TORINO – They called it the “Juventus system” and have portrayed it as a diabolical capital gains machine. The problem, at least for those who don’t want to pretend nothing happened, is that perhaps it would be more honest to call him “Europe system”, because capital gains, in particular those coming from exchanges (the most suspicious ones, in short), are a widespread phenomenon in all five big leagues. The exhaustive reports of the transfer market were not enough, as scientifically demonstrated by a study conducted by three professors and scholars in the economic field: Maximilian Bonacchi (Full Professor of Business Economics at the Free University of Bolzano), Fabio Ciaponi (Researcher at the University of L’Aquila) e Antonio Marra (Director of the Master’s Degree in Administration, Finance and Control at Bocconi University).
What the study reveals
Their in-depth work starts with analyzing the effects of Financial Fair Play on the players’ market and comes to grasp a distortion involuntarily triggered by the need to respect the budget stakes imposed on clubs that want to participate in European cups. «We analyzed transfer campaigns and financial statements of the companies participating in the “Serie A” championships of the five main European leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France) in the period from 2008 to 2018. The analysis of 815 financial statements and 4,626 transfer transactions of footballers brought to light some unwanted effects of the introduction of financial fair play (Ffp) by the Uefa (the law was passed in 2010 and became fully operational in 2013). With the new regulation, UEFA essentially aims at self-financing the football system, reducing the level of debt and redirecting investments in infrastructure, as well as better management of the nurseries of young players. A key role in the FFP is entrusted to the break-even requirement, which essentially imposes the coverage of costs with revenues, i.e. a balanced budget. This particular imposition may have generated an undesirable effect».
