It is still tempting to see the Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) as a war for the long monetary term of European football.
This narrative characterizes Bayern Munich’s victory as the validation of its “sustainable” monetary model.
For what? Because as FC Bayern president Karl Hopfner, “just spend what he’s already won.”
Its beginning 11 expertly gathered for only 105.6 million euros (124.5 million dollars) and will pay only 336 million euros (396 million euros) per year in salaries.
Bayern’s style of monetary prudence is that, according to the club’s website, it is the “basic business principle” on which the framework governing UEFA’s fair money play (FFP) rules are based.
Bayern Munich is the “summum” of the FFP, says Bayern Munich.
A victory of Paris Saint-Germain in the hand, which is characterized a little differently.
“In economic terms, we would call the [PSG] a ‘profit maximizer’,” says Dr Rob Wilson, a finance expert at the University of Sheffield Hallam.
“His primary purpose is good fortune on the ground, regardless of the monetary desires of purpose.”
PSG’s profit-maximizing strategy stands out in its resolution of buying two out-of-the-box superstars; Neymar and Kylian Mbappé signed for a total of $400 million in 2017.
Since PSG’s revenue was around a billion that year, such an expense could hardly have used the cash “already earned.”
Red flags were raised and UEFA FFP took the case.
For many observers, such an unbalanced investment actually violates Bayern’s beloved rules.
The PSG said it had paid for primary transfer sponsorship agreements with Qatar’s telecommunications company Ooredoo, Qatar National Bank and Qatar Tourism Authority.
The state-owned club, which is owned by the state-owned Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), naturally aroused some cynicism about the willingness of these corporations to dedicate giant sums of cash to a French football team.
UEFA acquitted the PSG of any breach of the FFP in 2018, then reopened its investigation, which has been criticized, only for the Court of Arbitration for Sport to rule last year that the original UEFA ruling was upheld.
Far from the cusp of FFP, PSG is more like antithesis.
However, if you look a little more at Bayern Munich’s past, you’ll see that PSG and the German club have a lot more in what the Bavarians want you to believe.
The entry of sponsorship funds based in Qatar, just at a time when the PSG needed a build-up of revenue to pay Neymar and Mbappé, generated family criticism: the agreements were at “market value.”
It is a constant indictment of critics of clubs such as PSG or Manchester City who sign massive contracts with corporations in the same country as their tough owners.
But a quick review of monetary agreements in Bayern’s recent history shows that Germans have had large expenses offset through unprecedented investment through partner companies, which are also founded in their home state, Bavaria.
Come back in 2001 and you realize that Bayern Munich have won an injection of 75 million euros from the German sportswear logo Adidas.
Adidas has purchased a 10% stake in the construction of the club in its existing uniform production agreement. The value of Bayern, the most valuable football club in the world.
It’s a valuation that not everyone agreed with.
Fear that Adidas is paying too much has caused the value of the sportswear manufacturer’s percentage to drop by more than 8%.
Is it that a logo with so many advertising relationships with Bayern rivals buys a stake in the first place?
Sportswear brands do not tend to have a monetary interest in the groups for which they make equipment.
A quote from Adidas President Herbert Hainer about Bayern acknowledges the unprecedented nature of the relationship; “We would never invest in any other club in the same way we invested in FC Bayern,” he said.
The summer after the Deal with Adidas, just after wasting their Champions League and Bundesliga titles, Bayern bought Michael Ballack and Ze Roberto from rivals Bayer Leverkusen for an expense of around 20 million euros ($23.6 million).
Over the next two summers, Bayern spent a total of 40 million euros ($47.2 million) to buy corporations such as Roy Makaay and Lucius.
In those years, the expenditures were 10 to 20 million euros (11 to 23 million dollars) more than any other in the Bundesliga.
But that did not assure him of the success, at a time when he spent 60 million euros, champion of Germany only once.
Since Adidas increased its sponsorship to one stake, two other corporations in Bavaria have followed suit.
In 2009, car manufacturer Audi bought 9% for millions of euros ($135.64 million).
It came after Bayern’s two spent summers when the club exploded to rebuild the team, after failing to qualify for the Champions League in 2007/08.
Bayern spent more than one hundred million euros ($117 million) on net spending over the two years. He broke the German movement record by signing Franc Ribéry and added a number of established names, adding Arjen Robben, Luca Toni, Miroslav Klose and Mario Gomez.
An additional net amount of 60 million euros ($70 million) spent over the next two seasons.
But, as was the case in 2001, although spending far outperformed its rivals, it was unsuccessful on the ground. He only earned one championship name in this era (2009/10).
The next big investment came in 2014 from Munich-based insurer Allianz, which intervened for the club to pay off the stadium’s debts.
It was the right time for such an agreement, last summer, the club had recruited the highest style assets in the control of the football club at the time; Pep Guardiola, for the highest salary in world football.
Bayern had also begun the costly process of investing in the team’s ability in the form of Mario Gotze and Thiago.
If the years following the Adidas and Audi agreements were intermittently successful, those that followed Allianz’s agreement may not have been more different. From that moment on, Bayern achieved general national dominance.
Guardiola has added three league titles to the one he won before his arrival and the club has won each and every Bundesliga since.
“I don’t think [Bayern Munich] can pretend to be more of a monetary fair-game flag than other clubs, because it depends on the arrival of those big-tier investors.” says Kieran Maguire, a football finance expert and a professor at the University of Liverpool.
“Audi and Allianz, have nothing to do with [football]. So what the hell do you do when you shop at a [football] club? This is a little tenuous and a little self-inflicted.
Maguire adds that the similarities between PSG and Bayern go beyond advertising with partners in certain parts of the world.
Both have revenues of around six hundred million euros ($708 million) and income source resources have a striking resemblance.
The sector charts of the Deloitte Football Money League 2020 detailing the profit flows for PSG and Bayern are so if you remove the figures, you may not notice the difference between them.
Commercial revenues accounted for more than a share of the total of the two clubs (54% Bayern, 57% of PSG), while transmission revenues (32% Bayern, 25% PSG) and day revenues (14% Bayern 18% PSG) are also similar.
This monetary force has put both of them well ahead of all the other clubs in France and Germany.
“I think there are a lot of parallels between those two clubs that they have groups to beat nationally.” Maguire continues.
“The gap between PSG and the biggest French club of the moment and the gap between Bayern and the biggest German club of the moment is so wonderful that it’s a huge challenge to withdraw Bundesliga or Ligue 1 titles at any of those clubs. Future. »
No matter who wins tonight, those two will continue to move away from their national rivals at an ever faster pace.
Whether the money comes from Doha or Bavaria, PSG and Bayern have much more than top clubs.
Currently, I am guilty of the content of Construction News, which specializes in research. I’ve done a lot of collaborations with the primary media. These come with a
Currently, I am guilty of the content of Construction News, which specializes in research. I’ve done a lot of collaborations with the primary media. These come with a presentation on covert slave paintings with the BBC, a Financial Times report that revealed a sex attack scandal and a foreign investigation into the death of staff at the world’s largest airport with Architects’ Journal.
My paintings were shortlisted for the Orwell Journalism Award in 2020 and I was a finalist at the 2019 British Journalism Awards. I was released as An International Building Press Journalist of the Year 2019 and awarded the IBP Scoop of the Year award and Writer of the Year in Construction / Infrastructure.
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