Noticias de la Champions

So the monolithic, cash-churning English Premier League is having money issues. Join the club. It's the worst global recession in most people's lifetimes. But the number is still quite astonishing — perhaps enough for a few among the prawn sandwich brigade to look a little closer at their bankbooks. The 20 clubs that constitute the league are indebted to the tune of 3.1 billion pounds (close to $5 billion), according to the London Guardian, with the big four always at the top of the pile:

Manchester United and Chelsea were by far the most indebted, owing £699m and £701m respectively, Arsenal were third, with £416m debts and Liverpool, the other top four club, were understood to owe around £280m; their accounts, due to be filed at Companies House last week, are overdue.

Still, you have to give those teams some credit. They aren't just doing what everyone else is doing and blaming the economy.

Then again, they really aren't blaming anyone.

They don't see the colossal debt as unmanageable since most of them incurred it willingly. The Glazer family did some creative bookkeeping and transferred hundreds of millions of pounds to Manchester United when they first bought the club, which is the same thing that happened to Liverpool. Chelsea is being almost entirely subsidized by its owner Roman Abramovich and Arsenal shelled out a huge pile of cash two seasons ago to build Emirates Stadium.

Of course, it shouldn't stop clubs from going out and throwing money at players this summer. Trust me, to them this all makes sense somehow.

For the full story from the Guardian, click here.