Barcelona winning everything last season could have deeper repercussions for the Premier League beyond felling Manchester United in the Champions League. They’ve awoken the sleeping spending giant that is Real Madrid. Desperate to overtake the unstoppable Barça, Real Madrid have obliterated all transfer records and don’t look anywhere near stopping. The super nova has exploded and now every big English transfer prospect looks at risk of sliding into an Iberian black hole before United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, City can grab their targets by the shoestrings and heave them across the channel.
As EPL Talk’s Rory Tevlin reported here, Real have just scooped up Lyon’s Karim Benzema who had been a big transfer target for Manchester United. Real have also been linked with Maicon (wanted by City and Chelsea), Ribery (sought by Arsenal), and David Silva (believed a Liverpool target). Just about all the top talents who have been linked to Premier League clubs seem to be on Real’s radar. Except David Villa. He will supposedly only leave Valencia for Barcelona.
I know, I know… it’s Real Madrid (cue Death Star dirge). They are supposed to buy up all the best world talent. It’s not exactly a brand new modus operandi. Real are going to snatch up your Zizou, your Ruud, your Arjen. It’s what they do. But prior to the Benzema coup, they’ve already outdone themselves beyond belief this summer alone. They spent a reported £56m on Kaká and £80m on Ronaldo. Weeks later, I am still getting over the shock of such numbers.
And this is a club in debt. A reported €500m (£429m) in the red. But the banks won’t say no to the Spanish sporting institution who only had €91m (£78m) to spend on players when Caldéron left. They still bought Kaká and Ronaldo. And, prior to buying Benzema, they said their aim was to pick up about five more players. This mad hatter’s financial tea party sounds familiar doesn’t it? Maybe AIG should get itself on the front of Los Galacticos‘ kits now that it’s been stripped off United’s.
So Benzema’s in. Ribery’s thinking about it. And Real president Florentio Pérez seems unwavering in his determination to lure Xabi Alonso from Liverpool. Liverpool have slapped a £35m price tag on the indispensable midfielder. My concern in Real may offer enough for Liverpool to dispense with him.
The ability to lure a pivotal player away from Merseyside shouldn’t come as a surprise. As we’ve learned from the Kaká and Ronaldo moves, there is a price for everything. But this is part of a deeper, more alarming trend than big Real spending in the past.
The real[sic] problem is Real are willing to spend so much and go after near everybody in their mad scramble to re-establish themselves as Spanish top dog, one fears what big names will be left after Madrid have made their moves. With their complicit lenders behind them, there’s no ceiling in sight for Real Madrid. Even if Madrid don’t win all their targets, they can sparked outrageous bidding wars and see the prices of the best players skyrocket beyond belief. For now £56m and £80m are brief spikes. But if these trends continue, Real may push the market into a new realm of ridiculous heights. The English clubs may wrest some of these targets from Real’s grasp, but at what cost?
This is a scary development in these tough economic times.
Dude, Real are backed by the Spanish government-full financial backing. That is why they have so much $$$ even when in ‘debt.’
If they don’t win CL and La Liga this year, Perez’s “project” will be a huge failure…
The ethos of spending big for world class players didn’t begin with the first generation of galacticos i.e. Zidane, Figo, Ronaldo etc. It began almost half a century ago under the legendary Santiago Bernabeu when he signed the original galacticos the likes of Di Stefano, Puskas, Kopa etc. So this is nothing new…it’s a tradition.
Players’ price tags will definitely go up as time goes by. Same like every other product out there. 10 bucks today is not the same as it was a few years back. For eg. Denilson cost Real Betis almost 22 million pounds almost 10 yrs ago (a world record’s fee then) but now for the same amount of money, you’d only get a half decent quality player.
I read at ESPN that Ribery has come out saying he wants a transfer to the Bernabéu as well – what a shame.
I couldn’t agree more…Only because I wanted him for Chelsea.
Arsenal are after Ribery? Really? Since when?
It’s no big deal because Real is not an English Club, they’re on the continent so they don’t have to be financially responsible. It was only 6 months ago that the Eurocrats like Platini were lambasting English Clubs for spending money they DO have. The hypocrisy is beyond laughable.
Yeah very true. The bosses of European football slammed the english clubs for being extravagant, now what happened when Real are too busy buying players then playing football. That too when they are buried under neck deep debts? Hypocrisy @ its best. Looser platini.
I work in banking and understand a few things about the economy and from what I understand about the Spanish economy the chances are the Spanish economy will be where Russias economy was after the collapse of the Soviet Union in a few decades without Chinese investment.
Spanish clubs have always been bought up by European billionaires because they are money printing machines on a global scale.
One way to look at it is like this. The countries that speak English are the United States of America, The United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.
None of these countries follow football and all the other big football regions do not speak English. The reason La Liga has been so big is because every Portugese or Spanish team on the planet can watch La Liga broadcasts. Try putting on a Premier League broadcast in South America and they wont have an idea what is being said.
This is one advantage clubs like Real Madrid have had with a TV deal that is worth twice as much as Manchester Uniteds due to the sheer amount of viewers involved.
This is all starting to change though as English is becoming a global language and more countries are tuning into the Premier League without a language barrier.
If you go to places like Malaysia you can’t go into a sports store without seeing a United shirt. In Asia especially United are enormous to a scale not seen for a football team ever before.
With so many people around the world adopting English as the language of choice it won’t be long before a lot more people can tune into Premier League broadcasts which will increase TV deals.
