This is possibly the lamest excuse there can possible be. Is Atletico owned by Arabs? Are Barça and Madrid owned by Arabs? Is Bayern owned by Arabs? Is Juventus owned by Arabs? Is Liverpool owned by Arabs? Is Dortmund owned by Arabs? Yes, in this case, Cesare is an idiot.

Look, there's no need to repeat the same stuff over and over again. There's no money, we get it. But that doesn't mean you can't program things in advance, come up with a strategy and make sound investments. How's buying Matri for €12 a sound investment? How's giving a 32 year old like Alex a 3.5m contract a sound investment? How's giving a Serie Z player like Traoré 1.2m per season a sound investment? What about all the Acerbi's and Mesbah's and Constant's and Zaccardo's...

Sometimes I wish people would just get this.

Many people do, the only problem is that the people that actually matter (Galliani and Silvio), don't. And very well put

Well, by people I just meant R7 (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Nah, he just spends far too much time in the Middle East. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/tongue.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Speaking of which, R, Paolo Maldini was in Riyadh this week. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/ohmy.gif) Fudging missed it, would loved to have been there. He was there alongside Christian Vieri, which you might guess had something to do with their clothing line. Sweet Years, I believe it is. I am so buying stuff from there the next time I'm in the region.

(IMG:http://i1061.photobucket.com/albums/t473/iamsuperman85/2014/maldini_riyadh_zps03ac8688.jpg)

Yup. Galliani's solution to "I got no money to buy players" is to go for players at "zero cost" ("parametro zero"). In doing so, he is alienating other clubs and, more important, using ridiculously high salaries to entice the player. Which then means we are stuck with players that are over-paid and have no incentive to leave, plus what we saved on the signing fee we lose in a higher salary burden. Money goes out, one way or another, and we get stuck with players we do not need or want. And since we need to reduce the salary bill before we can get any new players, we end up making panic moves at the 11th hour (because all the good opportunities are lost).

Yet people still believe that Galliani is some kid of a genius (even I fell for this for a while, Galliani having found a brilliant solution to our financial constraints, that is). I recently read an article (or a post) trying to explain how smart Galliani's approach is, and the justification centered on the fact that in the short term low signing fee + high salary is better than the other way around from a financial perspective. The key is "in the short term". But that is not how we should be thinking, we need a formula that is sustainable over time (and Galliani's approach clearly is not - look at our horrible salary bill and our inability to cut the dead wood). Even worse, we do not want to lose players to other teams at "parametro zero" (as we did with Pirlo), so we end up making stupid decisions like renewing Robinho's contract.

Matri is a different matter. IMHO, that was Galliani trying to make Allegri happy after all of Berlu's shenanigans this summer. ("Here Max, who do you want? Matri? Sure. Astori? Well, we tried. Let's build Cagliari 2.0 together!") But, of course, even with Matri we had to resort to a ridiculously high salary, meaning we are probably stuck with him as well.

(IMG:http://yeahwhathesaid.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/agreed.gif)

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

The thing you guys ask for is very difficult. Yes, you should plan this and plan that and with hindsight it's all very easy to look back and ennumerate the precise steps that should have been taken.

Let's be honest here, let's subtract the Arab clubs and the oil clubs okay?

So Manchester United, Barca, Madrid, Bayern? 4 extremely well run clubs that splash the cash.

You don't need me to tell you how much in debt the first three are. That Madrid and Barca basically survive based on a ludicrous TV agreement that is leaving the rest of the league gasping for breath.

Manchester United? Well, look they have their share of money suckers just like us - Anderson, Nani and so on. It's just that the revenue stream allows them to survive such losses. We can't afford that.

EPL has always had it's own stadium and excellent TV rights and good marketting and all that.

1. Serie A clubs made a mistake of not investing in facilities and youth when the going was good. This blame is not just on Galliani but EVERY SINGLE SERIE A CLUB that was ever successful.
2. Serie A itself made a horrible mistake not marketting themselves abroad when they had the stars. The should have gotten themselves an English marketting team, and ensured that Serie A was available in English commentary, analysis etc. (Hindsight again).

That's the past.

Germany, revolutionised itself with the World Cup. I don't know where the money for the stadium rework came from and Filippo can help.

Bayern are an example. I'll hold my hand up and admit they trumped us solid. Excellent management by Rumennige and co. Dortmund took almost 10 years to build themselves up brick by brick.

Atletico? Well, that's a funny story. This season if they didn't make CL they are going into admin. It's a different story that they have a fairy tale with a coach and a brilliant unit but their debt is so bad, that I don't know if this is a fluke or something more compelling. Even with this season, they're no way out of it. They have 100 million to pay just as taxes I think? So saying nothing about debt.

Lest we forget, Valencia under Benitez too had a couple of seasons under the sun. Now they're struggling to stay afloat as well.


We are making some smart moves commerically. To be fair, it's only been a year since. We'll see.

I do admit though that we need to be much much smarter on transfers. I'll put a bit down to Allegri and the type of workhorse players he preferred. Let's see what Seedorf says.


I guess a TL;DR for this would be - Things aren't rosy everywhere. There are mistakes made, but also some other factors that make a like-for-like comparison with clubs from other continents unfair. Commercial deals and Footbaling matters are for the moment being worked separately and will at some point unite. But yes, transfer activity is critical and we need to be more aware than we have been.

Unrelated. So different post. Anyone else heard of rumours of Montolivo being sold?

Yeah in terms of finances you can't really try and compare with EPL clubs or Madrid/Barca because the tv rights are massive, something that nobody else will ever really get. Bayern are fortunate to be in a 1 team league really, where they can continually be successful.

Some observations are not made in hindsight, though, Jack. We've all been insisting for years to start investing in youngsters. We all called it that Matri would be a terrible deal. We're all saying that giving €3.5m to a 32 year old would be a bad decision. This management has made way too many wrong calls, and the worst part is that they don't learn from their mistakes.

Yep. I am one of the few that actually like Matri, but even I was against the transfer. It made no sense at all. We here all this talk of different plans that we have, but the management don't stick to them. I'm not sure what this club can do right now.