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Why Real Madrid’s transfer policy has changed

By Kristofer McCormack

James Rodriguez AND club president Florentino Perez during his unveiling as a new Real Madrid player at the Santaigo Bernabeu stadium on July 22, 2014 in Madrid, SpainPhoto: Oscar Gonzalez/NurPhoto (Photo by Oscar Gonzalez/NurPhoto) (Photo by NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images)
James Rodriguez AND club president Florentino Perez during his unveiling as a new Real Madrid player at the Santaigo Bernabeu stadium on July 22, 2014 in Madrid, SpainPhoto: Oscar Gonzalez/NurPhoto (Photo by Oscar Gonzalez/NurPhoto) (Photo by NurPhoto/Corbis via Getty Images) /
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The transfer market is more competitive than ever

(Photo by Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images)
(Photo by Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images) /

For well over a decade, Real Madrid was comfortably the world’s richest team. They topped Deloitte’s football money league for 11 straight years and reported the highest revenue amongst any team between 2016 and 2008 according to Forbes. However, the football’s financial landscape has taken a shift over the last two years. On revenue alone, Manchester United have topped both lists for the last two years. In 2018, United made 689 million with Madrid tied with Barcelona on 620.1 million.

United represent a growing gap between the English Premier League and the rest of Europe in monetary terms. The Premier League clubs reported the highest average revenue in Europe in 2018 with 216.5 million while Spain sits third with 112 million. In 2016, Sky and BT Sports secured broadcasting rights for Premier League games until the end of the 2018/19 season in a deal believed to be worth 5.1 billion, forcing Sky to have to sell their La Liga broadcasting rights to Eleven Sports this summer.

Where Barcelona and Madrid once dominated the TV money in Spain, new rules have meant the money is shared more evenly. Wealthy backers behind PSG and Manchester City further adds to growing financial gap. Paul Pogba’s then world record to Manchester United in 2016 was the first time since 2000 that the world’s most expensive player wasn’t playing in the Spanish capital.

“It is all the time getting more difficult to compete on a level playing field,” Florentino Perez told a Real Madrid AGM last October, “And the way we are doing it is to have the best players. If we do not renew the contracts of [Luka] Modric, [Toni] Kroos they will go somewhere else. And without those players who won the Champions League, we lose sponsors. If we did not win the Champions League last year [and have to pay bonuses] we would have almost €100m in profits. And having won that will bring more income in the future.”

Faced with such economic realities, it is important that when Perez spends, its spent on a player that improves the team massively in the long term or is coming at a good price. With a possible move for Neymar planned in the future, perhaps its understandable that Perez has opted to save, besides, it’s not like Madrid have suffered for it so far.

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