Hassan Chamas
All the uproar and unrest caused by the world’s latest economic crisis seems to have dried every major western enterprise down to its last Euro or Dollar. Cars are being sold for half their price – if you’re looking for a killer price, then Ford’s your destination – houses are as cheap as ever, and the only true symbol of power in this world is liquid flowing cash. Luckily for football, there’s plenty where that came from.
Got money? If you do, and you happen to run a football club, then chances are that you will be crowned with silverware come the end of the season. And this comes as no contradiction to the recently-published Deloitte Rich List, whose pole contenders are none others that European football’s most successful clubs.
If you haven’t managed to check the list up-close yet, you won’t be surprised by the order of ranking that the accounting firm has published: In first place come reigning Spanish champions Real Madrid with aggregate revenue of around €365.8M – a €15M leap from the previous year – followed by World Champions Manchester United, who managed a slightly lighter income of €324.8M. The bronze medal is Barcelona’s for the taking after the Blaugrana recorded 308.8M – a figure that would have been much, much higher had they been able to pick up silverware in the 2007/08 campaign.
Does money really reflect the amount of success a given team has? Do currency and trophies increase hand-in-hand? Based on the figures presented by Deloitte, one would say so. Real Madrid are after all back-to-back domestic champions. And only their sold merchandise, along with their Adidas sponsorship and yearly Asian tours would generate enough money to fund for a mouth-savoring summer spending spree.
A year earlier, it took Real around €118M for them to forge the squad that enabled them to keep their Primera championship for the second year-running. This time around, it will have taken Barcelona €88M to snatch La Liga’s crown from their eternal rivals, a feat that they seem to be doing so brilliantly in light of their exhilarating success this season: With the league title drawing ever closer and the notion of Champions League clashes trimmed to Sunday afternoon walks after their drubbing of giant/not-so-giant Bayern Munich, their money has not been spent so stupidly has it?
A bit further up north and there is the case of Manchester United. Having the correct mixture of youth-teamers and established seniors, Man Utd have propelled themselves up to the very apex of football. A Premier League crown in 2006/07 and then Europe’s and the rest of the planet’s the following year by winning the Champions League and the Club World Cup. It’s this kind of success that enabled the Mancunians to acquire Dimitar Berbatov last summer for the terrific fee of £30.75M, the Bulgarian joining the already impressive attacking cohort of Wayne Rooney, Cristiano Ronaldo and Carlos Tevez.
So it’s basically the following scenario: The likes of Real Madrid and Chelsea, having the most money, should be the ones leading domestic rankings, and the bookies favourites to land a place in the Champions League’s final match next month in Rome. Not so strangely enough, that’s not the case.
Real Madrid never managed to shrug-off their unpleasing habit of nose-crashing their Champions League campaign off-course, an attribute that has grown into their personal gimmick over the past five years as they just could not evade the last-16 hurdle. Sure, they’ve won two La Ligas in a row, the most ardent Blanco sympathizer would say. But in 2006/07, they weren’t able to claim the spoils until the very last game. And last year, virtually all teams rejected an invite to tussle for the crown.
If things appeared a bit bright in Madrid, what about London? FA Cups and Carling Cup trophies in 2007 do not even compensate for the oil millions that club tycoon Roman Abramovich pumped in to make Chelsea the best team around. The arrival of world-class superstars such as Andriy Shevchenko and Michael Ballack could not just catalyze the rampage of what was supposed to be a berserk bull. Of course, John Terry was just a slip away from crowning his team as European champions almost a year ago, but if there’s one thing history forgets, it’s the losers. While it may be forever imprinted in JT’s head, people forgot his penalty kick almost as soon as they forgot Michael Jackson’s natural skin color.
One team whose abundance of cash did not translate into silverware is Arsenal. Arsene Wenger’s team just has the word “potential” written all over it. But if there’s something Wenger’s accredited for, other than having Wolverine’s flair for talent, it’s his relative “cheapness”. ‘The Teacher’ just prefers to keep his piggy bank resting safely on the highest shelf. Bravo to him for leading Arsenal to fifth position on the Deloitte list. But what has his abstention rewarded him with? Not a single trophy since Thierry Henry opted for Barcelona’s warm beaches ahead of London’s grimy fog.
While Arsenal’s retreat from spending might have cost them dearly, others still managed to hit the jackpot using only a handful of coins: Nowhere being the imposing giants that are Barcelona and Real Madrid, Jose del Nido’s Sevilla still managed to be one of the country’s hottest outfits over the past couple of years, as they swiped one Copa del Rey, one Spanish Super Cup, a couple of UEFA Cups, and a UEFA Super Cup all in a period of 24 months. Which one of their players exceeds the €20M mark? Interestingly enough, their name is not present among the top ten on the list.
Another case of unequal ranking is that contested between the Lombardy duo, AC Milan and Internazionale. Over the past few years, the Rossoneri only managed a Champions League triumph in 2007. Back then, Milan – enormously due to Kaka – cemented their place as the world’s best, with the magic displayed by the Brazilian superstar enough to see him make away with that year’s Ballon d’Or. Inter, on the other hand, who have failed to go far in Europe since, well, forever, are nonetheless Italian champions for the third year running, going on four. Why is it then that their post-Calciopoli dominance just did not cut the mustard when it came to the Deloitte list, even finishing two places behind their town rivals in a grunting tenth spot?
What a strange thing money is. A tool so powerful that it could even knock the halo off the firmest of believers. Luckily for football fans, the mallet does not go to the dollar judge. Football is an investment. Invest poorly and you’ll lose, and one arrear after another will start popping up. Invest wisely, and you will be generously rewarded. Some choose to lower their ante and still cash in a worthy prize, while others only wished they heard their wives in the first place and spent the night at home.
But does money make a risk-free project when it comes to capturing trophies? Manchester City will answer that question over the coming years. But some participants in this survey already showed that this was not the case. In any circumstances, albeit being somewhat of an unfair criterion in order to evaluate success, no team would rather not have their name on it. For some like Real Madrid, it is adequate for them to be the first name to jump to the readers eye. For others like Manchester United, they can only lament their luck and blame their bridesmaid status on the decreasing value of the British Pound.
Deloitte Rich List Season Ending 2007/08
1. Real Madrid – Revenue = €365.8M
2. Manchester United – Revenue = €324.8M
3. FC Barcelona – Revenue = €308.8M
4. Bayern Munich – Revenue = €295.3M
5. Chelsea – Revenue = €268.9M
6. Arsenal – Revenue = €264.4M
7. Liverpool – Revenue = €210.9M
8. AC Milan – Revenue = €209.5M
9. AS Roma – Revenue = €175.4M
10. Internazionale – Revenue = €172.9M
