Portuguese Football Trade Deficit?

By: Greg | June 21st, 2007

donald Portuguese Professional Footballers’ Union president Joaquim Evangelista is worried about the fact that just under 48% of players used per weekend in the past Liga season were Portuguese. His claim is that “This trend is pushing more and more young Portuguese players into unemployment…” While in the short term this may very well be true, the medium and long term benefits for the Liga as a whole and even the young Portuguese talent pool should turn out to be very positive. Here’s why:

Survival of the fittest. Portuguese club teams are trying to keep up with their international counterparts by bringing in a mix of players from different countries that suit their needs. Evangelista praises Aves for being the team with the highest ratio of homegrowns to internationals used per week (10/4) but does so as they are on their way down to the “B” league. Sporting has such an awesome youth system and therefore they can manage to play at a rate of 8 Portuguese vs 6 internationals per week. That ratio will change, however, as Nani is now gone.

As young Portuguese players see their “home” teams’ willingness to go abroad to bring in talent, they will step up their training and be more selective about where they choose to sign. A player who signs up to train with Sporting’s youth academy knows that he’s going to get top quality training and be heavily scouted simply by default.

More outside money into Portuguese football. Players like Ronaldo and Nani are being sold for increasingly larger sums. As the homegrown talent goes abroad, it brings in money for the teams to develop their academies as well as be able to compete on the transfer wire. It also opens up a spot for the team to promote from within. The better the “cream” of the homegrown talent crop gets, the more it can be sold for. While this does lead to teams potentially brining in higher priced, more polished players from abroad, it does better to improve the overall quality of the league.

Better teams and retention rates. Now that the teams have gone through a cycle of attracting better young players, selling the cream of those players off, and bringing a mix of internationals in, what happens? The league as a whole improves! Since the teams can now compete internationally, they can bring in more money. More money means more to spend.

Once the international players come in, they can see the level of play has increased and spread the word. One of the most effective sales tools is word of mouth. Hell, what would happen if, as a result, Portuguese teams started going deeper into European competition?! Forget word of mouth, try word of Europe! More players will be willing to play for mid-level Portuguese teams due to the higher league prestige and the level of competition is thus also strengthened. Instead of selling off the cream of the homegrown crop, the teams will now be able to afford to retain these players and go after OTHER countries’ youth systems. More young Portuguese players are therfore desired worldwide, THUS the youth of Portuguese soccer have more jobs. A win-win situation in the end.

Of course, I’m not so naive to think that everything in economic theory ALWAYS goes to plan and this would all work without a hitch. But wouldn’t it be nice?