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Real Madrid's Financial Competition with Manchester United and FC Barca

  Soccer is becoming such a large industry world-wide but specifically within Europe as clubs are seen to be more and more competitive in terms of wins/losses and also with the financial aspects. In the current 2016/2017 season the Deloitte Money Report shows how Spanish teams dominate and have dominated in the past with their high and consisting rankings on the Top 20 Money League list with the clubs such as FC Barcelona (2), Real Madrid (3), and Atlético Madrid (13). FC Barcelona is leading the Spanish clubs on the list, but that is a new placement as Real Madrid has moved down on the money list after leading it for more than a decade. The club is not in any financial distress as the revenue from all of their contracts and deals with investors keep them comfortably afloat. In a matter of fact, Real Madrid's annual revenue is consistently increasing which can been seen through their recent success with their main competition, FC Barcelona and Manchester United. Recently, Real Mad...
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Futbol is more than just a game in Barcelona

       Last week, Barcelona faced Las Palmas in a rather odd manner. They played in a stadium that was completely empty.        This was because the game was being played during Barcelona’s independence referendum. La Liga thought that the match should take place because the Catalan police had guaranteed that it would be a safe match, but FC Barcelona did not agree. Therefore, they decided to protest La Liga and had a match without any fans. They essentially missed out on millions of dollars to prove a point. In the Business world, this does not make much since. But, the tensions are so high in Barcelona that a political statement was deemed to be more important than generating profit from the game. This is interesting because in the past couple of months we have seen teams all around the world making political statements, but none as serious as Barcelona’s. Ultimately, FC Barcelona has made the right decision by showing that they are in unit...

The FFP and PSG

Obviously money is a main determinate in where a good footballer will go play. Neymar recently transferred to PSG for a huge 198 million euro. This made him the world's most expensive footballer, taking the title from Manchester United player Paul Pogba. The insane salary PSG offered Neymar would inevitably be hard to turn down, as he is set to receive a weekly wage over 500,000 euro. This makes him one of the most well-paid footballers on the planet, alongside Messi who signed a new deal with Barcelona this year. These huge sums of money are difficult to compete with, therefore the wealthiest teams will continue to get better and better players as the years go on. With the abundantly large salary Neymar is receiving from PSG, UEFA launched an investigation to see if the club was breaking the FFP (financial fair play). "Barcelona, Real Madrid, and the Spanish league president Javier Tebas all made complaints that PSG are flouting the rules. The 198 million pound signing of t...

Release Clauses and Unfair Competition

Over the past few years, each summer the prices for futbol players has gotten ridiculous and the world record transfers have gone up substantially. The release clauses for these players is now in the billions. For example, if Christiano Ronaldo wanted to move clubs before his contract ends, the team that buys him would have to pay Real Madrid over 1 billion dollars. This deal will go on until his contract is up in 2021. Realistically, this fee is unaffordable due to the Financial Play regulations. So if Ronaldo were to be sold befor e 2021, it wouldn’t actually amount to 1 billion, but it would still be a record breaking sum. These numbers largely outpace his estimated market value therefore I find it unnecessary to even set these prices so high. The entire system is flawed because it's solely enabling the best/richest clubs to buy the best players, giving the smaller teams no chance to compete. The level of competition is completely stratified, there are real...

Inflation and the Demise of Competition

        The price inflation has increased an incredible amount for the top players in the European league that even the former Manchester United defender, Rio Ferdinand, commented on it. He made a point in saying that English footballers were so overpriced it was a "joke." Pictured: Rio Ferdinand         Paul Tomkin's, writer for Liverpool, and Graeme Riley have been working on creating Transfer Price Index's (TPI) for over five years. These calculations measure the average price paid for a Premier League soccer player each season and then from their analysis, measures the amount of inflation occurring in the sport of football. Football inflation occurs a lot faster than standard inflation. Every time a new TV deal is made, more money is put into the game. Since TV deals are made all of the time, every season, inflation increases dramatically.         The average price of a Premier League soccer player has basically d...