How Monaco have hit jackpot on and off field
Vice-president Vadim Vasilyev tells how drastic change in transfer policy transformed the club
It was only two years ago that Monaco “made a world record”, vice-president Vadim Vasilyev says, in selling €200million (£174million) worth of players in just one transfer window. No club had ever before brought in that much money.
Incredibly Monaco then finished third in the French league before winning it this season – for the first time in 17 years – and going from the qualifying rounds to the semi-finals of the Champions League with the most exciting, young and attacking team in Europe.
The vultures are again circling. Already Monaco have sold playmaker Bernardo Silva to Manchester City for £43million, with City also wanting full-back Benjamin Mendy (pictured below), while Chelsea are in talks to sign midfielder Tiemoué Bakayoko for another £40million-plus fee. Astonishingly, Monaco have turned down a record £103million from Real Madrid for talented 18-year-old striker Kylian Mbappé, who they intend to keep for at least one more year with a new contract.
Vasilyev is not prepared to confirm individual bids although he states that the club “could break” the record of sales this summer if they wanted to. As we meet in a Paris hotel the 52-yearold Russian is, however, willing to discuss what Monaco’s approach is, how they have achieved it and what happens next.
“I think there will be quite a few,” Vasilyev, who runs the club on a day-to-day basis, says when asked how many offers he expects to receive. “We have done a great job, we have fantastic quality players, so I don’t have to think about how many or who [to sell].
“I stay calm. There will be some departures but we will definitely not let half a team go because we want to keep the team competitive for next year. A few, yes.”
To understand the Monaco story rewind to December 2011. The club were in the French second division but were bought by Russian billionaire Dimitry Rybolovlev, who spent heavily. In came Radamel Falcao, James Rodríguez and Joao Moutinho with Monaco deliberately “making headlines”, as Vasilyev puts it.
But they quickly fell foul of Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules. “Our revenues were not growing the way we projected – sponsors were not queuing up, the stadium, it’s quite old, too small [average gate of only 9,000],” Vasilyev explains. “So we had to change the project. It was dramatic, drastic, yes, but this is the proof now that we had the vision. Now we have the right model – sporting and financial – for our type of club.
“This model says that we have to develop young players because if we want to play at the highest level we should compensate the revenues that we don’t have from sponsorship or match day by transfer market. If not we would have to scale down. It means we have to work well in planning and
‘We will definitely not let half a team go because we want to keep competitive’
developing – and at a certain point letting them go.”
Vasilyev continues: “With the big names it’s difficult for the players to resist. A player also understands that maybe next year he will not get such an offer. We are not on a level par with the biggest clubs in the world so we can’t resist financially to a certain extent.”
So Monaco have become self-sufficient and worked the transfer market to make money and still be successful by selling the idea to talented young players – such as Youri Tielemans, bought from Anderlecht for
£21.6 million to replace Bernardo – that they can go there, play at a high level and move.
“They have the possibility if they do things right to go to the best clubs in the world,” Vasilyev says. Those players, he adds, are found through “normal recruitment” although Vasilyev conducts his own due diligence to “cross-check”. It begs the question why the bigger clubs, the Premier League clubs, do not find talent in the same way.
“Probably because they have so much money,” Vasilyev says, laughing, before adding: “For a big club, though, it’s very difficult to bring through a lot of young players and let them play. And then if you take a player and start loaning him out you never control it or know what happens. So maybe then there are lost years. With the big English clubs you see very many players on loan and it’s quite rare to see them come back and play. That’s the difficulty.”
Monaco want to keep Mbappé – but were also determined not to sell Anthony Martial two years ago until Manchester United bid up to £60 million for a player they had signed in 2013 for just £5 million.
“I sat down with [coach Leonardo] Jardim and said, ‘Look, this is the offer’ and he said, ‘It happens at the wrong time because there’s no time to replace him but I understand you cannot turn it down’,” Vasilyev says. “It was so high. Really we were not interested. To make it happen it had to be exceptional. It was.”
The role of the Portuguese Jardim is key. “When we set out to bring in Jardim we discussed many times the philosophy so he understands it and it has really been a huge pleasure to work with him,” Vasilyev explains. “He will never say, ‘Why are you selling this player?’ He understands it’s part of this project… It’s a puzzle. You cannot let too many players leave but if they want to leave you have to find the balance.” Monaco are determined to do that – even if they again break the world record.