Andy McGeady: Leicester fairytale backed by place in Football Money League

Leicester City’s manager Claudio Ranieri: Differences within the Premier League are one thing but from a broader perspective Leicester are becoming a bigger fish in football’s pie. Photograph: EPALeicester City– a once in a generation spark achieving sporting success that belies both finance and statistics. Up is down, night is day, catslie in bed with dogs while a pig flies across the sky. An odd season, this.The early Premier Leagueschadenfreudebrought about by Chelsea’s tribulations was a fine time indeed, yet inherently mean-spirited. Happily the troubles of a rich club are now surpassed by the wonder that is Leicester City, the little team that could.American sports has its salary caps, varying strength of schedule and player draftsto try to level the playing field. The marketing hook known as parity, where as many teams as possible must go into a season thinking “maybe this is our year”. Worst to first is relatively easy where divisions contain but four sides and the playoffs are bulging. Tougher in a league of 20 with significant differences in wage bills, transfer kitties and revenue collection.Squad dataAccording to squad data from CIES Football Observatory and transfer fees from Transfermarkt.de the total cost in transfer feesfor Leicester’s current squad was €84 million, a relative pittance compared to €500+million of the two Manchester giants. Those transfer costs would be better viewed in a general sense, because transfer feesin football are hard to nail down.Andy McGeady: Time to look at rehab for brain injuriesSix Nations: Origin of 51 per cent of World Cup 2015 tries proved to be lineout possessionJohn Burn-Murdoch’s recent analysis for theFinancial Timesof transfers in the 2015 summer transfer window where at least one outlet reported the fee to be over £20 million found “the major European sports news organisations broadly agreedon the fee in less than half ofthe 23 such cases”.Even with perfect knowledge of the fee, that’s not the full cost of the player. Those who come through the youthsystem will not appear as a cost, although their wages will be a cost to the club. West Ham’s starting 11 from last week’s action included two players on loan. Players move with no fee: Crystal Palace signedEmmanuel Adebayorand took on his significant wages, and Spursstill covering part of the tab, but no fee.Differences within the Premier League are one thingbut from a broader perspective Leicester are becoming a bigger fish in football’s pie. They were placed 24th in Deloitte’s 2016Football Money League, a ranking by club revenues in which Premier League teamsfill over half of the top 30 slots.This proportion could increase, with Deloitte’sDan Jonessaying with “the staggering new Premier League domestic broadcast deal coming into effect in 2016/17, there is an outside chance that the Money League top 30 will feature all 20 Premier League clubs in two years’ time”. As that TV deal creeps into view some of the desperate January splurging from the end of thePremier League table is perhaps not entirely coincidental. Keeping snoutsin the Premier League troughis all.Looking ahead, all is not plain sailing. Leaving aside the small matter of a title race, Leicester face a challenge to sustaining their canny talent-spotting with head of technical scouting Ben Wrigglesworth decamping to Arsenal. The boardroom could be forgivenfor contemplating difficultiesin keeping this team togetheras players and their agents fight for increased wages given a vast increase in success. Salary aside, for players there would be the temptation of moving to a “big club”, even one that might have finished behind the Thai-backed side this season.Future returnsOn the club’s side they will be aware of that small print in financial advertisements: past performance – even that of a champion – does not guarantee future returns. This bottom-line worldview was cruelly seen in Miami whenJeff Loria, one of the less popular team owners in US sports history, dismantled hisFlorida Marlinsside in the winter of 2003 after winning an improbable World Series thatsame autumn.The same club had pulled the same trick in 1997 under a different owner,Wayne Huizenga, after winning a World Series in just the fifth year of the team’s existence.To go down that road is indecently wrong-headed. Bejoyful, sports fans – 13 games to go and a Leicester City title to be won. It would be wonderful.