European football’s gravy train
Paris – A record-breaking transfer window has seen the likes of Paris St-Germain, Manchester City and Barcelona spend a fortune so far on new players.
We take a look at how, and why, clubs are splashing such large amounts of cash.
- Foreign investment - The summer’s two biggest spenders so far have been Manchester City, taken over by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour in 2008, and Paris St-Germain, who have been the beneficiaries of Qatar’s billions, fronted by Nasser Al-Khelaifi, since 2011.
City have been o=ne of Europe’s biggest spenders since stunning the Premier League with a £42 million signing of Robinho on transfer deadline day in 2008, while PSG rocked the entire football world by paying a world record of €222 million to sign Neymar from Barcelona.
Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich started the new breed of billionaire foreign owners when he bought Chelsea in 2003.
The Chinese are starting to take a slice of European football too. Businessman Li Yonghong took out a €300m loan to buy AC Milan, but was still able to spend €40m on signing defender Leonardo Bonucci from Juventus in July.
- Political statements - The most stunning move of the close season came when PSG paid Neymar’s release clause to prise the Brazilian playmaker away from Barcelona.
The move came after the start of a diplomatic crisis in June that saw countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut off diplomatic relations with Qatar and impose trade and travel bans.
For Qatari Al-Khelaifi to spend a possible further €180m on Monaco youngster Kylian Mbappe, sent a “strong signal to the world of sport” and is a “challenge” to the UAE and Saudi Arabia, according to political analyst Andreas Krieg of King’s College in London.
- TV billions - The Premier League is football’s bastion when it comes to producing eye-popping figures, and its £5.14 billion TV rights deal has given English top-flight clubs extremely deep pockets.
The last deal was agreed in 2015, and saw Sky pay £4.2bn for five of seven TV packages, with BT Sports buying the other two.
That groundbreaking agreement was worth 71% more than the previous rights deal in 2012.
BT announced after the auction in 2015 that it would be paying £7.6m for each live game.
TV rights for Spain’s La Liga went for a comparatively small three-year deal worth €2.65bn, while rights for France’s Ligue 1 are worth €748.5m a year.
The bumper deal for the Premier League has had two clear effects – clubs in other European leagues now know that they can hold out for much larger transfer fees when English sides bid for their players, while moves between Premier League teams are becoming more and more expensive.
- Sponsorship soaring - It is not just TV rights pumping money into football clubs, but sponsorship deals.
Earlier this month, Bayern Munich announced that they had agreed a deal for Qatar’s Hamad International Airport to become their first-ever ‘sleeve sponsor’.
Car manufacturer Chevrolet pay €67m annually to have their logo given pride of place on Manchester United’s shirt, while Nike will pay Barcelona at least €150m a year for the privilege of making their shirts.