Summer mercato 2020

[reza]

I can't see how any team can pay 100m for anybody in the next 1 or 2 windows, but does that mean teams will keep their players or the market will become cheaper? that is the question in my opinion.
Teams may go bankrupt but I doubt the list will include any of the top division teams in England, Italy, Germany, France, Spain.

[nefremo]

Unless teams are forced to sell in order to stay afloat, they will not just disburse assets at 40%, 50% discounts. If they can cover their expenses and therefore not be forced to sell...they will hold onto their most prized assets until the economy as a whole recovers to an acceptable extent.

Imo, like Reza said, none of the top 5 leagues will lose clubs due to insolvency. Therefore, I don't think any of them would just sell for big discounts. Will there be opportunities to buysome players? Sure! Absolutely. At the end of the day, clubs will want to reinforce but are likely lacking the cash to do so. Obtaining more debt is unreasonable in the current environment. Therefore 1 way (and maybe the only way currently) to reinforce is to sell some of your own to raise capital. That will for sure happen. Will it be at lower prices, knowing fully well that any buyers out there are also lacking the cash? Yes.
But no, I don't think we can get our hands on any top players for big discounts. Big players that cost a lot are staying where they are for another year. They won't leave for "peanuts".

Now...can Dembele (just an example) leave Barca due to other issues? Meaning, he was probably going to leave even without Covid? Yes. Just like Coutinho did last year. But quite simply....this is a market we simply can't be in. It's impossible for us to afford these players. They will not be sold for amounts we can afford. Our only chance is that they'll go out on loans with huge options/obligations to buy. Can we structure this type of deal, somehow? It's possible I think. But i'm not holding my breath because I know what the competition will be like.

Having said all that, I do believe Ralf can help us be attractive to some of these players that have played in and done well in Germany previously (Jovic, Dembele, etc). His reputation in Germany is incredible, and any player (that came out of Germany) looking to "reinvent themselves" similar to Jovic/Dembele I guess, would probably seriously entertain the idea of being coached by Ralf. At the end of the day though, money talks.

[Lebanese]

I can't see how any team can pay 100m for anybody in the next 1 or 2 windows, but does that mean teams will keep their players or the market will become cheaper? that is the question in my opinion.
Teams may go bankrupt but I doubt the list will include any of the top division teams in England, Italy, Germany, France, Spain.

IMO football business will take few years to recover. Money will become very rare and precious until the business is back on track.

Roma takeover collapsed and now they are offering Palotta 200m less (first offer was 650). The volume of debt in football is insane. You'll be surprised but every club is buying on a credit card and the plan to pay up is tv money, sponsorships, prize money and milestones money. Clubs with huge payroll will need to get rid of highly paid players, you can no longer have starting material sitting on the bench.

Inter is a prime example, they used their credit card last year assuming they will make x amount of money. Now if you look at tv money and how much clubs lost in this process you'll get that some big clubs will suffer.

Few days ago I saw on Twitter the amount of money lost in Italian football, im sure those number are not accurate but juventus are losing 450, inter 400, roma 160 & milan 83.

Epl will take a huge blow just based on the projections of what they should have made year to date. The Swiss ramble (financial football account) is predicting catastrophic curves in sports world.

There are few secure and safe clubs in the world mostly German, napoli from Italy and the Arab owned clubs. Everybody else will take precautions.

I agreed with hitman because clubs are now between the rock and the hard place, you can stand your ground firm or take a dent to the purse. First option will always carry the risk that you'll lose the player on bosman.

I think the talent market will struggle the most as it's nearly impossible to pay 40-50m for a player that never played in Europe or with few first team appearances, the rest of the market will be rotating players from one club to another, loans with option.

In my opinion we will see many clubs releasing players or looking to ship them for free just to get rid of their salary.

[porcho]

If it is true that Rangnick wants to be a sporting director and bring in a coach as well (according to some rumors), I would really hope they seriously consider Pochettino. The advantages of Pochettino for the way the football is played and results achieved is huge. Rangnick’s impressive results came in the sporting side of the club - scouting, medically, technology and style of play implementation across the teams of the club, like what Barcelona, City and Redbull have.

The actual coaching Rangnick has had his ups and downs... but Pochettino has only had ups and ups and ups in recent years. He’s definitely a great coach. The combination of Rangnick + Pochettino is enticing. Rather more fitting than Rangnick (coach) + Braida (what would he come for if not sporting director, which is the responsibility that Rangnick wants above all?).

