How the Messi transfer fits into FFP & the future of investment in football
The Athletic FC Podcast
The Athletic
4.0 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2021
⏱️ 44 minutes
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Summary
Mark Chapman is joined by The Athletic's Oliver Kay to look at how Lionel Messi's transfer to PSG plays against the backdrop of financial fair play, nearly ten years after it was first introduced by UEFA. With Man City and PSG spending as much as they ever have, can we really say that FFP has worked? Has it merely supressed the middle and allowed the elite to break free? Is this latest spending spree just a quirk of the post-covid landscape?
We are also joined by Luis Garcia Alvarez - football investor and equity portfolio manager for MAPFRE - for a look at the deal La Liga have done with investment fund CVC Capital - selling a 10% stake for 2.7 billion - and whether it is a good deal for the Spanish clubs. Is it the way forward for European sports leagues to grow revenues sustainably? Or is it dangerous to put your destiny in the hands of profit-minded investors?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic |
| 0:02.7 | Hello, I'm Mark Chapman, welcome to the business of sport on the athletic. |
| 0:19.1 | Matt Slayson is not with us this week. |
| 0:20.6 | He's picked a great week to go on holiday |
| 0:22.7 | as one of the biggest sports stories of the year unfolded. |
| 0:27.3 | I'm joined by the athletics Oliver Kaye today |
| 0:31.0 | who's been writing about the state of financial fair play |
| 0:33.9 | in the wake of Leonel Messe's transfer to PSG |
| 0:36.8 | and also for spending in Manchester |
| 0:39.2 | City and Chelsea will go to Spain a little bit later on on the pod to talk to finance expert |
| 0:45.0 | Luis Garcia Alvarez for insight on the deal that La Liga have struck with CBC Capital Partners. |
| 0:51.7 | The idea there being that they'll sell a 10% stake for £2.7 billion |
| 0:57.1 | and it'll be a 50-year deal. |
| 0:59.7 | Rail Madrid and Barcelona threatening to take legal action against La Liga on that deal. |
| 1:05.5 | So an awful lot to get through on the business of sport. |
| 1:13.0 | We'll get into your piece, Ollie, on Financial Fairplay very shortly and how it all fits |
| 1:18.3 | together. As someone who's covered an awful lot of transfers, what are your thoughts on |
| 1:22.7 | what we've seen over the last week? Weird, really. I mean, it was weird getting to the end of June, |
| 1:28.6 | and obviously Messi was at the end of his contract and he was playing at the Copper America, |
| 1:32.2 | and it suddenly struck me, he was actually playing for Argentina as a free agent. He was no longer |
| 1:38.1 | a Barcelona player. You know, we've seen that happen with, for example, Gary Breen, with Ireland |
| 1:43.5 | at the 2002 World Cup, |
... |
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