COVERING LAWS IN FOOTBALL- THE UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE.
Football they say is a game of passion.
At club level, every big player's wish and dream is to win the Champions League or at play in it. Covering laws here implies a set of theories that can be used to explain events. The ones relevant here (ie in football) include-
Race to the Top thesis,
king of the Hill Thesis,
Pull Him Down Thesis( PHD thesis), Balance of Power,
Rise and Fall of Great Powers (propounded by Paul Kennedy),
Growth and Decay( by Oswald Splendger), Challenge and Response( by Arnold Toynbee) and
The Paradox of Plenty or Resource Curse Hypothesis( paivi Luyala and Karl Terry).
Once upon a time, the Champions league was dominated by English teams but since 2012 when an English team last lifted the trophy, English teams have failed to respond to the challenges of the competition. Other teams especially those in Spain successfully adopted the "Pull Him Down" strategy to dethrone English teams and then rise to the top of affairs in European football. Sevilla dominated the Europa league while the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona dominated the Champions League.
As pointed out by Antonio Conte during one of his many press conferences "its time to stop the Spanish teams dominance in the Champions League".
With English teams on fire in Europe beating any team that comes that way, with the exception of Liverpool who are consistently unconsistent, I can see English teams dominating Europe again.
It also look as if the "race to the top" (winning the champions league) will be won by English team.
While the likes of PSG have spent a lot to bring in the likes of Neymar and kylian Mbappe, I think they are suffering from "paradox of plenty" or "resource curse". According to this theory, if a country is heavily endowed with natural resources, such country tends to be poor, underdeveloped (due to their dependency on export of natural resources and importation of finished goods), corrupt, and experience civil wars, as such instead of the natural endowments being a blessing, it turn out to be a curse.(example include Nigeria and Congo formally called Zaire which happens to be the richest country in the world in terms of natural endowments). While Abiodun Alawo calls it "tragedy of endowment", Otoabasi Akpan calls it "tragedy of midday and Ubong Umoh calls it "crisis of Abundance! As such in this case, the richest is the poorest!
PSG dream of winning the champions league have resulted in crisis of abundance due to heavy investment in the acquisition of star players...
Due to enough stars in the team, there is a kind of civil war in the club between Neymar and Edinson Cavani as a result of right to take penalties and free kicks for the club. Although it seems this issue (feud between both players) has been resolved, it will surely germinate again and this is not good for any club.
All I have to say is that there should be a balance of power in the champions league. The Spanish teams should not be allowed to be preponderantly powerful so as to threaten the efficiency and efficacy of other leagues and clubs.
Its time to stop Real Madrid by pulling him down from the hill. Madrid should not be allowed to remain as the king of the hill. They grew and I believe its time for them to decay!(besides they have started decaying in LA Liga) They rose and its time for them to fall. Other teams should learn how to respond to challenges...
There should be a new king of the hill but from another league and not from La liga.
#Fromthehistoriandesk