Greed is bringing the global game to brink of implosion

In the early Nineties, a group of European football figures travelled to the US to garner some advice on how to grow the game, only to be given a warning one of the American sports by officials.

- MIGUEL DELANEY

"If you think you've got problems now, wait until you start making money."

It was counsel that has come to describe football in 2023.

The game's giddy embrace of late-stage capitalism has made it an immense financial and cultural force. To the point, the major American sports are now said to be "petrified" of its growing US influence ahead of the 2026 World Cup. The build-up to that, and the sport's final and full global takeover, might nevertheless bring a breaking point in football history. That is because with so much in late-stage capitalism - the opulent top end is better off than ever before but the rest has never been worse.

The game has grown to a size where it is this gleaming cultural monolith but one filled with several structural faultlines.

Some of these have been revealed and widened by major stories of the last few weeks, only signalling how close we may be to something very significant.

It has led influential figures in the sport to wonder whether this build-up to 2026 will bring a "Big Short" moment, where the centre can no longer hold.

The primary problem, as predicted, is the financial size of football. Or, rather, where all that money goes.

A series of key decisions over decades - from the expansion of the Champions League to the evasion of Rule 34 in England have seen the game rise to a height where it is an almost unscalable ladder. A number of tiers are now built in, which fatally stretch resources if you want to rise up, and have also killed competitiveness in so many competitions and leagues. A series of studies show that football has never been so predictable at club level. You only have to look at how Bayern Munich dominate Germany or Paris Saint-Germain dominate France.

The other side to this is that it increases global interest in this narrow band of clubs, at the expense of everything else, in a selfperpetuating cycle.