Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
It requires a spectacular amount of hubris to take an argument you know is patently ridiculous—something so absurd and whiny it falls on its face immediately—and make it anyway.Something like Barcelona's director of sport complaining that English teams are spending too much money on transfers, and that something just must be done! Think about that.Barcelona, which is the second most valuable soccer team in the world (worth $3.55 billion) and which just got the second largest Champions League payout ($69 million) this year, is saying that it can't keep up. Tomorrow, the Yankees are going to complain that the Orioles have too high a payroll. Let it settle in."UEFA and FIFA have to implement a way of regulating [spending]," Albert Soler, the director, said Thursday. "When FFP was created, the Premier League didn't have as much money as it does now, so it needs to be adapted. It's not normal that there are such big differences. If it continues like this, with one club able to spend €120m on one player, it's going to cost more and more all the time to get the best players. Our most expensive recent signing was Luis Suarez and even then the club had to make economic adjustments."Suarez, by the way, cost €81 million and isn't the most expensive buy the club has made. Stop the complaints, Barcelona.Soler does raise the valid point that English Premier League teams have a spending power that no other league can match. That's why a team like Bournemouth, which made it to the Premier League for the first time last year and then finished 16th, can win a bid for Jack Wilshere against AC Milan and Roma.That's what Barcelona and other big clubs must be so angry about. That EPL television deal has been such a boon for the league that now it can compete with nearly every other soccer club in the world, and it must be scary for even the big clubs to see their spending power slowly erode.And you can say that, but sometimes it's the messenger that matters—and Barcelona isn't a good one.
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