Football poised for a fairytale ending

The term “fairytale ending” isn’t a perfectly accurate description of what Leicester City Football Club is up against at the moment, poised between mediocrity and a globally significant triumph. But – for this team owned by a business group led by Thais – dreams are hatching and prepared to take flight.

Having just crushed Manchester City on their own turf, vanquishing a far wealthier, far more favoured team, the minnow now seems set to swim with the big fish. This was no smash-and-grab victory. Leicester City fought Man City toe to toe and came away with a well-deserved win. It was nothing short of David killing Goliath in Goliath’s living room.

This weekend the balance of power in the English Premier League is apt to shift again when Leicester City takes on Arsenal, one of the great powerhouses of the game. It’s going to be all about making the impossible possible. And, if the challengers can win it and then go on to clinch the league title in May, it will be a Cinderella story for the ages, an outcome capable of changing the world’s most popular sport as we know it, and dramatically so. There are sound reasons for citing the lowly and the downtrodden of biblical lore and literature. Football, as most fans agree, has become too much of a business, too commercialised. Immense amounts of money are involved, dictating the size of the stadiums, the volume of souvenir shirt sales and the prices paid to acquire star players, as well as their salaries, and income from broadcasting and ticket fees. 

Big spending generally brings success, to be sure, and the lack of it is one of the causes behind Leicester City’s lowly ranking. Their stadium is relatively small, shirt sales are meagre, the players were inexpensive – some cast aside or overlooked by loftier teams – and revenues from broadcasting and ticket sales are negligible, or at least they have been until recently.

At its heart, though, football is about the performance on the pitch of 11 players over the course of 90 minutes. The scale of the stadium and the players’ paycheques remains irrelevant. All that matters is the number of goals scored. Leicester City have brought us back to the essence of a game whose overseers have steered it wide of the mark. Its success undermines the abiding tenet that a team isn’t going to win if it isn’t rich.

Wayne Rooney of Manchester United is paid more than 250,000 pounds (Bt13 million) a week and, beyond the shores of England, that amount is dwarfed by other players’ salaries. Any team keen to buy the services of Lionel Messi from Barcelona needs to start with a bid of 200 million pounds, and even so there’s no assurance the sale will be approved.

By contrast, Leicester City’s squad comes cheap, their coach is denigrated as a “has-been” and, at the start of this season, bookmakers placed their odds of winning the League cup at 5,000-1. The team roster seems haphazardly assembled and there’s no robust back-up squad on the bench for the starting 11 – there’s no “strength in depth”, as they say. 

Compare that to the wealthier teams paying obscene amounts to hire players for whom the only intention is keeping them on the sidelines. It’s been estimated that some of these bench-warmers are purchased for 20 million pounds and then paid 70,000 to 100,000 pounds a week – just to kick the ball around during training sessions and, when it comes to the matches, play for perhaps 10 minutes every seven days.

Fairytale endings are not uncommon in football, but they usually happen in knockout cup competitions, not league championships involving a gruelling stretch of 40 consecutive matches. If they succeed, Leicester City will have done more than demonstrate that the impossible is possible – they will represent an inescapable challenge to the notion that success in football requires a vast amount of money. 

It’s encouraging that this concept is already being widely queried. Even if the underdogs lose to Arsenal this weekend, it’s not a question that will go away.

Please also check:

Claudio Ranieri has piled the pressure on Arsenal ahead of Leicester clash
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/leicester-boss-claudio-ranieri-claims-7360954#ICID=ios_TMNewsApp_AppShare_Click_Email

Riyad Mahrez: 'Relegation battle has helped Leicester title bid' - BBC Sport
http://m.bbc.com/sport/football/35556489

How much would Leicester's squad be worth if they won the title? - Eurosport.com
http://bit.ly/20ZjP96

Leicester’s ‘Thai monks’ only part of the reason for success - The Star/Asia News Network
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/sports/Leicesters-Thai-monks-only-part-of-the-reason-for--30278932.html

Leicester City FC to develop soccer academy in Thailand - The Nation
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Leicester-City-FC-to-develop-soccer-academy-in-Tha-30243581.html