Banter 2009/2010

Hisham, I was unsure about Shikabala, I just read reports (filgoal.com) that his contract runs out this summer. Even if his contract is to 2012, buying him 4-5 million would be a MASSIVE transfer record for an Egyptian player, I bet we could get him for maybe even less than that, maybe. He really is a great talent, if Napoli grab him, they really will have a gem on their hands.

As far as the revenue goes, if you need balanced books, that doesn't mean you can just spend money until the rule comes into place. Not at all! Why wouldn't Man Utd spend more money than 16 million on Valencia (who is a good player) and 3 million on Obertan while taking Michael Owen for free? They sold Ronaldo for 80 million. The debt that Man Utd is carrying from the owners is what is preventing Ferguson from getting what he wants. Not only did he lose CR, but Tevez, and Berba is useless, you're telling me he didn't want to improve his squad?

The debt levels of teams in England are ridiculous, and looking at Liverpool wobbling, it seems pretty obvious why this rule has to be applied. Sports team do make money, they are not just the focus of billionaires. Look at American sports teams, the way that they make money is not just the stadium, but they have salary caps (some more concrete than others) and they also have a draft system to bring in new players constantly while trades dominate player transfers, rather than fees.

While transfer fees might not go away, the ability for top clubs, without billionaire patrons, to buy top players for top fees will probably become less and less common. These teams many times will borrow the money to pay, the best example is Real Madrid, who got rid of their hundreds of millions of Euros of debt by selling off their old training ground to the government. There are more details in the Real case, but, they have the government supporting them, big time.

Marketing and stadiums are the two biggest problems for Serie A. It seems Spain is raising the taxes on football-level wages, so I think that Spain's appeal will go away. England offers higher wages than anyone, for average players too, and that is the difference. However, the way they got there is not sustainable, that is why Bayern (which has no debt, I believe) has been able to slowly move back closer to its former glory. Sure, some lucky referee decisions (poor Fiorentina) went their way, but, there is a shift here.

When it comes to massive regulation change, it is always in the interest of the party who is affected by this regulation, to adopt earlier. The amount of money we'll be saving on wages from several players leaving is considerable, and Milan now has to assert itself in new markets, and that's why its going after the Middle East, which has plenty of money, and is not necessarily Premier League like South East Asia.

On the other hand, I think Milan knows that they have to attract people to the stadium. Even when we were at our best form this year, we had trouble getting people into the stadium. Our home game at Roma only brought 40,000 people; that's terrible. That means that there has to be players brought in to excite people enough to come in, and I think that's the problem the Milan management is facing. They obviously don't have a lot of money to spend, but they need to attract people or else they will still lose money because of the rent of San Siro.

I don't think they expected that, especially as the team has done well, most of the season. That is one of the biggest reasons why our revenue stream is not as strong as it should be.

We'll see what they do. I wonder if Inter winning the CL will do anything? I hope that Berlusconi will get angry or something and pour money in, and it would be even better to have them relegated to Serie B. But, then I wake up, and realize that it will be Tassotti on the bench and another unknown season ahead.

Shikabala's contract will end in the next Winter transfer period. Anderlecht, Ghent, and Napoli are among the teams that are after him.

No one is talking about the upcoming Milan-Fiorentina game thread, instead, everybody is talking about our non-existent mercato and our stupid and lucky merda neighbor, page after page.

Originally Posted by Xudong

No one is talking about the upcoming Milan-Fiorentina game thread, instead, everybody is talking about our non-existent mercato and our stupid and lucky merda neighbor, page after page.

Nobody wants to think about how that game is going to play out. For the mercato, at least we can dream whereas the cruel reality of the actual games hurt my brains.

Originally Posted by slifersd

If I am understanding the concept correctly, a team only needs to balance their books on an annual basis. That means, you can only spend as much as you earned this year. Past debts wouldn't and shouldn't be taken into considerations. This is a good policy to drive down the price of players, but from an organizational point of view, it is utterly ridiculous. Pro sports teams do not make money, that's just how it is. You can't tell CISCO to stop spending money on things to balance their books and you shouldn't tell soccer teams to do that.

