Buck: Don’t force elite clubs to join great unwashed

CHELSEA chairman Bruce Buck has warned that Europe’s elite clubs should not be forced to join football’s ‘great unwashed’ by rules designed to make the game more competitive.

Buck suggested yesterday that inequality was not necessarily bad and said clubs should accept their ‘natural position’ in football.

UEFA have tried to rein in superrich clubs with Financial Fair Play rules and spoken of imposing a luxury tax on big-money transfers to restrain spending.

But those rules also help maintain an elite group of 12 clubs rarely challenged by others — and Buck says curbing those leading sides could be damaging.

‘i’m not in favour of dumbing down the large clubs to make all clubs the great unwashed,’ Buck said at the Sports Business Summit at Stamford Bridge yesterday. ‘They’ve done that in the US and it’s been to the detriment particularly of baseball.

‘Clubs have to seek their natural position in the football order. We should not assume that because every club is not equal therefore it’s bad.’

Buck’s comments are sure to annoy ambitious clubs outside Europe’s elite.

Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, Manchester City and United featured in the 2018 top 12 of Deloitte’s Football Money League. Real Madrid, Barcelona, Paris Saint- Germain, Bayern Munich, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund complete the list.

‘There are 10 or 12 big clubs in Europe. Five to 10 years from now, in round terms, those will be the big clubs then,’ Buck added.

Chelsea and Manchester City have catapulted themselves into the elite group thanks to huge investment over the past 15 years but Buck said a similar rise would now be impossible.

‘Financial Fair Play has pluses and minuses. One of the minuses is that what Chelsea did in 2003 and City did five years later is now virtually impossible,’ he said.