A topic that has been brought up a lot in the last couple years is whether foreign investors in football leagues throughout Europe are beneficial or detrimental. This has been a problem in England with clubs such as Chelsea and Manchester City, but up until now, these have been mostly isolated incidents. The first foreign investors have made their way into Spain and the reaction to it is mixed.
Malaga FC was bought this summer by Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani, and since then the team has spent some huge amounts of cash in the transfer window for both players and a manager. One of the more respected and experienced managers, Manuel Pellegrini, took on responsibility for the club just before his arrival. Malaga FC also spent 50 million euros on players for the 2011/2012 season. In the same season, Racing Santander saw itself taken over by a new owner in the form of Indian businessman Ahsan Ali Syed. Owners like these have "unlimited" income and can spend it to buy players by personally financing the team.
People such as Sandro Rosell are immediately cautious about foreign owners. Any team in La Liga, besides the one being taken over, do not want clubs to have unlimited spending ability. Rosell wonders what will happen when they have "limitless resources" and are able to buy any player they want. I see a couple possible reasons for this and a couple possible outcomes. First, Barcelona and Real Madrid absolutely do not want foreign owners. The fact that other teams are able to become more competitive in this manner is threatening. Also, a foreign owner is likely to disturb the transfer market and wages. Teams like Manchester City have shown that limitless cash causes the transfer market to become unreasonable resulting in players prices being highly inflated. In the same manner, foreign owners are willing to exponentially increase wages in order to tempt a player to play for their team. This threatens other teams since it can lead to poaching of youth, poaching of players, and a complete reworking of player's salaries in order to keep them. These are extremely negative consequences for existing clubs as they are not able to compete through their model (fan-owned or other) with a team that has a foreign investor.
What are the positives? First, a foreign investor is likely to bring in the best talent in the world. This increases the talent level of the particular league as long as he is not stealing talent within the league. For example, Manchester City got the likes of Yaya Toure, David Silva, and Mario Balotelli. All these players were foreign and therefore strengthened the league with their addition. However, players like Nasri (Arsenal) who are taken from within the league upset the competitive balance. Another positive is that the league becomes more competitive. A team that is able to acquire this talent will most likely challenge for a top four finish, or even challenge Real Madrid and Barcelona. If this happens, the two horse race of La Liga will end.
Is allowing foreign investors beneficial or detrimental for a league? Does it create or upset the competitive balance?
Sources: http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/3277/la-liga/2011/11/08/2747731/barcelonas-sandro-rosell-wants-16-team-league-la-liga-has ; http://uptill1.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/540PX-1.png