But Poch + Rangnick would represent a steep investment cause Poch would also want to bring some of his coaching staff. Could have conflicting ideas in terms of staff with Rangnick but this definitely is an idea worth imploring.

I'd love this to happen but sadly can't see Gazidis spending top $$ on Poch

IMO football business will take few years to recover. Money will become very rare and precious until the business is back on track.

Roma takeover collapsed and now they are offering Palotta 200m less (first offer was 650). The volume of debt in football is insane. You'll be surprised but every club is buying on a credit card and the plan to pay up is tv money, sponsorships, prize money and milestones money. Clubs with huge payroll will need to get rid of highly paid players, you can no longer have starting material sitting on the bench.

Inter is a prime example, they used their credit card last year assuming they will make x amount of money. Now if you look at tv money and how much clubs lost in this process you'll get that some big clubs will suffer.

Few days ago I saw on Twitter the amount of money lost in Italian football, im sure those number are not accurate but juventus are losing 450, inter 400, roma 160 & milan 83.

Epl will take a huge blow just based on the projections of what they should have made year to date. The Swiss ramble (financial football account) is predicting catastrophic curves in sports world.

There are few secure and safe clubs in the world mostly German, napoli from Italy and the Arab owned clubs. Everybody else will take precautions.

I agreed with hitman because clubs are now between the rock and the hard place, you can stand your ground firm or take a dent to the purse. First option will always carry the risk that you'll lose the player on bosman.

I think the talent market will struggle the most as it's nearly impossible to pay 40-50m for a player that never played in Europe or with few first team appearances, the rest of the market will be rotating players from one club to another, loans with option.

In my opinion we will see many clubs releasing players or looking to ship them for free just to get rid of their salary.

100% I do think there will be some bargains come end of season but they might not be many. I'm thinking more along the lines of only a handful of players, like a Dembele/Jovic, who were already out the door come end of season but now won't attract much money because money is tight around the world.
I doubt it would happen but would be an extremely happy fan if we saw Dembele signed next Mercato.

[nefremo]

It's not as simple as buying on a credit card. The type of debt we are talking about here can be (and WILL BE, if needed) restructured. It is not in the creditor's interests for a club to lose value, sell off assets for chunk change, or god forbid become insolvent. The moment a club (or any business) is starting to sell it's most prized assets just to pay off creditors...is the moment that business (club in our case) is dead in the water and it's only a matter of time. Generating revenue (and therefore freeing up cash) is what's in the interest of everyone (clubs AND creditors). Because that's how the creditors will be ensured of long term repayment of what they've lent out. How are you going to generate more revenue, if you go ahead and sell your most prized assets? It's a very VERY short term solution. It's not viable and creditors are smarter than that. It's a short sighted move. Will players be sold? Probably so at lower prices? Yes, of course as I said before. But no way in hell will top players, worth X amount 6 months ago, be sold at 40-50% discounts. Absolutely, no way.
As grim as things look right now, clubs in the top 5 leagues will eventually be ok. It may take 1-2 years for that to happen and for some maybe more....but they will protect their assets. And as crazy at it may seem, creditors themselves will demand those assets are protected.

[sylrus]

lets get back to reality 1st, no way we will have the money spend to buy or loan dembele imo. it would be better to play our youngster from primavera or get some cheap players from serie b or south america imo.

[Hitman]

IMO football business will take few years to recover. Money will become very rare and precious until the business is back on track.

Roma takeover collapsed and now they are offering Palotta 200m less (first offer was 650). The volume of debt in football is insane. You'll be surprised but every club is buying on a credit card and the plan to pay up is tv money, sponsorships, prize money and milestones money. Clubs with huge payroll will need to get rid of highly paid players, you can no longer have starting material sitting on the bench.

Inter is a prime example, they used their credit card last year assuming they will make x amount of money. Now if you look at tv money and how much clubs lost in this process you'll get that some big clubs will suffer.

Few days ago I saw on Twitter the amount of money lost in Italian football, im sure those number are not accurate but juventus are losing 450, inter 400, roma 160 & milan 83.

Epl will take a huge blow just based on the projections of what they should have made year to date. The Swiss ramble (financial football account) is predicting catastrophic curves in sports world.

There are few secure and safe clubs in the world mostly German, napoli from Italy and the Arab owned clubs. Everybody else will take precautions.

