Until the recent past football clubs were a close knit unit, players spawned from their local areas and played for the same team for many years, there have always been transfers and controversy but nothing on the scale of today's game.  Paul Scholes and Gary Neville both began and ended their playing careers in a Manchester United kit, players such as Matt Le Tissier refused to leave Southampton despite interest from bigger clubs and offers of higher pay and more benefits, and Alan Shearer who chose playing in the football jersey of the team of his birth place Newcastle United as opposed to moving to the mighty Manchester United, these kinds of loyal team players are rarely found in today's game. Since the restructuring of the football league, and the introduction of a new top flight the Premier League in 1992, the dynamic of club football has changed dramatically.

With the introduction of the Premier League came new satellite television deals worth millions of pounds, significantly increasing the clubs revenue.  The likes of the Glazier family buying Manchester United, Roman Abramovich buying Chelsea and Sheikh Mansour buying Manchester City has also added to the financial implications of the game, the investment by these foreign billionaires has essentially transformed these teams from sports clubs into large scale businesses.  In the early days of the game, player transfer fees did not exceed thousands of pounds, for the first time in 1979 over £1m was paid for Trevor Francis to move from Birmingham to Nottingham Forest, by the time the Premier League was founded this had increased to £5m for Paul Gascoigne to move from Spurs to Lazio. Today these figures are insignificant in comparison to the price tags that are often in excess of £25m, the highest figure paid to date was £80m for Christiano Ronaldo to make the move from Manchester United to Real Madrid. With the increase of transfer fees so also has the benefits for individual players and wages, the highest paid player is Samuel Eto'o earning around €20m a year, with these huge personal deals on offer no wonder loyalty is becoming a thing of the past when players are considering which football jersey they should be seen in next season.

The same can be said for managers, the requirement of instant success and year on year improvement in league table rankings by these billionaire owners has created a trend whereby managers are easily hired and fired.  Until his retirement earlier this year Sir Alex Ferguson was manager of Manchester United, he had been in the position for a staggering 26 years, interestingly Arsene Wenger has enjoyed 16 years at the helm of Arsenal, one of the only teams to have not been influenced by a foreign buyer and large influx of money. Contrastingly Chelsea have had nine different managers over the last decade with Jose Mourinho recently returning for his second stint, and Pellegrini has recently became Manchester Cities seventh manager since 2005.  With such a demand for results and monetary reward there is little wonder that many of today's young and impressionable players choose success and financial gain over team loyalty.

What do you think of the change from sport to high profile business for many Premier League Clubs?

Do you think football was more enjoyable in the past where there were less demands and financial influences?

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