Do you know how Covid-19 affects your soccer team?

Although soccer is a sport, we cannot forget that it is also a business and that, like any company, its success depends on good administration and its income. The Covid-19 stopped the flow of income to clubs around the world, below we show you from which areas the clubs obtain resources and how the pandemic has affected them severely, to the extent that some are almost bankrupt.

The expenses do not stop between taxes, rent of stadiums or offices, services and surely the most expensive: the payroll of the players . FIFA has promised to support the most vulnerable parts of football thanks to a fund of $ 2,745 million, according to La Razón, in addition to the support that each league can provide to its clubs.

Stadium box office

Millonarios FC is one of the clubs with the most resources in Colombian soccer. According to La República, this club has lost more than 90% of its total income. According to Enrique Camacho, president of the club, the box office alone represents 40% of its income, averaging $ 159,000 dollars per game. In the case of clubs like Real Madrid, which averages $ 4.7 million per game, the losses of approximately eight remaining games would easily exceed $ 30 million , according to calculations by the ABC newspaper. In addition to these losses, to which all the clubs in the world will be subject, it remains to be seen how much they will have to invest in adjustments that make the stadiums suitable for receiving the public again or how much the capacity should be reduced once the leagues begin to work again. 

Merchandising

Most of the purchases of club products are consumed in official stores, which, when closed, generate substantial losses. The Guadalajara MX league club will lose $ 7.6 million (including stadium tickets) due to the sale of products, according to data from El Economista . Among the best-selling products are t-shirts, mugs, caps, backpacks, scarves, balls, etc. that fans buy constantly and although there is the option to buy online, losses will be inevitable.

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Television rights

This is possibly the most important item in the income of a club, some leagues such as the English Premier League distribute the income equally among all the clubs, but in most leagues each club negotiates its transmission rights separately obtaining income variables between them. Altogether, Liga MX clubs will lose $ 40 million as the league has already been officially canceled, while the French league would lose around $ 223 million according to El Economista data. The television stations, having no football to broadcast, have chosen not to pay for the rights, such as the case of Globo in Brazil, exemplified by the same newspaper. The newspaper El País states that if the league were to be resumed behind closed doors in England, losses of $ 926 million could be avoided just for television rights, so the discussion about resuming the leagues has become crucial in recent weeks.

Sponsors

To reduce losses, many clubs have chosen to reduce the salaries of their players, especially the big stars with high salaries. Cristiano Ronaldo agreed, for example, to reduce his salary by 4.1 million dollars, as reported by Medio Tiempo. To a greater or lesser extent, large or small clubs have had to resort to this to reduce losses. If we add to this the loss of sponsors for both clubs and players we will have a better picture of the situation. As sponsors stop paying, players' salaries will decrease and those soccer players who have their own sponsorships will also see those revenues at risk.

Player sales

The purchase and sale of players has had historical numbers in the last decade and at the same time they have become great assets for clubs that see the sale of players as one of their greatest revenues, such is the case of South American clubs ,and in different measure, in large European clubs that will seek to recover those resources through these sales. Barcelona is an example of this, which according to Marca requires selling around 76 million dollars in players so that their numbers match to end the season, the big problem of this time is the liquidity and possibility of the clubs to get hold of players in the global market.