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When the transfer window closed on Monday, Madrid had finished a second consecutive window without signing anyone, while Barça coach Ronald Koeman was told that the club could not find even three million euros for a much-needed center-back defender.A
“What I want as a coach is not financially possible,” Koeman said in September. A
To ease the tension, key players could be sold, their salaries changed, and those who stay may have to accept further pay cuts. But also gaining ground, at least of the two clubs, the idea that the coronavirus pandemic has European Super League a need.
“We are all aware of how difficult these times are and the challenges we will face in the coming months,” Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez said at the club’s AGM in December.
“Football needs new ideas to make it more competitive, more exciting and stronger.”
A getaway Super league “It will guarantee the future financial sustainability of the club,” outgoing Barça president Josep Maria Bartomeu said in October.
The pandemic has hit Barcelona and Madrid hard, arguably more than their rivals in the English Premier League, where major TV contracts and billionaire owners have provided them with some degree of immunity.
– Problems accentuated by the pandemic –
At the end of this season, Barcelona We expect to have delivered close to 500 million euros in revenue from coronavirus and Madrid around 400 million.
However, many of the charges have been accentuated, not created, by Covid-19.
The € 575 million renovation of Madrid’s Santiago Bernabeu and Barcelona’s € 800 million plan to add seats and a roof to the Camp Nou are long-term projects.
Barcelona already had the highest wage bill in Europe before the coronavirus appeared. Real has been paralyzed in the transfer market since spending 350 million euros on new signings in 2019.
“Barcelona, above all, has been like this for a while,” he says. Dr. Dan Plumley, an expert in football finance at Sheffield Hallam University.
“Finances have been from day to day, to day, always operating at the limit.”
When the pandemic ends and revenues return, the expectation is Barcelona and Madrid it will also be among the fastest to recover.
While Barça’s defeats last season were the worst in Spain, they were not alone in Europe.
Roma, AC Milan and Juventus in Italy all reported heavy losses, while last year Manchester United reported net debt of 474 million pounds ($ 648 million) at the start of the pandemic.
And Barcelona headed the last Deloitte Football Money League with revenues of 715 million euros in 2019/20.
“So, if a club has this income and owes a billion euros, is it balanced? It’s not perfect, but it can be restructured. The level of debt is exaggerated,” says La Liga president Javier Tebas.
– A useful excuse? – A
If the objective is a Super League, the pandemic is a useful excuse, a way to justify what Joan Laporta, favorite to succeed Bartomeu in the presidency of Barcelona, has estimated that it would be a reward of 800 million euros just for entering .
“Both clubs are playing,” says Jimmy Burns, author of several books on the history of Spain and soccer in Spain.
“Florentino is a tough businessman and history has shown it Real Madrid and Barcelona They are never afraid to push their own agendas. ”
“Financially, it’s not something they need,” adds Plumley. “Their need is to grow and widen the gap even further.”
However, in the field the gap has rarely been smaller.
This season Madrid has already lost to Cadiz, Alaves Y I raised as well as Alcoyano in the third division in the Cup. Barça and Madrid are 10 points behind Atlético in the league.
And while the decline in Spain is undoubtedly temporary, authority in Europe may be more difficult to regain.
Barcelona’s historic 8-2 defeat against Bayern Munich Last season came after Real lost to Paris Saint-Germain and then Manchester City, two state clubs whose riches continue to disrupt the old hierarchy.
It is a problem that requires urgent action. “Both clubs have a great history, mixed with a specific culture and politics, which creates a mystique,” says Burns.
“But the reality is that Barcelona and Real Madrid in the last 20 years have completely joined the football of big companies as a global phenomenon. The Super League is simply the natural evolution of those ideas.”
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