The annual Premier League transfer is over again, are Manchester United fans excited, is the atmosphere exciting enough? The best No. 7 shirt owner of the past decade, Cristiano Ronaldo, has returned to Old Trafford to play for the Red Devils again. However, when it comes to the transfer window, the fans are most concerned about money, and the most eye-catching thing this year is probably that Aston Villa captain Jack Grelish left the parent team and joined "Blue Moon" to become "Mr. One Hundred Million Pounds". But if Jack Grelich took the time machine back twenty years, what would he be worth? Back in 2001, zidane, the world's recognized champion, was worth £66 million; as the saying "no comparison, no harm", Jack Grelish was worth at most £30 million (or even less?). ）。 What happened in the world of football and the world economy in 20 years that has driven transfer fees to a frenzy?
In addition to Jack Grarysh, there are actually many teams in this season's transfer window that have to make big orders, including Chelsea signing striker Romelu Lukaku for a transfer fee of 97.5 million pounds; Manchester United signing Borussia Dortmund youngster Jayden Sancho for 73 million pounds; Arsenal signing centre-back Ben White for 50 million pounds. Lukaku played for Chelsea from 2011 to 2014, after which Chelsea sold him to Everton for £28 million, returning home for nearly £100 million just seven years apart, with a transfer fee increase of 3.5 times, significantly outperforming the European or British economy in the same period.
The transfer fee we often talk about can be said to be a compensation for early termination. Professional players generally sign a one-year contract with the team, but if the player leaves the team before the contract expires, the new team needs to pay a "transfer fee" to the old team, which does not actually include the salary and treatment of the player in the new team. The transfer fee can be negotiated between two teams, or the new team directly pays the termination fee on behalf of the player, but because the general amount of the termination fee is usually very high, such as real Madrid striker Benzema's dismissal fee of 850 million pounds, it is generally settled by negotiation.
Looking at history, the world's first four-figure transfer fee was in 1905, when Middlesbrough signed centre-forward Alf Common from Sunderland for £1,000, or about £124,700 at the current time. In 2017, the world's highest transfer fee record was broken by £198 million when Neymar moved from Barcelona in La Liga to Paris Saint-Germain in Ligue 1.
In fact, the transfer fee was not as high as it is now, and in 1995, the Bosman Act removed the restriction on only hiring players from within the European Union, opening up international market competition, and the transfer fee began to rise. According to the FIFA transfer fee record system, the global transfer expenditure in the past 10 years has exceeded 38 billion pounds, and the Premier League is the largest market, and among the top 30 teams with the largest shots, the Premier League accounts for 12 teams, which shows the rising speed of the transfer market.
Of course, Xiaobian understands that the value of players is definitely linked to player technology, popularity, future plasticity, etc., and is not determined by following the consensus of the market like a commodity. Of course, different leagues have different restrictions on local players, such as the Premier League's requirement that there must be at least 8 local players in the team, which has also led to a sharp increase in the price of English accounts, such as Ben White and Maguire. But I don't know if readers will have the same question as Xiaobian, why the team is now more willing to buy players at a high price, a player is worth 1 billion rmb, it seems that the cost can not be recovered, it is simply the act of "pouring money into the sea". And most importantly: Where does the money come from?
First of all, where does the money come from, simply put, is the team's income. One of the reasons why today's top teams are getting richer is the rapidly growing broadcast revenue.
According to the 2020 Football Wealth List by accounting firm Deloitte (Note: Due to the impact of the epidemic, Xiaobian uses pre-epidemic data to more accurately reflect the normal situation), in the 2018/19 season, the revenue of the top 20 teams totaled 9.3 billion euros, of which the broadcast fee revenue has become the largest proportion of revenue, with 4.112 billion euros, an annual growth rate of 11%, and the largest source of growth. Commercial revenue became the second largest source of income, with 3.679 billion euros. Matchday revenue, on the other hand, accounted for the least, at 1.492 billion euros.
The huge cost of broadcasting can also be seen in the following examples. Premier League 2013-16 season broadcast contracts, three seasons of broadcast revenue of 5.17 billion pounds, the United Kingdom accounted for 3.018 billion pounds, 2016-19 three seasons of broadcast revenue recorded more than 8 billion pounds, of which the United Kingdom accounted for 5.136 billion pounds, and in 2020, the Premier League's domestic and international broadcast revenue reached 4.236 billion pounds.
The current Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti also commented: "I think it's not just football, there are market problems. Of course, the market price is rising more and more, some people sell, some people buy, supply and demand make the price change. Although the transfer fee has risen sharply compared with the past, let's not forget that the cost of television broadcasting is also rising. There's nothing weird about it, it's just that fans love to enjoy football at the highest level. ”
From Ancelotti's words, it can be seen that the team is willing to chase with high transfer fees, in order to actually hope to attract people to watch, especially the international market is huge, the upside is vast, if the successful sale of broadcast rights to more countries, the income brought is conceivable.
Coupled with the fact that most of the European club stadium seats are saturated, the income on matchdays is limited, and it is very difficult to expand the seats, if the team can show commercial value with players, develop goods and licensing businesses, and launch products to meet the needs of target consumers, it can also promote sustainable growth of team revenue. In the case of Ronaldo, who has just returned to Manchester United, in just 8 days, the sales of his jerseys have reached 187 million pounds, which is 14 times the basic transfer fee.
Deloitte also mentioned in the report that as a team, it has been focusing on the investment in core assets, namely players and stadium facilities, and is also a core resource to improve performance on and off the field, supporting teams to win games and creating the best viewing experience for fans. In a rapidly changing environment, maintaining the growth of on-site investment means that changes must be made, and expanding the international broadcast market seems to be an important step in stabilizing revenue growth today. When the income growth is stable, it also means that the team needs to invest more money into the transfer market to "put the long line, catch big fish", attract more stars to join, maintain the results and "attract attention" at the same time, in order to obtain higher broadcast fee income, becoming an infinite reincarnation.
As the saying goes: "Money is not a panacea", it is true that money football is not necessarily successful, but on the court where the commercial coach is in charge, "no money is impossible", from the manager, down to the players, talents always need huge funds to recruit, 10 years ago Chelsea bought the striker Torres from Liverpool for 50 million pounds (although the performance was not good); today, 10 years later, Arsenal can only buy three lions recruit Ben White for 50 million pounds. Under the rising value of players, how to open up and reduce expenditure without losing strength has become an inevitable problem for all teams.
Do you think this condition is healthy?