I submit to you that some "big" clubs, especially from Italy and Spain would not be so great if they had to pay most of their taxes/debts before they were allowed to buy new players. Germany and the Netherlands for example have a system that doesn´t allow clubs to have a huge overdraft before they spent money. Maybe such a system should be appleid worldwide......? It would even out some things.
Provocative? Untrue? Tell me about it.

Very true, I agree one hundred percent.

It should be the same in every country.

Not true! What is your reasoning? taking out loans is the way business works. A team should not be allowed to go into debt to buy players? That's like saying because you have a big loan out on your house now you will not be allowed to take out more credit to buy a car. As long as you make the payments on time there should be no penalties.

I do agree that a team should be penalized if player is tranfered and the team that bought the player stops paying the tranfer fee(this happens sometimes in Polish league).

Polishpower: I can understand what you´re getting at.

However in the football world we are not talking about houses or cars. We are talking about clubs. Clubs are enterprises that employ people. Enterprises may have a certain overdraft and may have some outstanding loans. But what happens in Poland when an enterprise is in debt for a number of years? Are they allowed to stop paying taxes? Can they stop paying wages? Does the goverment give them even more funds? Well, these things do happen to a lot of clubs. They have such big debts that they can´t even pay the rent for their stadium, can´t pay the players´ (and staff) wages, but continue to be able to buy, for example the best polish players. Is that fair competition when you reflect on other clubs that are from countries in which this is not possible? I could give some examples to support these things, but I don´t want to single out any clubs, I just want to discuss the principle.

Right! Can you imagine that the price paid by Internazionale for Vieri could pay for the debts of 7 third-world countries......

PolakPwr, most of these clubs that have big loans don't pay them off right off for a while. When you are in debt you usually want to get out and not get in deeper.

Side note: Nothing beats a good game of Polish Prem. League footie.

If the italian clubs and spanish clubs etc. would have to pay their taxes i think that they would not be able to splash out 25 or 30 milion pounds for one player???

Steve: Well thats exactly what happens, a team goes into debt, can't pay wages, can't pay the transfer fee payments, and before you know it there is a fire sale of players or maybe the team even goes bankrupt. 2 years ago a team in Poland went bankrupt during season and withdrew from competition now imagine that!

Now for example Real Madrid, if their bankers are happy to loan them millions of dollars for transfer fees why should you begrudge them, just because for ex. the bankers for ex. Crystal Palace faced with same demand for cash would laugh in their face?
And if the day of reckoning comes for Real M.(they go bankrupt) then so be it.

PolPow: There lies exactly the problem. In cases like Real Madrid f.e., the bankers KNOW that the club will never go bankrupt. The "social" value of a club like Real is much too high to risk declaring it bankrupt. I mean can you imagine FIFA´s club of the century or milenium or whatever going bankrupt? Impossible! But the same strangely enough, doesn´t apply for some 2nd and 3rd division clubs that had to declare bankruptcy with less (in percentages of their budget) debt than Real (or Barcelona for that matter.) Why? Because the government, or regional governments, back up the "big" clubs. And for some reason this seems to be happening more in, what I call (no offense), southern countries. Do you suppose football has become too important there? The news often starts with the football news and only then they talk about the war in Chechnya for example.