We are on the brink of ruin,’ said Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez in April 2021 when he appeared on Spanish television to announce a new European Super League. “By 2024 we will be dead.”
Well here we are in 2024 and it turns out that Real Madrid is not dead. In Monty Python language, they’re not even resting.
On the contrary, they have just signed a five-year contract with the most expensive player in the world.
When Kylian Mbappé is finally introduced, it will probably be against the backdrop of the famous photo of him when he was 14 with posters on his wall of Cristiano Ronaldo playing for Madrid.
There will be talk about childhood dreams, but if Madrid had been the sentimental option, Mbappé would not have stayed seven years at Paris Saint-Germain.
Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez said they were on the verge of ruin in 2021
Well here we are in 2024 and it turns out that Real Madrid is not dead. On the contrary, they have just signed a five-year contract with the most expensive player in the world, Kylian Mbappé.
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It goes there largely because, according to Deloitte’s most recent earnings list, Real Madrid is the top-grossing club in the world.
Mbappe, 25, will arrive on a base annual salary of €15m (£12.8m) after tax, rising to €20m (£17.1m) over the course of the year. his five-year contract. That equates to a starting salary of €30m (£25.6m) gross, which will rise to €40m (£34.2m) with Madrid paying 50 per cent of that figure in of taxes.
His signing fee will exceed €100m (£85.4m), which is no problem for a club whose last salary cap imposed by La Liga was estimated at £620m, £340m more than any other club in Spain.
Madrid will not only fill the recently renovated Santiago Bernabéu for Mbappé’s games, but they will also fill it for his presentation.
They want that event, which will take place before the Euro if PSG, which has him under contract until the end of June, allows it, to be the largest of its kind, one of many planned for a stadium that the club believes will can transform. at Madison Square Garden in Europe.
Taylor Swift’s concert there at the end of May is already sold out, with around 300 tickets ranging in price from £650 to £2,122. And Spain’s new UFC featherweight world champion, Ilia Topuria, wants to fight Conor McGregor there.
Madrid borrowed £1bn to renovate its stadium but believes repayments of £51m over the next 30 years will be dwarfed by the income that could be made by meeting the target of hosting events 180 days a year.
In one of the driest cities in Europe, the retractable roof does not protect footballers from the rain. It creates the atmosphere of the arena and the retractable field protects the playing surface.
With such a bright financial future, why continue beating the Super League drum? Bernd Reichart, CEO of A22, the company that powers it in Europe, was sitting next to Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis during the first leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie against Barcelona on Wednesday, as part of a promotional campaign in Serie A.
Reichart does not share the opinion that a Super League is impossible without English clubs. He believes that if they can get the rest of Europe on board, then the Premier League teams would have to follow – they can’t play a “European” Cup on their own.
In reviewing what Pérez said two years ago in that strange late-night television appearance, one quote that stood out came when he was asked who would be the president of the new governing body that would effectively replace UEFA.
‘I’ll give it to anyone. “Joan Laporta, Andrea Agnelli, whoever,” he said, naming the then presidents of the other two rebel clubs. Once in charge of football, who knows what the limits would be. Games in Saudi Arabia? Mid-game timeouts that allow for commercial breaks?
The worst scenario for Madrid is that clubs across Europe are left with the devil they know. But they will not suffer if this is how the situation develops. They were not at the doors of the poorhouse in 2021 and are unlikely to be any time soon.
They topped the Deloitte Monetary League despite being eliminated in the Champions League semi-finals last season. The last time they won it was in 2022, it brought them £78 million.
With Mbappé playing alongside Jude Bellingham, the prize money is another source of income that likely won’t dry up anytime soon.
Rebel buggies kill Germany’s £850m deal
So how do you smuggle a remote-controlled buggy into a top-tier soccer stadium? Perhaps the administrators of Werder Bremen’s Weserstadion were as opposed as the fans to the controversial plan to allow a private equity firm to buy shares in German football.
It was last December when the German Football League (DFL) agreed to allow investors to keep an eight percent share of the revenue from television and marketing rights for the next 20 years, in exchange for an initial lump sum of around €1 billion (£850 million). ).
The money would be distributed between the clubs in the top two divisions after they voted yes to the proposal with the necessary two-thirds majority.
But the fans said “balls to that”, specifically tennis balls, which they threw onto the field along with chocolate bills, before launching flares mounted on radio-controlled cars.
The DFL announced this week that it would not move forward with the plan, which had fizzled out due to the interruption of games due to protests.
The problem was not so much the money, but rather the influence that fans feared would buy outside investors, affecting the 51 percent majority control that most clubs have over private owners.
So how do you smuggle a remote-controlled buggy into a top-tier soccer stadium? Perhaps the administrators of Werder Bremen’s Weserstadion were as opposed to the controversial plan to allow a private equity firm to buy shares in German football as were the protesting fans.
Daniele De Rossi gets to work
Daniele De Rossi has won four of the five league games he has managed at Roma since replacing Jose Mourinho as head coach last month.
He also guided Roma past Feyenoord to reach the last 16 of the Europa League, where they will face Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton next month.
“He lacks experience,” said skeptics when De Rossi was appointed, but it seems that 18 seasons at the club as a player is enough experience, at least for the moment.
The toughest tests may prove insufficient for the former Italian midfielder, 40, but his switch from his predecessor’s back five to a back four has so far strengthened Roma’s midfield and made them better on the ball.
And his decision to make Serbian goalkeeper Mile Svilar his number one in all competitions ahead of Rui Patricio certainly appears to have boosted the 25-year-old’s confidence, after he saved two penalties in Thursday’s shootout over the Feyenoord.
Daniele De Rossi has won four of the five league games he has managed at Roma since replacing Jose Mourinho as head coach last month.