Real's shirt deal with Emirates is 70m per year. While Man Utd had the biggest shirt deal with Chevy for 76.6m Euros. They lost that deal (hm, wonder why?) and their new deal is 56.3m with TeamViewer. Barca's new shirt deal with Spotify is worth 68m a year. So it's not a record.
If you add Man Utd's Kohler deal, Man Utd make 80.3m. Barca make marginally more, and I imagine the next Madrid or Man Utd shirt deals will be bigger than these latest ones.
We are far, fucking lightyears behind these clubs financially. But we used to be in the top 3 in terms of revenue not that long ago.
I'm just so weirded out how much people like to defend other clubs here. I don't see how you can look at what is happening at Barca and say "everything is fine, they struggled to register Ferran Torres because they couldn't afford it, but even though they lost Messi, everything is fine!"
When Sheva was sold, I was young, but I remember fighting with fans on MilanMania that this was the sign of a downfall of Milan. When Kaka was sold, I was like, nah this isn't the sign of bad things, but I got shaky. Then we got Ibra, and I was like "okay... okay..." and when we sold Thiago Silva and Ibra, I still thought, "we're just can't compete financially" and when we qualified for the CL on the last day, I thought with Niang, Balo, and SES, we'd have a team to grow and we'd build that way. Nope.
It was the boring elements of financials that led to our doom and massive decline. But it was a relatively fast process over a span of 6-7 years from Sheva behind sold in 2006 to 2012 with Ibra-Silva being sold. Berlusconi and Galliani did not build up the commercial and financial side of things. Bayern got their new stadium in 2005. Juventus really were proactive following their relegation and built a foundation of a club--fueled by Fiat largesse, sure, but they made sure it wasn't just direct payments like Berlusconi did, as the costs grew and the numbers grew, Berlusconi couldn't keep up because he didn't take advantage. Barbara, who we all (including my dumb self) wanted to improve this area was dismissed and she was called all sorts of misogynistic stuff. Okay, so she dated Pato. Is it risky to date the President's daughter? Sure, but acting like a woman has some unique ability to destroy a player, is annoying.
Pato ruined himself. He made the choice to be a party boy. "Ronaldo came over and asked how I was, and then he told me 'You have to decide, come with me (and he showed me a Playboy) or go in Kaka's group (who in the dressing room had some church things). At that time I wasn't expecting those things from a player I used to play with on the PlayStation, but they were big moments." If you can play and party, more power to you. Pato wasn't good enough. R9 was.
Sporting success when you have to rely on individual players to succeed, that you need Pato to explode. That you need Balotelli to explode. That you need Bertolacci to explode. Your team-building process is not going to work.
I don't think Barca are headed towards their banter era. Not yet. But it's going there. Inter? Same thing. Maybe if Barbara really got control over things, we actually built that stadium, and maybe if Galliani actually still had the sort of superior scouting and executives that he used to have around him, things would have been different? I'm not sure if Galliani was ever great at identifying players, but it seems that he was crucial in getting them here. It was a combination of Leonardo, Braida, Gandini and others who had that network of being smart, they were gone, and that's when Galliani, alone, wasn't able to move forward.
In retrospect, honestly, Barbara was actually the one who is right.
Whatever, this is another "wAlL oF tExT" in which I feel like I spell out my thoughts rather clearly, but here's the caricature for some people:
"Milan never had a problem, I love the management, I'm always right, I've never been wrong about a player, I'm better than everyone, and I haven't learned from the signs of decline in my own club and so when I identify those problems in other clubs, I'm too stupid (and arrogant) to say that there is a problem. Oh, and I love sitting on avocados and laugh at people who sit on pineapples?" - there you go buddies.
