Economic levers and massive debt... Barcelona? Think again
The Blaugranas have often been in the spotlight for their deals and financial issues, but they're far from the only culprit
Real Madrid may be the Champions League winners, but all is not well with los Blancos. Whenever you hear about financial trouble and economic levers in Spanish football, you think of FC Barcelona, but their historic rivals are also facing some issues, as the club led by Florentino Perez is taking more debt.
Florentino Perez has led Real Madrid to a brilliant new era, but it has had it's costs
The Madrid club presented the accounts from the previous season in the ordinary general assembly and according to an analysis of the numbers done by business and sports blog Swiss Ramble, the remodelling of the Santiago Bernabéu has become a big concern of Florentino Pérez. That's because the renovation works have nearly doubled Real Madrid's debt, taking it from 890 to 1,500 million euros.
In order to fight these increasing levels of debt, Real Madrid has signed an agreement with American company Sixth Street, which specialises in stadium management, by which they've sold 30% of the new revenue from the Bernabéu over the next 20 years in exchange for 316 million euros. This a deal not all that disimilar to the economic lever deals that Joan Laporta signed to stabilize FC Barcelona's economic situation, and for which he drew heavy fire.
The works on the Santiago Bernabeu has shot up Real Madrid's debt
Real Madrid would have actually closed the previous campaign with a pre-tax loss of 127 million euros rather than a net profit of 12.94 million if this arrangement hadn't been in place. This has angered some of the Merengue socios, who feel they were lied to when the management annonced a year of profits for the club during the last assembly. In reality, all this shows is how often big clubs are living on the edge and the efforts it takes to compete at the highest levels.
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