Juventus chief predicts up to €8.5bn losses for European football due to COVID
2021. január 27.Updated 10:58 CET
Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli has warned European football might lose up to €8.5 billion due to the COVID-19 crisis, reports James Horncastle.
The pandemic has, barring brief periods, seen football played in empty stadiums across the continent since March 2020.
Speaking at the News Tank Football seminar on Wednesday, Agnelli painted a grim picture of the state of club finances across Europe.
What did Agnelli say?
He said: “My firm opinion that we will have a real understanding of what this crisis has meant for clubs only at the end of the season.
“I have seen the Deloitte study that came out yesterday. I was looking at data for the top 20 clubs whereby we had a €1.1 billion hit in the 19-20 season and the estimate for those 20 clubs alone is a €2 billion hit for the combined two years.
“I think it's going to be much worse than that. The 2019-20 season only has three or four months of crisis, of empty stadiums, no fans of stadiums, commercial rebates, broadcasting rebates, whilst as it seems right now from my point of observation 2020-21 will be a full season without fans in stadiums.
“We are in the middle of (broadcast) tenders. Some have been out, the Germans have been out, they've had a loss of value 10 per cent. We are seeing international broadcasters not paying their dues.
“And so I think this season will be much worse. So I mean, it's gonna be much worse than what we've seen there.
“When I look at the best information I've had so far, we're looking at a bottom-line loss for the industry in the region of €6.5 billion to €8.5 billion for the combined two years, and about 360 clubs in need for cash injections, whether it's debt or equity within those two years, for an amount of €6 billion.”
What did Deloitte predict?
The professional services firm predicted that the top 20 richest clubs in the world will lose out on over €2 billion by the end of the current season.
This revenue decline — 12 per cent — is largely due to the impact of COVID-19 on clubs’ finances with most around Europe set to play over a season of football without fans in stadiums.
What else did Agnelli say?
The 45-year-old also spoke favourably about the ‘Swiss system’ — which has been mooted as a possible new format to be used in the Champions League from 2024. It would see more games played between Europe’s elite clubs.
The Swiss system would have all 32 or 36 qualifying clubs in a single division, where each would play 10 matches against teams of varying strength according to seeding. The top 16 would qualify for the knockouts, where ties would be played much the same way as American playoffs — first would play 16th, second would play 15th and so on.
Agnelli cited the 1826 games played in Europe’s top five leagues compared to only 125 played in the Champions League as a flaw in the current system that means clubs are not maximising their potential revenue streams.
He also noted that the “great” Swiss system would help reignite interest in football and keep the sport ahead of its competitors.
He added: "I think what's dear to our hearts at the moment is mostly the governance of the entire system, that that is what we should be looking at most. And when I talk about the governance of the system, it's the governance and the right management system.
"And that is to create a better balance within the existing stakeholders in which clubs and national team football align, sharing objectives, we can talk about the sporting matters of competitions, whereby we as the ECA, evidently, we're looking at a quality versus quantity kind of approach.
"Just to give you an example, talking about the most viewed games in Europe, we take the top five leagues, we play one 1826 games every year in the top five leagues, versus only 125 in Champions League alone.
"We can look at the governance aspect in terms of financial management, and that is we've always had a profit and loss approach. So we're looking at total turnover we're looking across, we want to really focus on balance sheet management and value creation. I can give you some examples there.
"A revision of the transfer system, a collective bargaining agreement with the player that will leave us with the tools in order to operate in a moment of crisis."
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And Roma falling even furher down, my oh my. Italian clubs seem to be super-dependent on CL income