By far a very stupid rule as it looks great on paper and as PR but at the end will fail big time.
You know what will happen at the end.
Those owner, lets use Roman for example, will see that he needs to get 2 World Class players to complete his squad, but according to the balancing book rules, Chelsea actually need to sell one of their stars in order to balance the book. You know what he will do then, he will use one of his many companies-lets say Roman Oil Russia, and sign a sponsorship deal with Chelsea which will be like 100MIL for 1 year. Problem solve.

Originally Posted by Samaldinho

Hisham, I was unsure about Shikabala, I just read reports (filgoal.com) that his contract runs out this summer. Even if his contract is to 2012, buying him 4-5 million would be a MASSIVE transfer record for an Egyptian player, I bet we could get him for maybe even less than that, maybe. He really is a great talent, if Napoli grab him, they really will have a gem on their hands.

As far as the revenue goes, if you need balanced books, that doesn't mean you can just spend money until the rule comes into place. Not at all! Why wouldn't Man Utd spend more money than 16 million on Valencia (who is a good player) and 3 million on Obertan while taking Michael Owen for free? They sold Ronaldo for 80 million. The debt that Man Utd is carrying from the owners is what is preventing Ferguson from getting what he wants. Not only did he lose CR, but Tevez, and Berba is useless, you're telling me he didn't want to improve his squad?

The debt levels of teams in England are ridiculous, and looking at Liverpool wobbling, it seems pretty obvious why this rule has to be applied. Sports team do make money, they are not just the focus of billionaires. Look at American sports teams, the way that they make money is not just the stadium, but they have salary caps (some more concrete than others) and they also have a draft system to bring in new players constantly while trades dominate player transfers, rather than fees.

While transfer fees might not go away, the ability for top clubs, without billionaire patrons, to buy top players for top fees will probably become less and less common. These teams many times will borrow the money to pay, the best example is Real Madrid, who got rid of their hundreds of millions of Euros of debt by selling off their old training ground to the government. There are more details in the Real case, but, they have the government supporting them, big time.

Marketing and stadiums are the two biggest problems for Serie A. It seems Spain is raising the taxes on football-level wages, so I think that Spain's appeal will go away. England offers higher wages than anyone, for average players too, and that is the difference. However, the way they got there is not sustainable, that is why Bayern (which has no debt, I believe) has been able to slowly move back closer to its former glory. Sure, some lucky referee decisions (poor Fiorentina) went their way, but, there is a shift here.

When it comes to massive regulation change, it is always in the interest of the party who is affected by this regulation, to adopt earlier. The amount of money we'll be saving on wages from several players leaving is considerable, and Milan now has to assert itself in new markets, and that's why its going after the Middle East, which has plenty of money, and is not necessarily Premier League like South East Asia.

On the other hand, I think Milan knows that they have to attract people to the stadium. Even when we were at our best form this year, we had trouble getting people into the stadium. Our home game at Roma only brought 40,000 people; that's terrible. That means that there has to be players brought in to excite people enough to come in, and I think that's the problem the Milan management is facing. They obviously don't have a lot of money to spend, but they need to attract people or else they will still lose money because of the rent of San Siro.

I don't think they expected that, especially as the team has done well, most of the season. That is one of the biggest reasons why our revenue stream is not as strong as it should be.

We'll see what they do. I wonder if Inter winning the CL will do anything? I hope that Berlusconi will get angry or something and pour money in, and it would be even better to have them relegated to Serie B. But, then I wake up, and realize that it will be Tassotti on the bench and another unknown season ahead.

Great post as always.

Just a few comments.

