The football business, together with cinema and other entertainment sectors, risks big in the time of the pandemic. “According to the latest estimates, the 360 clubs in the first divisions of the Old Continent will need capital increases of 6 billion in the next 12-24 months”. It is the alarm raised by Thursday Andrea Agnelli, president of Juventus and of the European Club Association, on the occasion of the press conference launched after the shareholders' meeting of the Juventus club. In short, it is not only Italian football that is at great risk under the skies of the pandemic which is exposing the structural fragility of the system.
Actually. The most acute crisis is that of the French Ligue 1 which succumbed to the flattery of Mediapro, the Spanish company controlled by the Chinese of Hontai Capital, enticed by the offer of 800 million euros for the annual exclusive. Madness, commented Maxime Saada, owner of Canal +, the chain that had a monopoly on the transalpine championship for 34 years. “To be profitable – he had said – they would have to sell 7 million season tickets for 15 euros a month. It's simply impossible." The facts are proving him right. According to Le Canard Enchainé, the satirical weekly, Mediapro has collected up to only 278 subscriptions at 25 euros each.
A flop that will not be easy to fix, except to renegotiate the package at lower prices to get out of a situation as uncomfortable as it is predictable, if we consider that already in April Moody's had cut the rating of the group that controls Mediapro to B3. But France, as we know, is the weak link in the football system, from a business point of view. However, the crisis also threatens the balance of the very powerful Premier League. Or rather, to suffer it is the Efl, the federation that brings together the various leagues which last year accumulated a loss of 328 million pounds which, with suspicious generosity, the richest clubs, namely Manchester United and Liverpool, used to propose the "Big Picture" project.
In summary, £250m coming from the six top teams, in exchange for control of English football, to be reviewed on the basis of the principles of US sport, more sensitive to business. The offer has so far been rejected. In return, the English Football League has signed up to a £50m loan from the Premier League. There is an air of crisis everywhere, from Spain to Germany itself. For the first time since 2016, the European football market ended with a turnover of less than 5 billion dollars with a contraction of 30 percent compared to a year ago. Card transfers are down 25%. Everywhere, they are not in Italy, loans are multiplying.
"For the first time, the turnover of European football is in sharp decline", confirmed Agnelli, underlining however that "we will only be able to observe the impacts of Covid on the European system in autumn 2021, as they partly affect the past financial year and partly the current one". Meanwhile, the problem of access to stadiums remains, due to a loss of turnover estimated at between 3,2 and 3,9 billion, damage to trade agreements between 1,2 and 1,5 billion and an impact on the revision of the value of TV rights ranging from 830 million to 1 billion. All for a "loss of turnover of the European football system between 5,2 and 6,3 billion", specified the president of the Juventus, which closed the 2019/2020 financial year with a loss of 89,7 million euros, which will be covered by using the share premium reserve.
An enviable condition compared to the other big names in Serie A: Roma are in the red for 204 million, Milan for 195 million while Inter's preliminary should show a deficit between 100 and 150 million. In summary, losses have more than doubled on average. All that remains is to hope in the media company that has just started under the direction of CVC which has valued Serie A at 15 billion. “The obligatory path is to focus on our strengths – Agnelli concluded – There remains a great value of the industry, testified by the interest shown by financial groups in several areas if one considers that CVC and Bain have valued Serie A around 15 billion". But it is a narrow street.
