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Real Madrid is, without possible dispute, the most powerful club in the world historically. And in recent years, in view of the list of champions league Casa Blancawe can also say without too much hesitation that the Merengues were the great dominators of European football. Some will evoke success and luck, not without a touch of bad faith, while others will even go so far as to speak of arbitration, but one thing is certain, it cannot be said that the workforce of Real Madrid is built with denial checks. Unlike popular belief, the Merengues spend very little money on the construction of their workforce, which may surprise at first when you look at the team, made up of global references to their posts and with 3 of the best players on the planet with the most advanced positions.
But as a study carried out by the newspaper revealed ASsince the 2016/2017 season, Real Madrid has been one of the big clubs that spend the least in Europe. At least compared to what enters the boxes. The balance of expenses/income on the transfer window is negative of only 151 million euros, with 896 million spent to recruit and 745 million euros collected on the sale of players. It is a much better assessment than 34 other clubs around the world. Real Madrid thus had fewer net expenses than OM, Fulham, Cruz Azul, Ipswich Town or Bournemouth on this period. PSG is for example third in this ranking, with a negative scale of 927 million euros, while Barça is sixteenth, with 344 million euros.
A new strategy
Very criticized for its sometimes extravagant and ineffective expenses in the 2000s, even more at a time when the Barcelona sworn enemy benefited from a gold generation from its training center, Real Madrid has gradually changed its strategy. Since around 2015, the Real Madrid transfer window has been based on 3 main guidelines: the purchase of young players with potential before they land with another European cador, the signing of confirmed players at the end of the contract and major expenses authorized in an exceptional way to recruit stars on the market. In the first category cited, we find for example Fede Valverde, recruited in Peñarol in 2016 for only 5 million euros, and which is today worth 130 million euros according to the specialized Transfermarket site. Vinicius Jr, Arda Guller, Endrick or Rodrygo are also part of this strategy and are players who already have a much higher market value than their purchase price by Real. The category of free players is also rich in examples, with Antonio Rüdiger, David Alaba or the own Kylian Mbappé, while Trent Alexander-Arnold is also expected this summer. It should still be noted that wages are high enough for players who land at the end of the contract. Finally, Jude Bellingham is a good example of these large expenses validated from time to time, just like Tchouameni, with less success than English.
Behind all this, there is a financial logic, of course. In recent years, Real Madrid has seen other players arriving in force on the market, like English clubs, more and more boosted by their TV rights and foreign investors for some. If Real Madrid was at a time not so distant practically assured of being able to offer the player he wanted when he wanted, the situation has changed now, and some clubs offer much higher wages. Hence the need, which was not imperative before, to switch the market to a fine in search of the best young people and to reduce the risks on the players already confirmed. The preponderant role of Juni Calafat, responsible for international football in the recruitment cell, in this new policy of capturing talents across the planet and more particularly in South America, should be emphasized.
Willingness to be self -sufficient
A new financial reality and a new context, but not only. Florentino Pérez is a stubborn man – his loved ones will confirm it to you – and his plan is very clear: to make Real Madrid as self -sufficient as possible, and the least dependent as possible of external factors such as banks, TV rights or income related to services in competitions. Caution and believing that the financial ecosystem of current football can collapse at any time, the boss of the club of the Spanish capital wishes to multiply the sources of income and not to risk being its tail between the legs in the event of problems of payment of a diffuser for example. Hence this desire to reduce expenses while maximizing gains. La Fabrica, the Real Madrid training center, is thus a large cash machine, and the sale of players formed at home has brought back more than 200 million euros since 2010. Not yet very fond of trading policy, the club has still achieved some great capital gains, on Martin Odegaard in particular and could sign other similar operations in the coming years. The desire to make the new Bernabéu an NFL type arena, with a huge commercial area and the organization of concerts of the biggest artists on the planet also goes in this direction. On the second part of 2024, the Bernabéu also generated 43.9 million euros. An increase of… 177% compared to the same period the previous year.
This also explains why Real Madrid was against the CVC in Liga project. Everything is also a question of pride and ego, and the thinking heads of Real Madrid also want to prove that it is possible to compete and to dominate the clubs-states, which Pérez has already discussed many times publicly. There is also a way of detaching yourself, and almost delivering a war, to the authorities like UEFA and Liga, with whom the Madrid president is in total cold. Without arriving in a megalomaniac delirium, Florentino wants to show that he is above everyone and is clearly on a policy of “we against all, all against us”. One way of working that turns out to be paying, with 6 champions leagues won over the last 11 years, and financial results that continue to progress, with 1.2 billion euros in turnover to be expected for this season. All financial balance sheets are increasing, and the signing of various large sponsorship agreements as well as an increase in marketing income of 38% over the July-December 2024 period compared to July-December 2023. The future therefore promises to be radiant under the Madrid sun, even if we know that in the end, there is only one truth: that of the field.
