Summer of austerity ahead in Spain

Madrid: The World Cup trophy has been locked away, the flags and vuvuzelas have been stored in the cupboard, the red and yellow face paint has been put away for two years.

Now it is back to reality for Spanish football after the epiphany of their first World Cup triumph.

And the reality is this: an impressive national team and a solid youth coaching system, but clubs heavily in debt and insecure about future television revenue.

Mediapro, the company which has the television rights for La Liga, filed for bankruptcy three weeks ago, leaving the clubs uncertain as to whether they will actually receive the money promised to them for the next few years.

Additional worries

In addition, clubs are worried about sale of season tickets, replica shirts and other merchandising, in a country with 20 per cent unemployment and an 11 per cent budget deficit.

On Friday, Cadena SER estimated that clubs' spending on new players will be down by at least a third compared to last summer.

In 2009, Real Madrid raised eyebrows by spending a staggering €260 million euros on eight new players.

Even Real boss Florentino Perez, the world's most profligate club president, seems to have accepted that times have changed.

Maybe he has been chastened by the World Cup. Vicente del Bosque, the coach that he controversially sacked in 2003, led Spain to glory.

Wesley Sneijder and Arjen Robben, two players thrown out by Real in 2009, did exceptionally well in South Africa whilst Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo — the players who replaced them — both flopped.

On Friday Marca, always close to Perez, claimed that there was a “White Revolution”, and that instead of buying more expensive “galacticos”, Real is now concentrating on younger, cheaper, less exuberant players.

So far, its signings have been Sergio Canales, Angel di Maria and Pedro de Leon, not players who will sell many shirts but the kind of youngsters which new coach Jose Mourinho will try to build a solid team with.

In addition, Sami Khedira of Vfb Stuttgart is about to sign.

On Thursday, general director Jorge Valdano told the youngsters of Real's nursery team Castilla that “the door is open for you,” in an attempt to emulate the success that Barcelona has had in recent years in promoting players from the youth sections.

Mourinho is clearly not interested in keeping veterans Raul and Guti. The former might still go to Schalke 04, the latter is close to joining Bernd Schuster at Besiktas.

According to the media, Perez does not want to spend more than €100 million this summer, which by his legendary standards constitutes a veritable austerity drive.

Barcelona is also trying to reduce its debts and spending.

Big money owed

On Thursday Xavier Faus, Barca's new economic vice-president said that the club's financial situation was “worse than we expected” and that €210 million were owed to different banks.

Faus then explained that further credit to the tune of 155 million had to be negotiated last week, in order simply to pay the players' July salaries.

He suggested that the club will not spend more than €50 million in transfers, in addition to the 40 million already spent on David Villa.

This could mean that Barca gives up its attempt to sign Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas. On Friday new club president Sandro Rosell repeated that “we will not do anything mad to get him.”

If even Real and Barca are determined to spend less, then it goes without saying that the smaller clubs will follow suit.

Valencia has taken in more than €70 million by selling Villa and David Silva, but has spent just a fraction of that on bread-and-butter players like Alberto Costa, Roberto Soldado and Aritz Aduriz. — DPA