We are on the brink of ruin,’ said the president of Real Madrid Florentino Perez 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 Real Madrid are not dead. In Monty Python-speak, they are not even resting.
On the contrary, they have just agreed a five-year deal with the world’s most expensive player.
When Kylian Mbappe is finally presented it will probably be against a backdrop of the famous picture of him as a 14-year-old with posters on his wall of Cristiano Ronaldo playing for Madrid.
The talk will be of boyhood dreams, but if Madrid had been the sentimental option Mbappe wouldn’t have stayed for seven years at Paris Saint-Germain.
Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said they were on the brink of ruin in 2021
Madrid have just agreed a five-year deal to sign PSG star Kylian Mbappe
He is going there in large part because, according to Deloitte’s most recent money list, Real Madrid are the highest revenue-generating club in the world.
Mbappe, 25, will arrive on a basic annual salary of €15million (£12.8m) after tax, rising to €20m (£17.1m) across his five-year contract. That equates to an initial wage of €30m (£25.6m) gross, rising to €40m (£34.2m) with Madrid paying 50 per cent of that figure as tax.
His signing-on fee will surpass the €100m (£85.4m) mark — not a problem for a club whose latest La Liga-imposed salary cap was calculated at £620m, £340m higher than any other club in Spain.
Madrid won’t just fill the recently renovated Santiago Bernabeu for Mbappe’s games, they will fill it for his presentation too.
They want that event — due to take place before the Euros if PSG, who have him under contract until the end of June, allow it — to be the biggest of its kind, one of many planned for a stadium the club believe they can turn into Europe’s Madison Square Garden.
Taylor Swift’s gig there at the end of May is already a sell-out bar 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 revamp their stadium but they believe repayments of £51m over the next 30 years will be dwarfed by the revenue that could come from meeting the target of hosting events 180 days of each year.
In one of Europe’s driest cities the retractable roof isn’t to keep the rain off the footballers. It creates the arena atmosphere, and the retractable pitch protects the playing surface.
With such a bright financial future, why still bang the Super League drum? Bernd Reichart, the chief executive of A22 — the company pushing it around Europe — was sat next to Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis during their Champions League last-16 first leg against Barcelona on Wednesday, as part of a promotional drive in Serie A.
Reichart does not share the view 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 all on their own.
Reviewing what Perez said two years ago in that bizarre late-night TV appearance, one quote that stood out came when he was asked who would be the president of the new governing body effectively replacing UEFA.
‘I’ll give it to anyone. Joan Laporta, Andrea Agnelli, whoever wants it,’ he said, name-checking the then presidents of the other two rebel clubs. Once in charge of football, who knows where the limits would be. Games in Saudi Arabia? Mid-match time-outs allowing for commercial breaks?
The worst scenario for Madrid is that clubs across Europe stick with the devil they know. But they will not suffer if that is how it plays out. They were not at the doors of the poor house in 2021 and are unlikely to be there any time soon.
They topped Deloitte’s money league despite being eliminated in the Champions League semi-finals last season. When they last won it in 2022, it earned them £78m.
With Mbappe playing alongside Jude Bellingham, prize money is another source of income that is unlikely to dry up any time soon.
Rogue buggies kill Germany’s £850m deal
So how do you smuggle a remote-control buggy into a top-flight football stadium? Maybe stewards at Werder Bremen’s Weserstadion were just as opposed to the controversial plan to let a private equity firm buy into German football as the protesting fans were.
It was last December when the German Football League (DFL) agreed to let investors take an eight per cent share of revenue from TV rights and marketing for the next 20 years, in return for a lump sum up front of around €1billion (£850million).
The money was to be shared among the clubs in the top two divisions after they voted yes to the proposal with the necessary two-thirds majority.
But the supporters said ‘balls to that’ — tennis balls, to be precise, which they threw on to the pitch along with chocolate money, before unleashing flares that were mounted on radio-controlled cars.
The DFL announced this week that they would not be going ahead with the plan — it had gone up in smoke due to the disruption caused to matches by the protests.
The issue was not so much the money, more the influence fans feared it would buy the outside investors, affecting the 51 per cent majority-control most clubs have over private owners.
So how do you smuggle a remote-control buggy into a top-flight football stadium? Maybe stewards at Werder Bremen’s Weserstadion were just as opposed to the controversial plan to let a private equity firm buy into German football as the protesting fans were
Daniele De Rossi hits the ground running
Daniele De Rossi has won four out of the five league games he has taken charge of at Roma since replacing Jose Mourinho as head coach last month.
He has also guided Roma past Feyenoord to reach the last 16 of the Europa League, where they will meet Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton next month.
‘He lacks experience’, said the doubters when De Rossi was appointed, but it seems 18 seasons at the club as a player is experience enough — at least for the time being.
Tougher tests may find the former Italy midfielder, 40, wanting but so far his switch from his predecessor’s back five to a back four has bolstered Roma’s midfield and made them better with the ball.
And his decision to make Serbian goalkeeper Mile Svilar his No 1 in all competitions ahead of Rui Patricio certainly seems to have boosted the 25-year-old’s confidence, after he saved two penalties in Thursday’s shootout win over Feyenoord.
Daniele De Rossi has won four out of the five league games he has taken charge of at Roma since replacing Jose Mourinho as head coach last month