Simply put the more viewers you can attract to the screens the more potential customers you have and the better your standing is.
This is why Premier League clubs are being favoured by billionaires as opposed to any other league at the moment and it’s likely more investors from Asia and the Middle East will invest in the Premier League in the interest of a long term development.
Sheikh Mansour whatever you think of him is in it for the long term with Manchester City and plans to turn it into a profit venture one day. Men like these have so many advisers they wouldn’t notice if half of them didn’t show up.
The other side of the coin is the economy as I mentioned earlier. When an economy is in recession things eventually lead to inflation because of the money bring printed. It’s a long term issue but whereas countries like the USA, UK, Germany and France are being bailed out by the Chinese bond investments Spain is not being bailed out.
Spain will likely go into hyper inflation and most of the entities will either get bought out by foreign investors or be left to die. Spanish football is unlikely to be very big for another couple of decades going off the economic trouble the country is in.
Football is big big business now I prefer to look at it from a economic perspective but maybe thats because of the nature of my job. Either way I think La Liga has always been the 800 pound gorilla due to the lack of a language barrier but now the Premier League has the upper hand and is getting the big investors with the big bucks.
Tax rate in Spain next year for the top bracket = 24% (42% but govt gives rebate). In UK it is going to be 50%. That is 40% more on equal wages to play in Spain over UK!
Will these new signings even address their problems from last season? I thought they were in need of help in defense, if they really do intend on spending this much money a failure to win silverware will only make it even more laughable than it already is.
Real Madrid spend money they will get back through merchandising
Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo and Beckham made them loads of money.
Kaka’, C.Ronaldo, Benzema and they’re hoping Ribery will do the same.
English clubs such and Man U/Man C & Chelsea need to spend the money they have at ridiculously high prices if the players you want are to come join you and make you a bigger club.
every time MU get there, their big players leave for Real. first Beckham, now Ronaldo.. tbh if i was at United i’d retire the no. 7!
Chelsea were supposed to become a world dominating team, and me as a chelsea fan am highly disappointed in how crap the team can be. since Mourinho left the team hasn’t been the same, and the total lack of high profile signings joining the Premier league is due to the fall of the pound against the euro, players will simply earn more in Spain. AND transfer fees of say about €94m (£80m) would have been about a year ago £70m. so for Euro clubs to earn money from sales, its going to cost the English clubs more.
If i was Abramovich, i’d spend ridiculous money on players i know would be good. £60m for a player is cheap now thanks to Real.
but i doubt chelsea will get anyone big this summer tbh, they might win the league as man utd are a little weakened without Ronaldo and Tevez, but the champions league is between Barca and Real for a few years to come til Roman spends his cash big.
Also I must add there’s only 2 clubs I hate in world football.. well 1. the other are just a bit foolish.
Real Madrid and Arsenal..
Arsenal is mainly due to their stupid philosophy they’ve adapted, and if i were an Arsenal fan i’d be pissed off to the max. why sell all your english players, make the first language of the team french, sell big name players and use youngsters. you’ll never win a thing, everyone knew that and how right they were. Liverpool annoy me too with their only buy spanish players policy.
Chelsea have always gone after English players with the best of Europe.
but i really depise Real. its officially the biggest graveyard in football!!
they change their managers and players all the time, its a joke. and chelsea and man city are in danger of being copycats.
apparently they want to sell all their dutchmen. yet Huntelaar was awesome last season and has only been there 6 months, Sneijder and Robben were really good too!
yet apparently they’re all for sale, if i was Roman/Carlo i’d sign all 3 for Chelsea, Robben should have never been sold and the other 2 are awesome.
I much prefer Barcelona, and have done for years. Barca to win the league again! and Chelsea for premier league.. champs league is mostly down to luck. always someone gets lucky in one game along the way.
Porto vs MU (offside goal i think), L’pool vs Chelsea (garcia’s not a goal) THEN Milan (lucky comeback, penalties), Man U vs Chelsea (chelsea hit bar twice, penalties), Barca vs Chelsea (4 penalty appeals turned down)
just cos Im a chelsea fan i’m not feeling hard done by, but uefa do seem to hate chelsea? maybe its the money in english football thing :p or Roman is cursed.
Ribery (sought by Arsenal)—- Only person who thought up this Transfer was some journalist in the UK … Arsenal would not splash the Cash on Ribery — ever.. I know he is French and all, would fit in perfect, but Arsene would never be given that much cash for one player…. Even if Adebayor was sold for 25 million — we would not go for scare face.
As a La Liga fan, I am delighted to have top notch players in the league. However, I’m not sure if such an investment in time of crisis could pay itself by merchandise and tv rights alone. We’ll have to wait and see, but if they collapse, a lot of Real Madrid “socios” are up for a big meltdown. By the way, whoever says that the Spanish government is paying for Real Madrid players should include a link to support that claim, especially considering that the president Zapatero is an avid Barça fan.
At any rate, next year presents itself as enticing as ever with the show down between Barça and Madrid; ESPN broadcasting La Liga games will be another incentive …
EPL sucks, its a C- grade league compared to La Liga. Real Madrid and Barca rule World Football and that is something u pommie losers cant take. These 2 superclubs combined have more trophies than all 20 teams in EPL combined. Even Ronaldo said it, La Liga is superior.. no wonder our Spanish National Team thrash your Wembley wannbies everytime !! haha !! Real just took the best player from England, France and Italian league.. you losers can just watch and wonder..