Colleague Marchetti on TMW: Let’s continue with the numbers, to analyze the market. To settle some news that perhaps have not yet entered our heads as they should.
We took the data from Transfermarkt, so they are not “official” data, but they still draw a very precise trend with respect to the photo we want to take.
The team that spent the most in Italy was Roma with 97.75 million euros spent, with a (negative) balance of 95.53. Then comes Milan with 72 million spent, then Atalanta again with 68, finally Inter (36), Juventus (34.50) and Fiorentina (33).
The data exactly how much you spend on cards for this season. So for example Locatelli does not count (although it is an obligation): the card is paid in two years, just to give an example. Of course, however, the redemption obligations that occur this season are taken into account.
This is worth specifying, because in any case it also gives a dimension to the current spending capacities of companies.
The balance must also be added to this figure, because here too it makes all the difference in the world. As mentioned, Rome earns almost nothing from the sales (2.22). Milan ditto (3.50). The collection of Atalanta is decidedly more substantial (40.9 million, the third in Serie A after Inter and Udinese, with 62), naturally monstrous that of Inter with 197 million from sales.
Atalanta continues to show its great mission: to sell and then reinvest. With a different trend (at least this year since Romero’s 55 million will be collected next season): Atalanta goes into the red. But it is always a calculated red, and it is the first time in many years.
The other trend that naturally changes is that of Inter forced by financial needs. But there is another story that catches the eye: Juventus. The balance of the Juventus club is always more or less the same (slightly negative), but previously it was the result of many market operations. In short, there was a much more intense to and fro around the Continassa. Not this time: few operations, surgical, as much as possible to “save”, even in the face of important sales (albeit not profitable as CR7, at least from the point of view of the tags). The philosophy has changed radically in black and white.
It has changed slightly at Milan, not at Roma. More decisive investments at Milan (in the year of the return to the Champions League), Roma continues to invest important figures. What was missing were the proceeds from the disposals. For different reasons, not necessarily dependent on their will, Milan and Roma have taken on the burden of the technical change (or the strengthening of the team) without being able to take advantage of benefits (at least economic from the sales).
In addition, the general trend has changed.
Serie A went from spending € 1.4 billion (from the 19/20 market) to € 571 million spent this summer. It is true: in the figure of 1.4 billion there is also the winter market. Without that, the billions spent would be 1.18: in any case an abysmal difference: half. To find a lower figure (of expenditure) we have to go back to 14/15, when 381 million were spent, and then begin to rise dramatically year after year. And what has changed is also the balance. And it has returned to being essentially balanced, already from last season.
-52 this market, -69 last. However, we came from a three-year period in which from -152 we reached -350 and -331. Figures never reached by our Serie A, if not in the golden years of Italian football: 20 years ago.
Who knows, however, this may not serve to become more “sensible”. Not that the market is the cause of all the economic disruption of the balance sheets of companies, but it is often the solution, not always the best one (capital gains included).
A further evaluation was made by KPMG trying to understand why there were such important expenses also in the postpandemic market. Expenses that came mainly from the Premier (24 out of 50 companies that have spent more than 50 million euros, come from England) and which represented (in their own way) records.
If you think that Grealish is the highest domestic transfer of the Premier (118 million euros) and that Lukaku is the highest one from abroad (115), you understand that, in any case, we are facing an even greater exceptionality, in the summer in which anyone in the rest of the world licks their wounds. But why was the Premier able to do it? Because if he can afford it being the richest league in the world, that’s the answer. And this is also demonstrated by the ratio, calculated by KPMG, between the expenditure incurred by the club for the purchase of the player and the turnover of the club itself. Example: Lukaku (115 million euros spent by Chelsea) represents 25% of the turnover. And the ratio, that of Lukaku the highest of the summer session, is absolutely in line with that of past years. Indeed, even better, given that in the last 3 markets there had been a frenzied race to buy: for Joao Felix I spent 127 million equal to 34% of Atletico Madrid’s turnover; Cristiano Ronaldo 117 or 29% of Juve turnover and even Neymar 222 or 46% of 2017 Paris turnover …
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