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Football: the "Big Five" mercato

Whether in England, Italy, Germany, Spain or France, the mercato that ended on Tuesday evening was full of surprises. But the market continues to be held back by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has forced many of the biggest clubs to tighten their belts yet again.

This summer's mercato will live long in the memory. Firstly, because of Lionel Messi's spectacular arrival at Paris Saint-Germain. But also because of Cristiano Ronaldo's return to Manchester United.

But the movements of the two most successful Ballon d'Or winners - six for the Argentinian and five for the Portuguese - conceal another reality: the health crisis has put a strain on the finances of European clubs, most of whom have had to limit their spending. Here are the key figures from the summer mercato.

Spending still on the decline

With the exception of the Bundesliga, the major European leagues spent less during the 2021 summer mercato than they did last year, which was already marked by a sharp decline caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Of the five major European leagues, Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga saw the biggest falls (-25 % and -27 % respectively).

The Premier League as dynamic as ever

The Premier League is indeed the most powerful league in Europe: despite the difficult economic climate, English clubs spent over €1.5 billion on transfers this summer. That's almost three times more than all the clubs in Ligue 1 put together.

The transfer of Jack Grealish to Manchester City (€117.5 million), Romelu Lukaku to Chelsea (€115 million) and Jadon Sancho to Manchester United (€85 million) were the three biggest European moves of the mercato.

Serie A: renewed appeal after the UEFA EURO?

Following the 'Squadra Azzura's' Euro triumph, Italy's Serie A is set to enjoy a resurgence in popularity for the 2021-2022 season. The Italian league has lost Cristiano Ronaldo, Gianluigi Donnarumma and Romelu Lukaku, but it has managed to retain a large number of players from the European champion national team.

In total, Italian clubs spent 552 million euros on transfers. This is considerably less than last year (732 million).

German Bundesliga maintained

German clubs are the only ones to have spent more in 2021 than in 2020 (+42 %). However, according to KPMG, the German league has suffered the most from the closure of stadiums due to Covid, with losses of €157 million for the 18 clubs in Germany's top flight. By comparison, Ligue 1 lost €48 million in ticket revenue.

Last season's runners-up, RB Leipzig, confirmed their rise to prominence by spending €107.8 million this summer, more than three times as much as last year. Bayern Munich, for their part, dropped 57.5 million, compared with just over 62 million the previous year. In total, German clubs spent €416 million on transfers.

Ligue 1 led by PSG

As has been the case every year since the summer of 2011-2012, Paris Saint-Germain are the biggest spenders at the French mercato. This summer, the club paid over €80 million, including almost €60 million to acquire the services of Moroccan international Achraf Hakimi.

Another highlight of the French mercato was the arrival of Lionel Messi in Paris. The transfer cost Paris Saint-Germain nothing, as 'La Pulga' was at the end of his contract with Barcelona. Finally, the story of Kylian Mbappé's possible departure for Real ended in a non-event. For the time being.

Behind the Paris giants, Stade Rennais were the biggest spenders in France, splashing out almost €80 million on seven players, including Montpellier striker Gaëtan Laborde. In search of reinforcements in the final days of the summer transfer market, Olympique Lyonnais ended the transfer window almost empty-handed.

Austerity cure for Spanish Liga

Spanish top flight clubs spent a total of 293 million euros during the summer mercato, compared to almost 400 million last year (-27 %). This was due to the austerity measures imposed on clubs across the Pyrenees, including the introduction of a wage cap. In first place, Atlético Madrid have spent 65 million euros but have not yet paid anything to bring back Antoine Griezmann. The French world champion, who left the club for Barcelona two years ago, has returned on loan after two disappointing seasons in Catalonia. 1

Real Madrid completed just one transaction to acquire French midfielder Eduardo Camavinga on the final day of the mercato for €31 million (excluding bonuses). Austrian defender David Alaba, meanwhile, arrived on a free transfer. Faced with serious financial difficulties and heavily penalised by the salary cap, which forced them to let Lionel Messi go, Barcelona spent just €15 million.

text by PERRUCHE Clément lesechos.fr

LIGA - WHY LIONEL MESSI COULDN'T STAY AT BARÇA, EVEN FOR FREE

LIGA - Lionel Messi confirmed his departure from Barça at a press conference on Sunday. The Argentinian explained that he wanted to stay, even at the cost of a drastic pay cut, but that the rules of La Liga prevented him from doing so. In fact, he would not have been able to re-sign with Barcelona, even for free.

