Business's big trends - globalisation, government intervention, the rise of Asia - coloured the sporting year
IN A year dominated by the economy, it was appropriate that money was the central topic of this year's showpiece sports events, and some of business's big trends - globalisation, government intervention, the rise of Asia - were there for all to see.
Two events in particular, the Olympics and the Uefa Champions League final, may yet be remembered as watershed moments: we may not see their like again.
In Beijing, conservative estimates put the cost of the spectacular Olympic Games opening ceremony at $100 million, or $476,000 per minute. The total amount spent by the Chinese government was €25 billion, a figure that includes new underground train lines, an airport terminal, a light railway, roads as well as sporting venues. The Bird's Nest stadium alone cost more than €300 million. An estimated 1.5 million people were "relocated" to accommodate the games and "related projects", according to the Geneva-based Centre for Housing Rights and Evictions. China says only 6,000 residents were moved. Whatever the figure, the size of the Olympics, and the ambition of the IOC, must be curtailed if the games are to be viable beyond a handful of totalitarian states.
The oil-rich Gulf States spent 2008 redrawing the sports world map. The money list for golf's European Tour is now called the Race to Dubai, which ends with a $20 million tournament in the Emirates. And Formula One ditched the historic Magnys Cours track near Paris while adding new dates in Abu Dhabi and Singapore, among others. When the latter won the right to stage the first ever night Grand Prix, at an estimated cost of $70 million, the expense was justified by the country's minister for trade and industry: "Singapore is a leading business centre and our aim is to be a vibrant global city that is abuzz with high-quality entertainment and events. A world-class event like the F1 race, with more than 500 million viewers worldwide, will take us closer to this objective."
And what of the free market? In May, the Uefa Champions League final in Moscow was contested by two teams, Chelsea and Manchester United, with collective debts of about £1.5 billion. This prompted Uefa president Michel Platini to describe both clubs as "cheats", whose aim was "not to win titles, but to pay back debts".
Platini's gripe is that the money is spoiling the fun, as wealth has been distilled in to the hands of a small cabal of teams. This season's results support the Frenchman's case: across Europe the domestic titles of England (Man Utd), France (Lyon), Italy (Inter), Spain (Real Madrid), Portugal (Porto), Holland (PSV Eindhoven) and Greece (Olympiacos) have all been retained by the same team for at least a second season. Olympiacos and Porto collected their fourth title on the spin and for Lyon, last season's win represented their seventh league title in succession.
Ironically, the same clubs received hefty payouts from Uefa in a new scheme designed to smooth the club-versus-country row. For example, as compensation for their players' involvement in Euro 2008, which took place in Austria and Switzerland, English clubs got a £4.14 million pay-out, calculated as £3,420 per day for each player.
Platini and his counterpart at Fifa, Sepp Blatter, have spent 2008 attempting to set the agenda with soundbites on salary caps and quotas on foreign players. Such market intervention would be the ultimate test of Uefa and Fifa's control of Europe's big clubs. It's worth noting that 2008 opened with talk of the Premier League's plans for a 39th game in Asia. Blatter called it "a joke at the end of the carnival season". The Asian Football Conference weren't keen either. But eight months later, the head of the AFC was schmoozing with the Premier League in London, saying he had warmed to the idea and was willing to listen and advise on a way forward. Others have come out in favour: Francisco Roca Perez, head of Spain's La Liga, thought it was "a great idea, it seemed quite natural", as did the Bundesliga's head of marketing, Tom Bender ("It's a great idea. It was just badly presented").
But as we head in to 2009, the Premier League's ambitions, along with those of the other big sports bodies, have come up against a more fearsome opponent. There is turmoil in the Asian economies and oil has fallen to $40 a barrel. It will be the markets, not administrators like Sepp Blatter, which decide on the future of sports.
