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.
