The July 16 2018 Cristiano Ronaldo has officially arrived in Turin where he underwent mandatory medical checks before training with his new teammates at Juventus. The clamor aroused by the purchase of the five-time Portuguese Ballon d'Or did not resound only in Italy among the fans of the Old Lady and otherwise, but the echo extended along lines that it did not previously follow, such as the Asian market.
Surely the blow scored by Andrea Agnelli for the CR7 affair has exceeded trading levels never seen in Italy and for this reason has attracted the interest of non-European investment funds where Juventus did not register a large following. Indeed, in general, Stoxx Europe Football results show that the index active since 2002 and which follows the performance of 22 football clubs listed on the Stock Exchange, in the last five years it has grown by 25% for the interest it has aroused in financial institutions that have thought of investing their money in it for a return. Above all, funds have begun to open up to investments in football because it represents an alternative way of risk diversification.
“This can be an opportunity because there is ample room for revenue growth where we are currently weakest. I am referring to match day revenues, where we are lacking also due to the historic lack of owned stadiums: the average revenue per spectator in Italy is half that of the Premier League. Not only that: compared to the Spanish and English, we are behind on the sales of TV rights on the international market. But I repeat: since the brands of teams such as Juventus, Milan and Inter are still attractive internationally, investment funds and financial companies would be very interested in investing in front of credible projects”, explained Luca Petrone, partner of Deloitte Italia , interviewed by La Repubblica.
The numbers of the Piedmontese club were dizzying: Juventus paid Real Madrid 100 million euros to have Ronaldo which will cost him a total of 86 million a year, the value of the team's shares increased by 210 million in the days before signing the contract, the followers on Instagram of the the Turin club page increased by over a million, while those on the Facebook page grew by 500.000 likes and the Twitter account gained 1 million followers. Therefore, Juventus probably paid less than it will receive from Cristiano Ronaldo in terms of potential victories, sponsors, merchandising, match tickets and image return.
This because football has gone beyond the boundaries of sport, becoming show and entertainment: “The interest of international investors in European football is a growing trend. And it concerns everything that moves around a club: they can finance the construction of a stadium, as well as securitize television rights or the income guaranteed by participation in an international competition. As well as they can work towards debt restructuring. The world of football has undergone a great transformation, the income statements of these companies are evolving and will need to be adequately accompanied by structured finance", Piergiorgio Mancone, founder and managing partner of LegisLAB, a law firm specializing in related transactions, told La Repubblica to sports and football clubs.
The numbers of a Deloitte report also confirm this conviction: turnover of 25,5 billion euros for the 2016-2017 season and a growth of +9% compared to the previous year's championships. A good 14,7 billion of these come from the big five of European football, in the standings: Premier League (the best and which generates 5,3 billion in revenues), La Liga, Bundesliga, Serie A and Ligue 1.
And above all, footballers have become more than just sportsmen, just as during the XNUMXs those who walked the catwalks of the whole world were no longer a model who wore the dress of a famous fashion house, but it was the model who characterized the dress he wore, often becoming the testimonial of that brand. The same is now happening to players, their stories, their sponsors who become an integral part of their contract.