I agreed with hitman because clubs are now between the rock and the hard place, you can stand your ground firm or take a dent to the purse. First option will always carry the risk that you'll lose the player on bosman.

I think the talent market will struggle the most as it's nearly impossible to pay 40-50m for a player that never played in Europe or with few first team appearances, the rest of the market will be rotating players from one club to another, loans with option.

In my opinion we will see many clubs releasing players or looking to ship them for free just to get rid of their salary.

Inter are also another club who could remain strong after all this as their funds come from Suning. If Suning’s economy is still thriving then Inter will be okay.

Swiss Ramble is an excellent account and have by far offered the best and most accurate economic analysis of the football world - consistently. Another good account is Calcio Finanza. Could you kindly share that article if you still have a link to it? The thing is, it is very hard to predict what path football will follow because A LOT of rules and exemptions will have to be made over the next years of legal battle in order to save football clubs. Discussions for these exemptions and rules haven’t even started yet so that’s why it’s so hard to understand where this will go.

What is for sure is that as of today, the French Ligue bottom 14 clubs are in the worst shape. There’s no way the TV rights owner will agree to pay them what was initially agreed to them as they didn’t broadcast the agreed number of matches according to what they paid for - all due to ending the season early. We definitely will see a lot of clubs suffer, even in the Top 5 leagues. Of course England will be the least affected because their TV rights deals are so much bigger than the other countries that they can eventually overcome these losses if they guarantee consistent sporting success (success = surviving in EPL without relegation). The EPL clubs who’ll get relegated will be hurt the most. Italian clubs are also in a bad position as they don’t even own their stadiums so have even less revenue to start with.

This is why it is of absolute importance for every club to finish the season this season no matter what. That way they’ll ensure they respected their part of the contract and will earn the money from the TV rights deal. This way they’ll only lose their stadium revenue for the season which is minor for clubs like the EPL but much more important for clubs outside the top 5 European leagues.

Definitely agree that we’ll see plenty of player loans and swaps particularly between top clubs who’ll ‘defer’ the evaluations of players until the market recovers somewhat.

I'd love this to happen but sadly can't see Gazidis spending top $$ on Poch

Porcho,

Gazidis knows Pochettino too well as it was him who relegated Arsenal and Wenger from being a Top 4 side in recent years. He has tried to bring Poch to Arsenal and publicly spoken of how good a coach he is if I remember correctly. Don’t make the mistake in thinking that Gazidis doesn’t spend $ just because he is cutting dead weight. He is a shrewd CEO that’s primarily inspired by the balance sheets. That’s the kind of CEO we need to survive. Do not mix the success of the CEO and the Sporting Director because they have two completely different objectives and the only reason Milan has failed in the last 15 years is because of the failure in the CEO’s responsibilities to deliver healthy financials. These healthy financials will allow sporting directors to have bigger budgets to spend more to get their objectives. Elliott have the cash, Gazidis and them know the importance of experienced personnel but they above all respect the rules of FFP. If they can find a way to spend without disobeying any laws, they shall definitely invest.


Nefremo,

You do not seem to have that imagination to be able to think of what might happen in a future that hasn’t happened before. You always seem to be base the future’s projection on the actual reality of yesterday’s analysis of today. Your analysis of the situation of today is outdated and needs an update. And you’ll eventually get updated, you just need to see it take place for you to say ‘Well I did not know that this was going to happen because who knew that they were going to lose much this in revenue?’.

The only accurate thing in your analysis is that yes, there is a crisis of today. But your assessment of the crisis’ impacts is negligent. You think as a result, clubs will be even more hesitant not to devalue/sell their prized assets (in other words the market will remain unaffected). Isn’t that situation already what was in January - where top clubs will not drop their asking prices for players? You are failing to account for the impacts of the pandemic on the balance sheets of these clubs. Each club is in a unique different situation from the other club and that’s why you cannot generalize the whole football market. Just because players from the top 10 clubs may not be devalued, does not mean the same will be applied for the rest of football - which is 98% of the football market.

Your assessment of creditors being more lenient is also invalid. Creditors actually prefer that they don’t receive payments on time do you know why? Ask Paul Singer! The current owners of our club got our club because the previous owners couldn’t pay their debt and now they got Milan for a bargain (330m) and are trying to turn it to a profit - in their own way. Point being is that there are many different type of creditors and they’ll be the ones setting the rules on how lenient they’ll be. Some will be lenient, some won’t. The ones that won’t will push the market downwards.  