"I offered to lower my salary by 50%. I tried everything." Lionel Messi has, he says, tried everything to stay at FC Barcelona. But the six-time Ballon d'Or winner, after 21 years in Catalonia, bid farewell to his beloved club at a press conference on Sunday. He explained that he had done his utmost, as had the club and its president Joan Laporta, to continue in the Blaugrana shirt. But due to the rules of La Liga, this was not possible. Even if Messi had, hypothetically, decided to play for free for the club he was playing for, he would have been unable to do so. "likes.

Messi: "PSG is a possibility

La Liga regulations impose a sort of salary cap. A club's wage bill must not exceed 70% of its turnover. In Barça's case, however, and according to the figures given by president Joan Laporta himself on Friday, the sum of Barcelona's wages currently represents... 95% of the club's turnover. Add Messi, and the figure rises to 110%!

BARCELONA PAYS FOR ITS DISASTROUS MANAGEMENT

The Blaugrana are therefore banned from registering any new players. According to several Spanish sources, they have still not validated the contracts of their summer recruits Memphis Depay, Eric Garcia, Emerson Royal and Sergio Agüero. As Messi's lease expired this summer, he would also have been considered a new player. It would therefore be impossible for the Argentinian to renew his contract, unless Barça had cut almost 200 million euros from their wage bill this summer. Mission impossible.

Barcelona are paying for their disastrous management in recent years. Messi's most recent contract, worth almost €575 million, was obviously a factor. So did the club's recent spending spree (Coutinho at €145 million, Dembélé at €130 million, Griezmann at €120 million). According to Laporta, Barça lost nearly €475 million last year and are now just over €1 billion in debt. An untenable situation that precipitated the loss of the best player in the club's history - or in history, for that matter.

Text BY EUROSPORT

COMMENTARY. Euro 2021: France, Portugal, Germany... the group of death has killed off the big guns

France, Germany and Portugal, all drawn in the Euro 2021 "group of death", were eliminated in the Round of 16 by Switzerland, England and Portugal respectively.

In November 2019, in Bucharest, Romania, the draw for Euro 2020 (finally played in 2021) did not spare France, Germany and Portugal. The last three winners of major international competitions (the 2014 World Cup for Germany, Euro 2016 for Portugal and the 2018 World Cup for France) were placed in the same group, which had never happened before.

Group F, known as the "group of death", promised viewers some great matches from the start of the competition, but was a headache for the coaches. You had to be ready from the start, perhaps too early to go all the way. After all, the top players are programmed to build up their strength over the course of the competition, so that they are in top form from the quarter-finals onwards.

Proven organisations

While it didn't kill anyone, with all three teams qualifying for the 8^es of the final, the nervous and physical strain required from the start of the competition proved fatal in the knockout phase. As if the group wasn't already tough enough, the second and third-placed teams came up against England, at home at Wembley, and Belgium, number 1 in the Fifa rankings. Other round-of-16 games featured less "glamorous" opponents, such as Denmark and Wales, and Sweden and Ukraine.

In theory, only France seemed to be spared, even though they probably inherited the worst possible third place when they came up against Switzerland, a team that is always very difficult to play against, and 13^e in the international rankings.

Paradoxically, it was Portugal, third in the group, who came closest to qualifying in the end. Cristiano Ronaldo's team-mates had plenty of chances and possession, but sometimes lacked a clear finish, luck and physical fitness. No wonder. Their bodies were put to the test. The Portuguese, like the French, played two of their three matches in Budapest, the only stadium at the Euros with no spectator restrictions, in stifling heat. It's not the same to play in 35 degrees in Hungary as in 15 degrees in London or Amsterdam.

As well as playing each other, they also played their away games, in Munich against Germany and in Budapest against Hungary. And if all that wasn't enough, all three teams had two or three days less to recover.

Equity problem

With that in mind, it was hard to imagine any of the three teams going far in the competition, even if the French seemed to have done the hard part against Switzerland, taking a 3-1 lead with ten minutes remaining. Portugal's lack of physical fitness was obvious on Sunday, France's on Monday and Germany's on Tuesday. Of course, this in no way detracts from the performance of the Belgians, Swiss and English. But they didn't have to play finals in the group phase. The eleven-country Euro has its good points, but it also has its bad ones, particularly in terms of fairness.

Should Didier Deschamps stay on as Les Bleus coach?

The story began for Les Bleus in Bucharest one evening in November 2019 with a twist of fate. It ended one evening in June 2021 in Bucharest with a penalty shoot-out lottery. The story has come full circle.

Text by Ouest-France Pierre GUYON.

Euro 2021: why are there several host countries and not just one, as usual?

This year, the competition will be divided between eleven countries, as opposed to the usual one. We explain why.

