economy is giving fans of the beautiful game.

Football is the beautiful game, but today it is also a very big business. Some say that the influx of big money has been to the detriment of the game, but I say bring it on. More investment means more exposure to the world and, my immediate concern, more transfers!

As stated in my previous post, I love the transfer season. It is lots of fun to speculate about who is going where, which team needs which players, and to think about how much better or more exciting a team will be after an acquisition. My wife mocks me, because I love to search the web for new info on transfers. This is essentially 'gossip,' and I can't deny that it is very similar to her love for People and US magazine. It is exciting to see the young players get snapped up by the big teams, as we all want to know who the next big player is going to be or who to look out for in the fantasy transfer market for a cheap pick-up.

The credit crunch has hit the world economy hard because banks are cautious about lending and exposing themselves to ANY risk, it seems, and they are all scrambling to protect their capital reserves in the face of so many bad loans that are being written off worldwide, not just in America (Spain is getting hit badly as well - a number of teams are being sold off because their owners counted on cheap and available financing to fund their teams or their primary businesses). Some teams, like Levante in Spain, owe their players for like 6 months worth of wages! The lack of available credit has caused potential club takeovers to stall or caused many investors to sell their clubs (Who wants to buy Derby, anyone? I didn't think so.) Now Liverpool can't afford to build their pretty new stadium!

The crunch also provides less money for transfers, and in the overly inflated market for top players, transfer prices, or the perceived worth of a player to a team, have doubled in the past 5 years. The result means fewer transfers of big and even above-average players. I can't say i've been too disappointed with transfers this summer (omitting the sorry state at Newcastle), but it has seen more smaller players being sold to purchase bigger names. There's nothing wrong with this, as it produces more activity overall and redistributes talent accross the leagues, but the lack of financing has prevented many teams from even acquiring mid-level players who are overvalued by their clubs (once again, see Newcastle). This is pretty disappointing.

The situation is similar to the US housing market. People would love to live near Hillsboro Village in Nashville, and to be honest, we all want cool people moving there because that makes the area cooler (it would be even better if we were those cool people). The problem is that people can't afford a $500,000 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house without access to easy credit - the same credit that allowed the price to escalate to 2x its value! The big difference with the football market is that the sellers dont often have to sell, unlike in housing; therefore the prices dont drop as quickly (only 2 transfer periods/year), if ever.

In summary, I think the whole point of this post is to say that I am pissed that Newcastle aren't out there in the market, having only brought in two young, but relatively unknown players for relatively modest sums. I know Cashley wants to balance the books, but look at other teams like our rivals, Sunderland. They have maybe had one of the smartest transfer seasons of all the teams and stand to whoop up on Newcastle this fall or at least give them a run for their money. Sunderland, Cashley! Are you kidding me??