The Vatican Newspaper Criticizes Real Madrid

The Expenses of Florentino Perez Are not Justifiable

Jul 30, 2009 Alessandro Mastrorocco

L'Osservatore Romano warned about Real Madrid's spending policies and the risk to push European clubs into the hands of organized crime.

The official newspaper of the Vatican, L’Osservatore Romano, questions the spending policies of one of the most famous soccer clubs of the world, Real Madrid.

The return of Florentino Perez to the presidency of the Spanish team has generated a fast increase of expense for players calculated at more than 200 million Euro. The question posed by the Roman newspaper is whether the figures paid by Real Madrid are justifiable in a time of economic crisis.

Real Madrid is the absolute star of soccer player transfers for this summer. The purchase of the Portuguese champion Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United, of the AC Milan star Kakà and of the French striker Benzema has had the same effect as a tornado for European soccer.

Different Spending Policies

The British teams and the Italians, until now, have avoided any big expense and, on the contrary, are in these times careful with their budgets. Only the historical rivals of Barcelona, another Spanish team, has decided to follow Madrid in this run by buying the striker of FC Inter, the Swedish Zlatan Ibrahimovic, for an amount estimated between 66 and 100 million Euros. The difference depends on the fact that part of the transfer consists of other players, like Cameroon’s forward Eto’o, and their estimated worth is susceptible to different opinions, in particular between Catalans or Castilian newspapers

The Roman newspaper asked a legend of football, the Brazilian Pelè, how much his value should be today. Pelè’s answer is that a player like him now would not have any price; he should be just out of the market. The prices should be decided by the market but sometimes, in the opinion of the Vatican journal, the markets are sick and in particular are unreasonable in the soccer player’s exchanges.

The Economic Crisis and the Risk of Being Infiltrated by Organized Crime

The economic situation should require more sobriety and attention by the soccer managers. In the L’Osservatore Romano opinion, it is necessary to analyze if this behavior is compatible with the soccer world or it destabilizes it. Aside from the real risk of bankruptcy, for the Vatican newspaper the major concern is the possibility that criminal organizations are ready to invest their profits in soccer.

The Roman Church’s newspaper reports an analysis of the OECD, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development that warned about the risk of the European soccer movement being infiltrated by organized crime. Another analysis of the Financial Action Task Force, an inter-governmental body whose purpose is the development and promotion of national and international policies to combat money laundering and terrorist financing, quoted by the Catholic states that soccer could be for criminals the preferred place to “clean” illegal earnings.

It is not only the Vatican that has criticized Florentino Perez. Michelle Platini, the President of UEFA and former star of French National team and Juventus, at different times affirmed that this behavior is a serious challenge to the idea of fair play.

Florentino Perez did not answer to the editorial nor did he give any explanation about the way to recover from the enormous debt made to buy the best soccer players of the word. The Brazilian Kakà, who belongs to the Christian Association “Atletas de Cristo”, justified Real Madrid’s splurge because the players involved are worth the money spent. Manuel Pellegrini, the new coach of Real Madrid from Chile, refused to comment. He just said he is not fit to talk about what the Vatican affirms.

The economic director of FC Barcelona, Xavier Sala Martín, sustained that the amortization of these kinds of expenses is out of any economic rationality with just the sale of the club’s t-shirts. Sala Martín affirmed that Real Madrid should sell more than 9 million t-shirts in order to cover the cost of Cristiano Ronaldo when the average sales for t-shirts for the Catalan club are more or less 2 million each year.

An old popular note of wisdom shared by soccer experts and proven by historical facts affirms that no team is sure to win a prize even if you have a champion for every single role on the team. The recent Real Madrid story proves it and the president of that failure was in fact, Florentino. Just like in the bike races, often the difference is made by the minor members of the team more than for the stars.

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