Big transfers, big debts for European soccer

By Craig Francis, CNN.com writer

LONDON -- Europe's sporting obsession has been on a fast and furious money-go-round. But the ride might soon be over.

While soccer's officials consider moves to scrap transfer fees, big clubs continue to fork out fantastic figures for the world's best players. (See table.)

And as the European giants get into gear for another shot at the big prize, the Champions League, there are growing doubts about their ability to keep up with the pace.

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The only thing stranger than the circumstances surrounding the summer transfer of Portuguese striker Luis Figo to Real Madrid from Spanish arch-enemy Barcelona was the sums of money bandied about by the protagonists.

The $60.6 million deal was cemented just two weeks after Brazilian Hernan Crespo shattered the record for soccer's highest priced transfer, with a move from Italian club Parma to Serie A rival Lazio for $56.1 million.

Figo and Crespo are the latest to join a growing band of players in the $30 million plus transfer bracket and provide further evidence of the rampant inflation in the European player market.

Christian Vieri joined Inter Milan from Lazio for $46 million last year, Nicholas Anelka was another product of Real Madrid's seemingly bottomless wallet at $35 million, the same price Roma paid Fiorentina for Gabriel Batistuta in 1998, and a couple of million more than Real Betis paid for Brazilian Denilson.

But it was the bizarre events in Spain that left fans and business-minded analysts alike scratching their heads at the "money-is-no-object" approach of the modern coach or club president.

An attempt by Figo to squeeze extra money out of Barcelona, with whom he was desperate to remain, backfired when he signed a pre-contract deal with Real Madrid presidential election candidate Florentino Perez, believing Perez had no chance of taking the helm of the European Cup holders.

The agreement would only take effect if Perez was elected to the top job. So confident had Perez been of securing Figo that he promised to pay for the season tickets of all 70,000 club members if the deal collapsed, at a personal cost of more than $8 million.

On the back of his promise to bring Figo to Real Madrid, Perez duly swept aside his election rivals and Figo's opportunistic striker instincts had resulted in an own goal.

But while Real Madrid supporters toasted the arrival of their latest high-priced acquisition, the club's accountants were left needing the aspirin.

The club has plunged into debts of more than $300 million and financial observers have raised questions about the viability of maintaining competitive European club teams as the cost of players continues to spiral.

Jeremy Batstone, an analyst with NatWest Stockbrokers, outlined the catch-22 situation enveloping top-flight clubs in the "Big Three" leagues of Spain, Italy and England and having a flow-on effect through the rest of Europe and in the lower divisions.

"Clubs need to get back in control of their cost bases but unfortunately there are so many clubs competing for so few honours that unless you pay the money you don't even stand a chance of competing," said Batstone.

The deal has also accentuated the gap at the top of the transfer market between the Spanish and Italian leagues and the relatively modest-spending English Premier League.

Of the 24 transfers valued at $20 million or more, only two involved English clubs writing the cheques, including Chelsea's signing of Dutchman Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink for $21 million this summer.

But more telling for the Big Three leagues is that very few of the top transfers involve English, Spanish or Italian footballers.

The annals of transfer history have to be scanned to uncover the other major Premier League signing in the top bracket -- Newcastle's $22.7 million homecoming for Alan Shearer back in 1995.

The impact on the production of elite players is also echoed in Spain, which has no players among the 24 transfers valued above $20 million, and Italy, where only three players have emerged to warrant such a price tag.

The vast bulk of the world's elite are now crossing the Atlantic from Brazil and Argentina, where players are relatively poorly rewarded and the local competitions are less competitive than their European counterparts.

But despite the financial and on-field dominance of an elite band of mainland European clubs, the English Premier League remains the richest in world football with a turnover last season of more than $1 billion.

And with money comes the ability to buy success, albeit at the expense of local talent development.

Last season, about half the players in the Premier League were foreign nationals, compared to about 35 percent in Spain.

Sixty percent of new recruits to Premiership clubs since May have been non-British. They have cost a combined total of $166 million -- or 75 percent of the total Premiership summer spending -- and will become part of a foreign legion of about 200 in the 20 top-flight squads.

Despite stating earlier this year that it was time to turn to native talent, Chelsea's Premier League manager Gianluca Vialli eventually attributed the lack of quality produce in England to his decision to buy five foreign stars -- including Hasselbaink -- at a cost of $37.6 million.

Arsenal's Arsène Wenger responded in kind, buying from overseas while discarding a handful of young British players, including two midfielders to Crystal Palace and the promising 18-year-old striker, Jay Bothroyd, to Coventry.

After his Arsenal departure, Bothroyd said: "Arsenal want to buy success. The Arsenal first team are not interested in youth. The manager's job is always on the line. He needs success now. If a few young players come through that's a bonus, but he wants success now."

Italian Euro 2000 star midfielder Stefano Fiore recently vented similar frustrations with Serie A to news service Agence France Presse.

"It's part of the mentality, sometimes mistaken, that a foreigner is always better than an Italian," he said.

"But if you look at Italian players, and people like (Juventus' Alessio) Tacchinardi, (Reggina's Roberto) Baronio and myself are the main examples this year, we can hold our own with the great foreigners."

There is belief among many football followers that the ordinary supporter is being alienated from the game.

While ticket prices rise and corporate boxes displace regular season-ticket holders, mercenary footballers such a Figo ply their trade for $5.6 million per year and the top 20 European footballers pocket an average of $50,000 per week.

Lucrative television deals are fuelling the goldrush as the leagues concede that the monetary value of the couch potato outweighs that of the fan at the ground.

By emulating the other European clubs and including a pay-per-view rights component in its television package, the Premier League netted English clubs $2.4 billion - a major boost on the $1 billion paid by Rupert Murdoch's BSkyB pay-television company in 1992 for four years' coverage.

But it is still a long way short of the sums being paid to some Italian and Spanish clubs who, unlike their egalitarian English counterparts, negotiate contracts between individual or small groups of clubs.

So while big Premiership clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal earn $15 million to $18 million per year from their share of the domestic rights deals, clubs like Juventus, Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid can expect to rake in between $45 million and $53 million.

The egalitarian distribution of funds in England -- and similarly in France -- arguably makes for a more competitive league than those of Spain and Italy, whose competitions are often dominated by a few wealthy clubs.

Critics of collective bargaining, notably the Manchester Uniteds and Monacos of the respective competitions, argue they will struggle to find success against their big-spending opponents in southern Europe.

As today's football empires contemplate the next $120,000-a-week signing, players from the early 1960s -- on about $17 in their first year and aspiring to $250 as captain -- can only sit back and ponder how they will find the money to watch their old team.

UEFA, FIFA ready to accept transfer concessions
Thursday August 31, 2000 11:43 AM

UEFA
Federation Internationale de Football Association
English Premier League
Italian soccer
Spanish soccer

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