Beckenbauer against football´s big-money investors

AFP - 31 May 2008 20:55

Double World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer, seen here in 2007, regretted in the press here on Saturday the role of investors who use football clubs purely for speculative purposes.

BERLIN (AFP) - Double World Cup winner Franz Beckenbauer regretted in the press here on Saturday the role of investors who use football clubs purely for speculative purposes.

"There must be certain obligations for investors who are involved with football clubs," Beckenbauer told daily newspaper Tagesspiegel.

"The speculators must remain separate from football and our sport must pay attention to this issue," added Beckenbauer who is on FIFA's executive committee.

The Bayern Munich president, who won the World Cup in 1974 as a player and as a coach in 1990, also said he feels clubs lose their identity, because players change teams too often.

"Certain clubs do not have even have German players who play regularly, that can not continue," he insisted.

Beckenbauer also criticised the lack of respect the majority of players show to contracts.

"A contract does not have much value anymore, they are broken far too easily," he added.