How did it happen that this year, for the first time, as many as five Polish clubs will play in European competitions<\/strong>? Why are we now only 1 step away from the Polish champion entering the league phase of the Champions League directly, without having to go through qualifying rounds? And how did Polish club football, ranked only a few years ago around 30th place alongside such \u201cpowers\u201d as Luxembourg, Belarus, and Liechtenstein, come to knock so boldly on the door of the elite?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today\u2019s football means gigantic money. The biggest leagues have budgets comparable to those of small countries<\/strong>. The English league generated more than 7 billion euros in revenue in 2023. Players earn tens of millions of euros a year, and transfers worth several dozen million euros no longer surprise anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Professionalism in football has always existed, but only recently has it reached such an enormous scale. It is also worth remembering that in the communist era, in Poland and other socialist countries, professional football officially did not exist. In theory, players were police officers, soldiers, miners, steelworkers, railway workers, or students. In practice, they saw their workplace only once a month, when they came to collect their wages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the West, the system was much more honest. Clubs simply offered professional contracts, although poorer clubs also sometimes used a mixed model, for example when a club owner formally employed players in his own company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Polish football never had money on a scale comparable to the West. We were the poor relatives, excited by modest earnings that Western clubs would barely consider pocket change. Our stadiums were miserable, lacking proper infrastructure for training, supporters, and commerce<\/strong>. The pitches, meanwhile, were often dreadful \u2014 closer to potato fields than sporting arenas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We had a pathological system of financial management and oversight.<\/strong> Finally, we had omnipresent, all-consuming corruption, crooked referees, and club owners who were either fraudsters or genuinely wealthy people without the skills needed to manage such a specific branch of business as football. But from the time Poland hosted Euro 2012, everything began to change for the better. For some clubs, the leap was enormous. For others, it was a slow evolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Today, the financial gap separating us from the footballing West has not narrowed at all. The rich are getting richer, while the poor\u2026 well, here the old saying that \u201cthe poor get poorer\u201d no longer quite fits. Money also trickles down to countries and clubs outside the global superleague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, the gap remains vast. Gigantic, in fact. The rich are becoming much richer, while the poor are becoming only a little richer.<\/strong> For example, the value of all the players in the leading Polish clubs is lower than the value of a single star from the English, Spanish, Italian, or German league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of course, we must always remember another well-known saying: \u201cmoney does not play on the pitch.\u201d In Poland, billionaire Robert Dobrzycki, the owner of Widzew \u0141\u00f3d\u017a, learned this lesson very well. This season, he spent more than 20 million euros on player transfers, which remains a cosmic sum in Polish football. The only result was that he almost got Widzew relegated to a lower division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What football, both Polish and foreign, has taught us is that money must be spent wisely. Otherwise, one might just as well use it to light a fire in the fireplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fortunately, Poland now has more and more clubs that are quite well managed<\/strong>, led by owners who have either learned the secrets of such management themselves or know how to hire properly prepared professionals. Just as importantly, they then know how to trust them, even when not everything goes their way from the start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Poland is a relatively affluent country. We now have impressive stadiums, well-kept pitches, and modern football academies. Players and coaches come to Poland even from countries richer than ours. Supporters, too, are increasingly affluent, while football\u2019s public image<\/a> keeps improving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supporting a club is no longer regarded as an activity fit only for a primitive mob. <\/strong>After all, as everyone knows, a true intellectual spends his free time reading Finnegans Wake<\/em> in the original. Football is now treated as a social event not only for the so-called middle class, but also for people who rank high in wealth, politics, or public recognition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Such supporters also have appropriately high expectations, not only regarding the level of play, but also their own comfort and safety. All these factors support and depend on one another. Their driving force, of course, is sporting success, which in today\u2019s world increasingly depends on money and on spending it sensibly.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Old](\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Polish_club_football_1-1-1024x576.jpg\")
The Era of \u201cThe Barber\u201d and Football Poker<\/em><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Money in Football Has Not Closed the Gap<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
You Have to Know How to Spend Money<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/holistic.news\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Polish_club_football_3-1-1024x576.jpg\")
Polish Club Football Is Drawing Fans In<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Stadiums Have Become Safe<\/h3>\n\n\n\n