TF90M Business and Current Affairs Correspondent Joshua Oware wonders if the credit crunch could well prove a blessing in disguise for football.

The perception that the credit crunch is eating away at society seems unavoidable. Weekly we hear about the collapse of household names, the impending recession and yet more job losses. The same sentiment has been applicable to football, with the successive falls of shirt sponsors such as XL, and the postponements of stadium expansion plans....

Now there are two sides to the effect that the credit crunch is going to have on football: one - the business affect, and two - the affect on the beautiful game itself. Quite obviously one displays the positive ramifications of the big crunch, whereas the other continues the feelings of doom and gloom.

If you are a football agent, the credit crunch is BAD; if you are a construction company contracted to build new stadiums for the big clubs, the credit crunch is BAD; if you are sponsor, a shareholder, or an owner, the credit crunch is BAD... We must understand that for many groups of people, the above included, the credit crunch represents the epitome of financial woe, and an uncertain future. However, a key note to take from this list is the ‘common denominator' that connects them - business. The streams of people that rely on football financially look set to endure a tough period, where the nature of the global economies looks set to snap at the heels of this sector of football. It's already crippled state, is evidence for how heavily influenced the sport is by business, where television rights account for net league income at nearly £2bn and where clubs are bought and sold for figures in the hundreds of millions (Manchester United bought, 2005, for £660m, Liverpool bought, 2007, for £218.9m). However, while this side of football may be suffering, the sports side looks set to prosper.

UEFA, FIFA, and the FA, seem desperate to galvanise ‘grass roots' football. To make the local clubs, representative of the local area, with local players, local staff and a local influence. Many initiatives have been proposed to cure the increasing leakage of club positions abroad, but have failed to work to the degree that significant advancements have been made. A recent example would be the UEFA proposal of the ‘home-grown players' quota' where teams will have to comprise of a specified level of homegrown talent, as opposed to foreign players. Perhaps, to cure such shortfalls we need only to let the credit crunch take hold. Clubs will have limited funds to buy players from abroad; and so will have to look to their youth systems to bring (homegrown) players through into the senior ranks. It would be more encompassing than any policy, and seems only to have fantastically positive affects for the both young players and the ‘natural' feel of the game.

The benefits seem not to end there. Another progressive, amoeba like characteristic of top-flight football, in recent years has been foreign ownership. A crumbling global economy will dissuade rich executives from taking the financial risk of buying football clubs, as they look to keep their money ‘close to their chests'. This would spell an end to days of clubs being able to ‘buy' honours, as many said Chelsea did, because the injection of money from their billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. Leagues would become fairer, where the gap between clubs would be based on existing quality instead of bank balances.

The current football wage bill, for the premier league, tops £1bn per year, where many top footballers command wages in excess of £100k a week, on top of appearance bonuses, goal bonuses, and sponsorship deals. A talisman of such trends would be the Manchester United attacking midfielder, and World Player of the Year, Cristiano Ronaldo; whom had an income for the 07/08 season that reached pinnacles of over £15m. The credit crunch could bring a halt to this rapidly escalating state of players' wages. Players will, in many people's eyes, be playing for the badge, for the love of the game, and for the reasons why they progressed in the first place. Players won't be as tempted to move for lucrative high pay-deals (as they will become rarer in their availability) but instead move to places where they can enjoy their game to the maximum of its potential.

When we say that ‘the Credit Crunch is a blessing in disguise for football', your opinion depends on what angle you are coming from. If you see football in a business light, then this statement seems irrefutably false. On the other hand, if you look upon that statement in the eyes of a sports fan; in the eyes of someone who, when thinking about football, thinks about a fabulous sport, then the statement becomes one of truth. For want of a better phrase - ‘every cloud has a silver lining' - and our cloud is the fact that the business of football may be wavering (to many this may be good), but the unquestionable ‘silver lining' is the fact that the sport itself may benefit. Football may be one of the few entities to emerge out of the credit crunch, a fundamentally stronger and more powerful force. Soon the saying of ‘safe as houses' will disappear from mainstream conversation, the credit crunch will induce a social revolution in terms of language, the saying, - ‘safe as football' seems the odds-on deputy; who could argue against that?...

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