Quote (grahambo @ 11 Mar 2022 00:10)
while transfer fees are obviously not irrelevant, and always a hot topic amongst fans, as they are mostly publicly known, there's much more to the budget of a club. in particular player wages, which account for a major part of a club's budget. they are the main factor in a club's attractiveness for talent that isn't home-grown, ultimately determining its competitiveness in the long term.
my point stands, without massive external money injections, none of the big clubs would remain competitive. chelski might have been on the forefront of that development, and obviously i'm not suggesting that every club is exactly equally dependent on (foreign) sugar daddies, but it'd be somewhat dishonest to act like they still had that financial edge over the rest of the league and the sanctions merely leveled the playing field...