Beginning of the End

Hull City AFC
By Gary Is
January 20 2018

The current situation regarding the two biggest and well known sports clubs on the planet has caused more than just a stir. The New York Yankees and Manchester United have signed the most lucrative deal the world has ever seen, but are they aware of the consequences?

[Originally published February 9, 2001]

On Tuesday 7th February 2001 the course of the future of sport as we know it was irreversably changed. For the better? United or Yankee fans might think so but what about the repercussions on the smaller clubs?

In football (soccer) there are many clubs on the verge of closing because they just cannot compete with the high flying marketing machines of the Premier League. None more so than the plight of Hull City FC.

Hull City are on the brink of extinction because they are have debts in excess of £1.3million and have been given just two weeks for find a buyer before the gates close for the final time. Surely the English Football Association should demand Manchester United donate some of their masses amount of money to save some of our much loved clubs. If Hull City FC goes out of business, Hull will be the biggest city in Europe that hasn’t got a football club. What I can’t believe is that Man United are spending millions of pounds turning foreign clubs into their feeder clubs yet they can’t do it to their own country’s clubs.

In MLB the Yankees are millions of dollars richer than some of their opponents. But where does all that money for nothing go? They buy themselves success. Do they help out their country’s struggling clubs? No they don’t.

Unlike Manchester United though, the Yankees (and all other MLB teams) pump money into the Minor League teams in their own country. These Minors receive lots of cash from the Major League parent teams and in return they produce potential baseball stars. The Majors help the Minors and the Minors return the favour. Wouldn’t it be good if the English Premier League teams did the same!

With more and more money being pumped into the clubs that are already rich, there is a growing divide between the big clubs and the smaller clubs. Last season Manchester United won the English Premier League 18 points ahead of the second placed team, the Yankees won the World Series for the 35th time. No one comes close to these two clubs when they are hundreds of millions of pounds and dollars richer than everyone else and with this new deal they will be even further away from their closest rivals.

The era when sport was a game has long gone. Sport is now a business. Is this the beginning of the end?