Let’s say for example that Man United has debt of $250m (number inaccurate, just for example) today that’s meant to be paid over 5 years. The EPL revenue package today for the 4th-7th club in EPL will earn the club around $150-160m a season. They also have match day revenue of at least $6m per match. For the remaining 10 matches in the league, they’ll lose out on $60m that was projected and if the league doesn’t continue - they would not have a huge chunk of the $150m. That’s $210m in one season only taking into account the match revenue + TV rights. If they don’t make their debt payment this year, Man Utd can also face a future that Milan faced, it can go to whoever lent them the debt. How do you think they’d be able to afford that payment without the TV rights deal? 

Now think of the pressure that the management is enduring to pay their debts this year. Do you think they’ll continue paying Alexis Sanchez $20m a season? Do you think they’ll continue to splash $80m on a Maguire kind of player? They’ll be under pressure to get rid of unwanted players with high expenses and they’ll want to sell ASAP. Of course now losing that TV rights revenue is unlikely now given that the EPL realized that it is inevitable and necessary to finish the season. Ligue 1 for example will not get their TV rights deal in full because they finished the season abruptly.

In a market like the one coming, the strongest players will those are the most stable financially. They will be the German clubs, Arsenal, Milan, City, PSG and few other clubs. They will be the ones that will dictate the upcoming values of the ‘buyer market’. I cannot see any of these clubs paying $80m for any player in the next year or two because it would be extremely financially irresponsible. City also need to face a legal case versus UEFA for faking the values of their sponsorship deals so they may not be able to spend as much due to FFP.

Smaller clubs like Ajax, Croatian clubs, Serbian clubs, Belgian clubs will all absolutely NEED to sell their top players to be able to afford the rest of their expenses. Those clubs revenues is mostly from their match revenues and now that is all gone. They do not have the luxury being able to stay patient. If these clubs are faced with bids of 10-20m for any player it would be extremely financially irresponsible to reject it, especially if this 10m-20m represents ~5x the annual wage bill!

Nefremo you said:
Unless teams are forced to sell in order to stay afloat, they will not just disburse assets at 40%, 50% discounts. If they can cover their expenses and therefore not be forced to sell...they will hold onto their most prized assets until the economy as a whole recovers to an acceptable extent. 

Saying ‘unless teams are forced to sell’ indicates that you’re of the opinion that these clubs will be the exception. What we’re trying to tell you is that the vast majority of clubs will be forced to sell to stay afloat. Only the top 10-20 clubs in world football will be able to sustain this... The top clubs in turn will take advantage of this situation and buy from other clubs at bargains. If the PSG bid of 50m for Icardi is true, then that is evident of what I’m implying. Firstly, both of these clubs would be considered in the ‘healthy tier’ of clubs and PSG bidding 30m less than the option price of 80m shows you that PSG believe in Icardi and are testing Inter’s financial resolve with a cheeky bid. This of course is only a rumor. My main points though are about how difficult this crisis will be for the other 98% of the market.




And now back to Milan.

With the introduction of FFP,  healthy financials balance sheets are what allows clubs to spend more. No matter how much cash we have and how willing we are to spend, some Milanisti cannot seem to understand that the ONLY REASON we are not spending is because we (Gazidis) are respecting the rules of UEFA whether we believe in them or not. We just got kicked out of UEFA this season for ‘not respecting the FFP’ because we outspent more than what we earnt (due to poor work from the previous CEOs). This is the total opposite of ‘ownership doesn’t have money to spend’ or ‘ownership doesn’t want to spend’. I hope members and Milanisti stop claiming that because it makes them sound really ignorant and prevents taking healthy discussions further.

[GeoTav]

Ibra would have got a severe injury today. His season could be over.
At 39, will he be renewed ? Will he be able to recover properly ? Too many questions for a high risk I think ...

[Arildonardo]

Ibra would have got a severe injury today. His season could be over.
At 39, will he be renewed ? Will he be able to recover properly ? Too many questions for a high risk I think ...

Should not be renewed in my opinion, with or without the injury.

He's not good enough to be treated like a king anymore.

[Sleeping Giant]

Newcastle proposed the idea of a €5million loan plus a option to buy at around the €25-30m mark for kessie. The offer was rejected.