Why Craig Bellamy's Cardiff move is immoral, wrong and cheats the rest of the Championship

Published 23:02 18/08/10

Craig Bellamy has been an exciting signing for Cardiff City.

Dave Jones deserves great credit for pulling off an amazing transfer coup and Bellamy has enough fire in his belly and talent to be a huge success.

But the very nature of the deal is immoral, wrong and cheats the rest of the Championship. In fact, it's an utter disgrace.

Cardiff have been in dire financial trouble. They have had four winding up orders, been under a transfer embargo and yet here they are signing a player on wages of £85,000-a-week.

It's all because Manchester City are paying £65,000-a-week of Bellamy's wages. Kiss offs or golden handshakes have been common place in football for years, encouraging players to leave for a new club to subsidise them having to take a drop in salary.

But City have taken golden handshakes to a whole new level. And it's cheating the rest of football in the same way Portsmouth cheated the Premier League last season.

Portsmouth paid transfer fees and wages they couldn't afford. They won the FA Cup with players they couldn't afford - and then went into administration.

Portsmouth beat other Premier League clubs to players because they were prepared to offer contracts that they couldn't afford. That is cheating the system.

And while Bellamy to Cardiff is a lovely fairytale, it's so unfair on the likes of Doncaster, Scunthorpe and Millwall who are trying to live within their means, keep the books on an even keel and are now having to beat the odds as well.

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