Italy, Germany, and France: when there is no competition in football

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Juventus, Bayern Munich and Paris Saint Germain have no rivals in their domestic championships, and the differences with the rest seem to be increasingly abysmal

Juventus playing horrible exceeds just 1-0 to a limited AC Milan. PSG by the domestic league scores every 15 days and recently, fulminated by 9-0 to Guingamp. In the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich this year won against Borussia Dortmund, but when reviewing and seeing that it has won the last five leagues in a row, it is not very difficult to predict that they are the great candidate to win it again despite its bad start Juventus accumulates seven in a row, and PSG, five of the last six.

Leer en español: Italia, Alemania y Francia: cuando en el fútbol no hay competencia

This panorama does not help to recover the interest of the fans of the world soccer by the domestic leagues of the old continent, more and more subject to what generates in income and interest the UEFA Champions League , and to other goblets that overflow the annual calendar and tend to exhaust the retina of the public, which ends up leaving with the least predictable tournament of all, the Champions League, beyond which in the last five years Real Madrid and Barcelona have shared the glory.

Already in the last season, the 2017-18 edition, since December the European club map showed us very uneven leagues and already with virtual champions. In Spain, it was Barcelona after a categorical 3-0 to Real Madrid as a visitor, in Germany, Bayern, in France PSG, and even in what is for me the best of all, England, Manchester City had a very important advantage, leaving just one interesting aspect on the championships: who gets the second place.

In that scenario, at the beginning of 2018, soccer lovers waited anxiously for the resumption of the Champions League and thus, find a reason to watch the games of their favorite teams. This year, the situation is not very different, although in England, Liverpool is only four ahead of Manchester City, in Spain, Barcelona five on Atletico, but 10 on Real Madrid. The exception is in Germany, where Borussia Dortmund accumulates six of advantage over Bayern. But we fall in the same in Italy and France: Juventus has 9 points 'cushion' over Napoli and PSG 13 ahead of Lille.

How could we see more even and interesting leagues?

It is very difficult because there's money needed. But it's not impossible. There is a certain elite of teams, known by all, whose economic power allows them to dismantle teams of medium level, but with aspirations to grow and for that reason, it is difficult to see examples such as As Monaco and Leicester, both of 2016, repeating the triumph more than one year.

In Spain, although the domain is not a single team, but two, a third in discord, Atlético de Madrid played with this level in the last 7 years and thanks to that, it has been able to reinforce its team, although in regard to Domestic Leagues and Champions League it gained less in that period than the same two powerful teams. Then, sometimes, it can't even reach.

Juventus, was the only Italian club that could weather the storm of a league in crisis and that has allowed him to build a luxury team, with nothing to envy the Spanish and English, and therefore, in a decadent league that this year has shown growth with the presence of Cristiano Ronaldo, has not had a rival. It is rude, despite the efforts of clubs like Napoli and Rome to overthrow such dominance.

French PSG and a foreigner like Manchester City were in charge of dismantling AS Monaco, the only club that competed with Parisians and in a long transition from other competitors such as Lyon and Marseille.

Germany is a clear example of the rich that takes away the poor, Bayern is usually reinforced annually with players from the Bundesliga itself more than other championships and thus weaken the local rival. In England there is more parity and the league is less predictable and in which at least the cake is divided into six clubs (Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham and Liverpool), not two or one.

The only hope for small teams is when one of the big teams fails to comply with the Financial Fair Play, a regulation that was added to the licensing requirements in 2011. It is when a club does not pay its players or does not pay transfers to other clubs, they are denied access to UEFA competitions. P SG and Manchester City were on the verge of falling for breach, but many assure that their power goes beyond these regulations . If this is the case, it is much more difficult to wait for pairs leagues as the big clubs make mistakes, they will never be punished.

From our point of view and although it seems utopian, UEFA must promote, some mechanism similar to Fair Play Financial, to avoid that in the same league a team has in a single player more millions invested than its rival in all its payroll, which There is a mechanism that establishes limits.

The leagues could establish similar situations to the draft of the North American professional sport, offering the opportunity to the small teams to strengthen themselves with a player of higher level. If they do not implement anything, the European leagues will lose more and more interest, and beware if something similar than on the Champions League does not start to happen. It will dawn and we will see.

LatinAmerican Post | Onofre Zambrano

Translated from "Italia, Alemania y Francia: cuando en el fútbol no hay competencia"