Champions League from a financial perspective

Champions League knock-out phase offers big battles and potential great emotions. The game between Real and Manchester United is definitely what every fan is waiting for! However this article is focused on the economic perspective of the tournament.

The two big knock out contenders Real Madrid and Manchester United have two of the highest market values. The Spaniards €601 mil and the English €441 mil. It  remains to see on the pitch the quality of these squads and also how will Cristiano Ronaldo experience his return to Manchester. 

In the group stage however there were two big clubs eliminated. Chelsea the previous year’s champion with a market value of €387 mil didn't qualify to the knock out phase as well as the other English giant, Manchester City (€498 mil in market value). Especially City “managed” to break the negative record of points collected by English teams in Champions League, Group stage. 

On the other hand Malaga, in their 1st appearance in Champions Leagueand 2nd in European competitions in general, qualified having one of the lowest market values among the 16 clubs (€98 mil).

Observing the market values of the qualified teams, we find Barcelona having the biggest (€656 mil) and Celtic (from the same group) the lowest (almost €60 mil). It is worth mentioning that Celtic won Barcelona which has 10 times its market value.

On average the qualified teams have a market value of €278 mil where on the other side the ones that didn't qualify have an average of €136 mil. The 32 participating clubs in Champion’s League Group Stage had an accumulated market value of €6.6 billion almost the same as Malta’s GDP.

Of course money is not the only criterion of a club’s success on the competition but is a facilitator. We can then see from the above that money not always guarantee success. Motivation is not always related to figures. There are other elements that can lead to success, like in the case of Greece in the European Championship in 2004 when with players of lower market value than other teams became European Champion. For instance at the moment the market value of Greek national team is €83 mil and Messi has on the other side a value of €120 mil.

The future will hopefully offer us nice football games, a lot of surprises and emotions. In the same time the spending attitude of football clubs should be moderated and better regulated. Financial fair play is in this direction but remains to see if will be implemented. 

Keep Walking Greece!

When a nation is so close to default, sports cannot be of any importance. However sports give us a great opportunity to see that Greece is not a country of lazy people who don't do anything else than drinking coffee next to the beach and tax evading. If you haven't been to Greece or met someone from Greece, probably this is the picture you have for this small but historical country.

Greece is the country that hosted the original ancient Olympic Games, and the modern ones in 2004. Especially for the last ones most of foreigners didn't believe that we will finally be able to organise them as we were not working hard. Despite their lack of faith we managed to organise a very successful event without any major problems with everyone being satisfied.

Despite the good impression we created we also acquired big amounts of debt as organising a global event like this, is too costly. This is the reason why Italy decided in the last moment not to bid for the Olympic Games in 2020.

Another example of Greek success against general opinion is the European Football Championship won by Greece in 2004. Noone believed in this team (like today noone believes in an economic miracle from Greece) but the whole team believed and with the help of Otto Rehagel, a German coach, we managed to do one of the greatest surprises in global sporting history. Of course the contribution of "Mr. Heracles" is huge but the point is that we do not need a German Gauleiter (the party leader of a regional branch of the Nazi) but someone to BELIEVE in us. Of course Mr. Rehagel is one of the most respectable Germans in Greece and we owe him one of our happiest moments in our lives.

Of course noone will ever forget, at least the Greeks, the big win of our Basketball National Team against Dream Team, the National Team of the United States. It was in Japan in 2006, for the FIBA World Championship, when once more against predictions we did it, we won probably the best team in the World.

All these are some examples that show that we, Greek people, are capable of great things. There should be a motivation and not pension or wage cuts. These measures diminish the motivation and increase the anxiety. We need inspiration and not Troika's advice.

We know we are not a rich country, rich in economic terms, but we are rich in feelings, in beautiful and sunny islands and rich in history that noone can ever take from us. We are a country of 11 mil. inhabitants that has less people than Lady Gaga's and Justin Bieber's followers in Twitter. However we are proud that a lot of great things in this world have a Greek origin like DEMOCRACY, which is forgottent nowadays.

So please don't behave to us like we are "junk" like Standard and Poor's rated Greek Bonds. We deserve respect from everyone because when talking for a nation that provided a lot to this World (for sure not any World War) noone should disrespect us. Greek citizens are responsible for this situation in a  percentage but not in the whole. Countries which lend us money in order to buy military equipment from them, with bribes, should change their behaviour and respect the Greek citizens more. 

DON'T UNDERSTIMATE THE GREEKS 

WE WILL KEEP WALKING EVEN IF YOU DON'T THINK SO