Thoughts on the transfer window and football finance

So transfer deadline day came and went, the international season kicks off this weekend and the Premiership is in full swing. Football has definitely finished it's Summer Vacation! Who would have thought that in the midst of a recession, the crazy football world still manages to spend £450, 000, 000 on new players. The merry-go-round has been even stranger this year with Man City choosing to buy proven premiership players from other premiership clubs, with the likes of Arsenal and Man Utd not exempt from the lure of their money (although granted, Man Utd didn't get a penny from the Tevez deal as he still belonged to a third party!)

As we see all this happening we hear of Portsmouth who so very nearly went under and of course my West Ham who, according to the government, made a loss of £32, 000, 000 in the last year. They also managed to stave off collapse only because of the generousness of banks in not recalling all the debt due to late payments.

I'm sure these two clubs are not the only two in this situation in the top flight. Now I think both will come through it and will be okay, but surely the money thing has to stop and grass roots players will need to come through. I am proud of West Ham in the fact that it still develops and PLAYS, young talent that comes through the ranks. They take kids from around the area (and a few from other areas and abroad, but predominantly locals) and Tony Carr turns them into decent young footballers. He did it with the likes of Frank Lampard, Rio Ferdinand, Glenn Johnson, Joe Cole, Jermain Defoe (from age 15, Charlton before that!), and Michael Carrick all of whom now play for the England first team. Add to that the promising youngsters now of James Tomkins, Freddie Sears, Junior Stanislas, Josh Payne, Jack Collison and of course Mark Noble, and you have a fairly good side.

Will West Ham ever challenge for major honours, probably not, because to balance the empty books they will inevitably have to sell some of our better players at some point, however I for one, in this crazy messed up world of football finance, hope that we continue to be a team that relies on it's youth policy more than they do their transfer policy and that we develop homegrown talent rather than buying in players with big names and big wage demands. We tried that a couple of years ago and look where that got us - in the red big time!! The England team will continue to flourish as long as we keep producing!!!