The Euro football tournament, originally scheduled for 12 June to 12 July 2020, had to be postponed because of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. But this time, it's the right time. The European Football Championship will be held from 11 June to 11 July.

And, for the first time in its history, the Euro will be held in eleven cities in eleven different countries. London (England); St Petersburg (Russia); Baku (Azerbaijan); Munich (Germany); Rome (Italy); Amsterdam (Netherlands); Bucharest (Romania); Budapest (Hungary); Copenhagen (Denmark); Glasgow (Scotland) and Seville (Spain) have been chosen by UEFA to host matches.

Before the pandemic, Dublin (Republic of Ireland) and Bilbao (Spain) were due to host matches. They were finally replaced last April by Seville and St Petersburg, due to a lack of capacity in their stadiums.

In all other editions of the Euros, only one country was chosen to host the tournament, and the matches were then held in different cities in the host country. In 2016, France was chosen as the host country, with matches taking place in 10 stadiums: Stade Pierre-Mauroy in Villeneuve-d'Ascq, Stade Bollaert in Lens, Stade de Bordeaux, Stade de Lyon, Stade Vélodrome in Marseille, Stade de Nice, Parc des Princes in Paris, Stade de France in Saint-Denis, Stade Geoffroy-Guichard in Saint-Etienne and Stade Municipal in Toulouse.

It is also because it was the organiser of the 2016 edition that France did not apply, and therefore will not be the host city, for this new edition of the European competition.

An exceptional edition

But this year, the organisation is spread over eleven cities. This choice is not new: the decision was in fact taken by UEFA in 2012. It was Michel Platini, UEFA President at the time, who proposed the 2020 European Championship, to be spread over several "tournaments". 12 or 13 towns "In 2012, an article in L'Express recalled the 60th anniversary of the competition. And that's exactly what has happened.

The official competition website states: ". UEFA EURO 2020 will be staged across Europe for the first time to mark the 60th anniversary of the competition, in eleven different cities. ".

And special arrangements mean special rules. With the classic organisation, the host country automatically qualifies for the European Championship. Not this time: " There will be no direct qualifiers, as all the nations with host cities have tried to earn their place in the finals. "says UEFA.

Be that as it may, this is an exceptional organisation: Euro 2024 has been entrusted to Germany.

Text by C. Br. |

UEFA allows heavy sanctions against 12 Super League clubs

Although the Super League project has fallen by the wayside with the withdrawal of ten clubs, the European governing body is brandishing the threat of possible sanctions. The twelve teams behind the project could be heavily penalised.

The Super League was a short-lived project. Officialised on Sunday night, the future competition has met with a huge outcry in the football microcosm in recent hours. In the face of this collective outcry, ten clubs have already resigned in the last few hours.

Officially, only Real Madrid and Barcelona have not yet withdrawn from the project. A victory for football and UEFA, even if the latter will clearly have to review its plans in the coming days, particularly with regard to the Champions League. Exasperated by the turn of events, the European body does not intend to stop there. The collateral damage remains considerable despite the backtracking of ten of the twelve clubs involved in the project.

UEFA ready to strike hard

Interviewed by the FotbollskanalenKarl-Erik Nilsson, one of UEFA's vice-presidents, has taken up the cause. The main protagonist is adamant that the aborted Super League project has not been digested internally, and the twelve clubs concerned can expect reprisals. "The project has already had an impact, in a way, because they have to live with their shame. says this UEFA Executive Committee member.

While the notoriety of the twelve clubs has already taken a huge hit, those concerned can also expect sanctions in sporting terms, reveals the Scandinavian leader. "We will have to discuss any additional consequences. But there will be consequences in any case, on issues of trust in particular, and on their credibility in the future." UEFA will leave no stone unturned when it comes to the twelve dissidents. European football remains as turbulent as ever...

By footmercato.net Cedric Rablat

La Liga: what if Messi ended up staying at Barcelona?

Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, against whom Lionel Messi has gone to "all-out war" according to the Catalan press, is under fire after a nightmare season. He is threatened by a motion of censure tabled this Wednesday morning by opponent Jordi Farré.

According to the Spanish press, the board of directors met in extraordinary session on Tuesday evening to tell Messi that he was under contract until 30 June 2021 and that the club was counting on him for the coming season.

Messi did not take kindly to what new coach Ronald Koeman had to say during their first meeting last Thursday, and this, combined with the fact that Koeman told Luis Suarez (Barça striker and close friend of Messi) that he was not counting on him for next season, precipitated the six-time Ballon d'Or winner's desire to leave.

Messi is no stranger to applying pressure to get what he wants from the management, but would he agree to stay at Barça, his lifelong club, if the current management resigned?

by RTS.ch

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