The most notable thing about this week’s soccer money league wasn’t Real Madrid’s presence at the top; The most prestigious name in sport with a futuristic stadium to sell out was always on course to pull in the big bucks. It was how much room there is still to convert their record earnings into more talent on the field.
Madrid has long been a money-making force. It’s just that in the previous Galacticos eras, the revenue was soon lining the pockets of Juventus, Manchester United and Tottenham. The club’s president, Florentino Pérez, not only defined excellence by success on the field. Real Madrid wasn’t just the best because they won all the biggest trophies. They also won the biggest prizes in the transfer market, and they did it because they would spend more than anyone else.
Not anymore. on Wednesday the first club to break the billion euro income barrier he was featuring a team built for a combined $370 million in transfer fees. A total starting XI brushed Salzburg 5-1 for about the cost of a Chelsea midfield three… and a third of that money had gone to Jude Bellingham.
Madrid is generating the biggest revenue world football has ever seen at a time when they have reduced one of the biggest costs any club has to pay: their transfer bill. Since the start of the 2020-21 season, the summer they paid nine figures to manage Eden Hazard’s decline, the Spanish and European champions have spent $324 million on new signings, according to Transfermarkt. That’s not just less than the Chelseas and Paris Saint-Germains of the world. Crystal Palace, Marseille, Leicester City: All have dropped more in new acquisitions than the team that just brought in $1.1 billion. Through five windows, Madrid, the club that used to put “another coat of gold paint on the Bentley” as a matter of pride, is making profits in the transfer market.
The most impressive aspect of this? Through it all, they are warping the football market to their own will. Each club must react to Perez’s vision for a new kind of business or risk losing the best and brightest for a song. Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain have all seen their stars leave on free transfers. It seems more likely that Liverpool will be next. Earlier this month, they rejected Madrid overtures for Trent Alexander-Arnold, who is free to sign a pre-contract agreement whenever he chooses.
It would be a difficult choice not to make. Like Antonio Rudiger and David Alaba before him, Alexander-Arnold has won everything he can. The drum of the Spanish press makes the wish of Plain Madrid. The Santiago Bernabéu offers new challenges at the Ballon d’Or Factory and a pretty compelling payment package to do so. Alphonso Davies, who is expected to reject the lure of Madrid and extend his contract at Bayern Munich, is the exception rather than the rule.
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The question behind Madrid’s new era of free transfers is what damage they could be doing to the wage bill. After all, if the money that would have now been going to the club has been transformed into signing fees and agent bonuses, there is little savings. The reality is that few teams are better placed to deal with UEFA’s squad cost controls than Madrid. The salaries of its players represent 48 percent of its turnover, according to Deloitte. Among the top 10 in the Money League, only Tottenham give a smaller proportion of their income to the first team. Their strategy away from the field is only helping, including hosting extremely profitable Taylor Swift concerts in the past, as well as welcoming the NFL’s Miami Dolphins, who will play a home game next season at the stadium.
“Growing your income is an ideal way to make your wage bill look lower,” says Theo Ajadi, deputy director at Deloitte Sports Business Group. “Madrid has done it successfully this year. The key is to maintain it and there are some elements of that increase that may not be recurring, the forward selling of matchday seats this season in particular.”
Post Covid, Madrid’s financial management has been a triumph. Its new iteration of the Santiago Bernabeu fulfills the vision of stadiums as assets that will be sweated 365 days a year, commercial income increases by 50 percent in two years and the transfer market is a source of funds rather than a drain on they. Even the sale of a portion of the stadium’s profits to the Sixth Street investment fund was used to push infrastructure projects rather than in a Barcelona-style acquisition spree.
Madrid’s cited salary-to-rotation ratio also does not take into account Kylian Mbappe’s free transfer from Paris Saint-Germain in July. That will certainly send the ratio up a few percentage points, although not as much as might have been predicted before putting pen to paper on a deal said to be worth around $36 million per season. Dropping three and a half percent of revenue to its most high-profile employee is hardly a ridiculous extravagance in football. Madrid has made room for its indulgences.
Even before Alexander-Arnold arrives, the question seems to be who is next. William Saliba is approaching the final two years of his contract and there is a long-term vacancy in Madrid’s backline. Cristian Romero is in the same position. Ibrahima Konate has just over a year left with Liverpool. The summer of 2027 could see Bukayo Saka, Florian Wirtz and Phil Foden join Saliba, all available for a signing fee. Who would doubt that at least one of those players will wear all white that summer?
If there is a way out of Madrid’s shadow, Manchester City might have found it. However, it is not as immediately tasty as one might imagine. Make no mistake, extending Erling Haaland, another one who was destined for the 2027 free agency class, is much more of a good thing than a bad thing.
However, if you really went to the power brokers at the Etihad Stadium, they would surely have preferred a six or seven and a half year contract that takes their number 9 into his 30s, but not the giant that makes him earn around $ 32 million a year until a few weeks before his 35th birthday. It has long been suggested, not least by his father, that Haaland did not intend to spend the rest of his career in England, that he would eventually like to try life in La Liga. Presumably, he longed for the Bernabéu rather than Balaidos.
The price of skipping Haaland’s path to Madrid appears to be superstar money at a point in his career when Haaland will probably not be a superstar. Better that, however, than the clock that has been driving Liverpool into distractions in recent months.
Whether Haaland’s new deal is an exception or Cole Palmer’s nine-year contract reflects a new approach to player retention it is too early to tell. However, what is clear is that the rest of Europe must adapt. Madrid has the money and they have the control to obtain almost any prize they want. That’s not going to change anytime soon.