Drafting system will not work in pro football nor will players movement via trade or Salary cap. Just too many countries and cultures. Personally I don't think comparing the 4 major sports in NA to Football make sense since they are really completely different from top to bottom. But I still see your point though.
IN regarding to EPL teams, I think ManU and Pool are in bad shape only b/c their owners used financing to buy the clubs instead of paying in full like owners used to. That is a trend I think will continue as football clubs are costing too much money these days. AS for ManU not spending the 80mil for CR9, well, Valencia and Obertan costs them 19Mil, but they also signed Smalling-20mil and that Mexican kid for around 10mil. That's close to 50mil already. How much did Milan spent with their 80mil from Kaka and Gourcuff? Funniest thing is that Gourcuff is on sale for around 25-30mil, pretty good business from Bordeaux.
As for marketing, it is very hard to market a team without any marketable players. As far as marketing goes, only Dinho is a good marketable player in Milan. Not saying Pato or T.Silva ain't good players but right now, they are not marketable. Imagine, Dinho leaving Milan, I doubt those Dubai people will even invite Milan to play any more. As I really don't see a headline of Seedorf, Pirlo and Gattuso will attract people. BTW, EPL are marketing themselves in the Middle East too, I think ManU actually trained in Dubai over the Winter break.

Originally Posted by slifersd

FinInvest didn't say for 8 years, they said they invested 230 million in 4 years! But of course, we have to take consideration of how much money they gained through the sales of Shevchenko and Kaka. Just think about it, does this squad look like its had 230 million euros spent on?

Investments in a football club is a lot more than the money spent on transfers for the first team...

Originally Posted by Arildonardo

Investments in a football club is a lot more than the money spent on transfers for the first team...

Ofcourse there are, but what I don't like about what is said was the fact that it did not say how much money they earned from Milan-directly and indirectly.

Just the Sheva, Kaka and Gourcuff sale together is about 110Mil. Berlu can say all he wants about spending crazy money in the 08-09 season, as he brought in Dinho, Zambro, Sheva and others, but the fact is that Milan also sold many players that year, RO, Gila, just to name a few. I think overall, he may had spent about 5 mil in total. Thats very little for a club who claims they are fighting all on fronts and wants to actually win.

Originally Posted by Siregar

Thank you. So he is young player but seems ready for the first team.

I say young, but I mean early 20's. I think he's 23 to be precise.

Originally Posted by ACMILAN1983

I say young, but I mean early 20's. I think he's 23 to be precise.

Yes, that's what I understand from your last post. I meant, he is not U20 that would have big chance to play for Primavera rather than the first team.

It looks like, from Calciomercato, the club wants to have a salary cap near 4M/season.

They claim that Ronaldinho could be sold as he doesn't want to reduce his salary by renewing his contract (his contract ends in June 2011, so if he doesn't renew now, he will be sold for sure).

Now it's my opinion, but if they really want a salary cap around 4M, that means that Pirlo could be sold too as he earns 5M/year ...

All other players earn 4M or less.

Originally Posted by Siregar

Yes, that's what I understand from your last post. I meant, he is not U20 that would have big chance to play for Primavera rather than the first team.

Ah right cool. I ought to say though I really don't know much about him beyond what I've said.

Originally Posted by GeoTav

It looks like, from Calciomercato, the club wants to have a salary cap near 4M/season.

They claim that Ronaldinho could be sold as he doesn't want to reduce his salary by renewing his contract (his contract ends in June 2011, so if he doesn't renew now, he will be sold for sure).

Now it's my opinion, but if they really want a salary cap around 4M, that means that Pirlo could be sold too as he earns 5M/year ...

All other players earn 4M or less.

I think Pirlo will stay as it's not been too long since he signed his last contract and it's still a lot less than Dinho.

In Dinho's case I'm sure the argument is also we have the potential to cash in on him which could be reinvested.

Personally, I'm for selling Dinho if it means getting some more balanced reinforcement.

Originally Posted by ACMILAN1983

I think Pirlo will stay as it's not been too long since he signed his last contract and it's still a lot less than Dinho.

In Dinho's case I'm sure the argument is also we have the potential to cash in on him which could be reinvested.

Personally, I'm for selling Dinho if it means getting some more balanced reinforcement.

Well, if you start your salary cap policy by allowing an exception, we can easily say that this policy goes directly towards a wall ...

That also means Milan does not plan do bring in any world names into the team as none of the big players will play for 4mln. Only rising stars, and they will eventually lift off for more money.

I wonder how long Pato will play for 4mln with offers of 7,8,9mln from Barca, Real, Chelsea in few years. Untill now Kaladze had 4mln, now none can have 5. Really balanced business by super bold GM.

If they really do that, it means Milan will not have any quality players anymore. Welcome to mid level club status.