Martin Voogd
04/29/2020 - 18:30
- Clarín.com
- sports
As in other activities, the coronavirus punishes everyone in soccer. From top to bottom, and sooner or later, as if it were a food chain, the business and economic landscape began to devour the various players in sport. And the game of the stopped ball, in this case, does not benefit anyone.
In between, the AFA moved the letters with the government's backing and took the opportunity to restructure Argentine football - and also the power map, but that's another story. The curtain was lowered to the season, the calendar was changed and the declines - not the averages - were eliminated for two years. Club leaders, those who work well and those who do not work well at all, raised their hands equally. Everybody. Even with the enormous cost, at a competitive level, which will mean having massive tournaments again.
The footballers, meanwhile, put the cry in the sky alerted by the situation and by the complex scenario that is looming with the "re-profiling" of the numbers of the contracts, many of which (more than 2,000 of a total close to 4 thousand) expire on June 30. It is true that very few can live six months or a year without charging. Most live daily. And the total restraint of the activity hits them squarely. The war between players and leaders has just begun.
The clubs, as happens on the playing field, did not start on equal terms. Some of them found this crisis better unemployed, as a result of efficient efforts. Others try to weather the storm as best they can, while lamenting bad or fancy decisions that were hidden in good times. And for many this abrupt stoppage of activity put them on the road to disappearance . And there is no place for exaggeration.
Hence, the rescue and the decision not to innovate in terms of decreases was well received by everyone, including those who found the measure harmful. Losing the category implies a shock to budgets that would transform some debts into unpayable promissory notes and signify the beginning of the end. The opposite happens with those clubs that had prepared and were on their way to hit the jump up. Hence the reason why the promotions continue.
What is the reality of the clubs? It is difficult to draw a uniform line, because the scenarios change according to the weight of the shirt. Boca and River play the same championship as the others, but they are clearly in another league. The income from television rights, the only one that remains in force and intact in times of pandemic, does not have the same impact on the monthly budget of the two giants of Argentina as in a recently promoted. And that means that there are other factors and signals that are much more worrying among the leaders of both institutions.
The Núñez club, for example, spends about 350 million pesos a month to pay its staff and what television pays for it represents 3 percent of its operating budget, which is nourished by the corporate mass and succulent income of its sponsors. Central Córdoba de Santiago del Estero, on the other hand, barely exceeds 13 million pesos to support professional football and with the transmission rights it pays more than half of that expense.
Other clubs, of the so-called medium-sized ones, invest between 15 and 20 million pesos per month in soccer. But the story does not end there, since almost all have other disciplines that are not professional or profitable, such as soccer, and that double their monthly operating expenses.
In the First National the expenses are less. But they are also directly proportional to income. They have from the Atlanta Treasury, one of the teams that was shaping up to ascend to what will be the Professional League, that the club has a monthly expense of three million pesos to support the entire structure of professional football. The money for television rights and the aid, in the form of a salvage, of one million pesos that the AFA gave with money that came from Conmebol allowed it to keep the campus up to date. For now, of course. But on June 30, close to 90% of the campus contracts will expire, in a scenario in which the team should still define on the pitch -as it was arranged from AFA- their chance of promotion. A problem that the teams that have already finished the season will not have, that they could already think about the next championship and save costs until there are more certainties.
The economy was also benefited by the team's campaign, which, by leading the way, allowed the mere fact of opening the field to play, after solving police operations and wages of the ticket office employees and the controls in the access doors. That surplus, for example, is an income that disappeared. But not the only one.
Since the activity stopped in its tracks as a result of the quarantine to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, the clubs saw their incomes decrease everywhere . A key factor is the significant drop in the collection of the social quota , which in the case of medium-sized clubs represents between 25 and 30 percent of income and in the case of the most convening clubs the amount grows exponentially. The automatic debit served as a brake, but beyond the sense of belonging, in some cases the decrease exceeds 70 percent in these times of crisis . And it will be even greater as the months go by.
In the same line, the clubs do not have the income that comes from the collection of tariffs to those who practice other disciplines. And those who have schools or educational institutes, beyond the subsidy, also see how the collection fell in that area. It is that many of the parents of the boys who go to these institutions suffer from the cut of their wages or the impossibility of going out to work.
With the doors of the corporate headquarters and closed stadiums not only there are no entries from the sale of tickets or subscriptions, but also disappeared income by renting facilities clubs, coming from concessions gastronomic spaces and those that come from the sale of merchandising in official stores. In addition, in many cases, the chain of payments of the sponsors and static advertising is broken, since without football matches there is no consideration. Checks, in many cases, became that classic that is the pagadiós.
The Argentine Cup, like the leagues, was frozen. From this competition, the clubs receive economic prizes, which are generally distributed among the players, for advancing the round. and they are benefited by the rental of the court, another income that disappeared for the moment. Those who play international tournaments are more relieved, since Conmebol offered to advance the prizes for playing the first round. However, it remains to be seen what happens if the ball doesn't roll again until the end of the year. And what will also happen to those clubs that have just obtained a passport for the next edition of the cups, after the AFA ended the season.
The biggest blow is yet to come. Clubs, especially those that are not fully ordered, tend to accommodate red numbers with sales, in dollars or euros, of players leaving their Lower divisions. With soccer paralyzed globally and without the possibility of players filming and using the window of Argentine soccer as a springboard, the uncertainty about the markets for upcoming passes is enormous .
In fact, in Europe there is already talk of less cash and more bartering when it comes to the armed forces of the next schools. In this scenario, the payments for the training rights of the footballers and the different solidarity mechanisms that, to cite an example, allowed Liniers de Bahía Blanca to modernize and improve their facilities thanks to the millions they received from the Sale of Lautaro Martínez de Racing to Inter Milan.
Liniers' counterpart, who is found standing by the crisis thanks to the goals of his prodigal son, is Racing de Córdoba. Yes, the one who was runner-up in the 1980 National with Alfio Basile as coach, the same one whose most famous fan is Governor Juan Schiaretti, one of the four great soccer players in that province. The club that currently plays in the Federal Amateur and that wanted to return to the foreground after some bad efforts, has a terminal moment.
Managed by Manuel Pérez, a gastronomic businessman, suffers from the economic crisis like few others. With the restaurants he has in Villa Carlos Paz closed, Pérez has no money to inject into the club. He does not even get the provincial subsidy that he received from the school, with primary and secondary levels, which also served as a dining room for the boys.
The stop for the coronavirus found him unprepared, without much protection, after having armed a campus that aspired to start the way back to Federal A. But now he has no way to pay the players and employees. The problem is that the case of Racing de Córdoba is replicated in all layers of football. And while the ball is still, the crisis, inevitable, will continue to wreak havoc.