Football is always a breeding ground for fantasies and big dreams.
If the game smelled of sweat, earth and bratwurst, something would be missing.
Even the bitterest commercial opponents will at least stealthily peek at Paris to see if Messi, Mbappé, Neymar and Ramos will let their wonderful skills blossom into a new collective beauty in the upcoming Champions League season.
Manchester United fans protested angrily in May against the Super League project, which is also supported by their club, and now they are cheering because the investors who were hated a few weeks ago made the return of Cristiano Ronaldo possible. All critical fans of big clubs know this feeling of turmoil. Even in pragmatic Germany.
Here observers noted with indignation that a number of clubs, especially in England, had not learned the lesson of the pandemic.
That many continue as before.
Perhaps there was also concern about losing one's own meaning.
In any case, the most recently completed transfer period has shown that there are two systems: In one world there are clubs that only spend the money they earn.
In the other, those that are generously subsidized for very different reasons.
From Gulf states with political motives, from investors with the hope of a return, from billionaires who enjoy an eccentric hobby.
Attempts to create equal opportunities between these systems have failed.
There is a bitter realization
Consideration is now being given to introducing a salary cap and a luxury tax in the event of violations - an unsuitable measure. The plan envisages removing all rules for the inflow of external investor funds. That is why the German representatives in the committees of UEFA and the European Club Association are campaigning for a functioning financial fair play that also forces the investor clubs to only spend what is actually generated.
That is the wish of many fans at the grassroots level, but unfortunately an illusion. In football, with the participation of the Bundesliga, an insatiable thirst for ever new millions has arisen. Now the industry would have to force itself to curb the sweet flow of private accounts that makes Ronaldos and Messis possible, ironing out management mistakes. Such self-restraint is unfortunately unimaginable. For the Bundesliga, the question arises as to whether it should set up as a talent shed for the investor clubs. Or whether they open up to private equity funds, sheikhs or state shareholders who should abolish the 50 + 1 rule.
Or is there a third way? This summer of transfers, at the end of which hardly any German club is satisfied, made it clear that the ideas that prevail in the Bundesliga about the future and reality are increasingly divergent. The bitter realization: economic reason can protect against crashes in this system, as Schalke and Bremen have experienced. On the way to great international success, it is rather a hindrance.