I am sure at least some read 'The Swiss Rambles' blog. If not I will do a little intro on him; he is a guy who writes about the finances of football in astonishing detail and accuracy. He is renowned around the footballing world for his great and constant work.
He has just recently completed a blog on Napoli and their amazing turn around and how good they are at managing their finances and it really makes you happy, but hidden among the Napoli info is some very, very concerning information about Internazionale and their recent financial issues.
For those of you who can spare 30 minutes to read a great and informative article, it can be found here:
http://swissramble.****/2011...ess-story.html
For those of you who cannot be stuffed / don't have the time to read it all / aren't interested about Napoli, I will cut out the important Inter info below.
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I will first start us off with an image that shows the Serie A Profits / Loses over the last two years.
There are a couple of good things from this image, like Napoli and Catania making profits over both years but there are some huge issues.
If we look at the bottom of the list we can see the two Milanese clubs losing HUGE amounts of money. In the 2008 / 2009 season we can see Milan losing 66m euro's and
Inter losing 154m euro's. This is unacceptable.
You could look at it and say 'hey look, they both reduced their expenses hugely the next year. Well, yes they did. Milan lost only 9.8m euro's and Inter only 70m euro's. Before you ask why I should remind you of the sales of Kaka', Gourcuff and Ibrahimovic in these times. That should put things back into perspective.
Things are not good for the year 2010 for Milan either. The latest figures (confirmed by the official website) are that Milan lost another 70m euro's from the 1st of January 2010 to the last day of December that same year. I'm sure Inter, even being UCL champions, will follow a similar pattern. The cause of this will be explored below.
Worse news is still to come:
When you look at the revenue of clubs like Inter, Milan and Juve, the thing that stands out the most is the huge broadcasting deals which have always helped the big clubs stay big and keep the small clubs small. Well, this is about to change. The FIGC have decided to follow an English type of distribution were more money will go to smaller teams.
The current deal expires and so the new deal will have money so it can be expected that maybe their won't be a drop in the income from TV but there most certainly won't be a rise. This is further cause for concern at the Milanese clubs.
Now onto an issue fans will be sick of hearing: attendance.
It is no secret that English match day revenues are enormous compared to that of Italian football. Many people have their ideas on why this is so but the main reasons are poor infrastructure and poor quality of football. These both must be quickly addressed.
Next problem: wages
Inter's wages for the past accounting term are nothing short of ridiculous. Their entire revenue +3% has gone to wages. How can they make a profit when their wages are taking all of the revenue? And then all the other costs associated with running a football club... No wonder that Moratti hasn't been so eager to spend when he is losing so much.
I won't try to fool anyone into thinking that Milan's is much better. It is way over the UEFA recommended maximum which is currently at 70%. Even with the sale of Ronaldinho this will still be an issue for the year 2010.
Roma also have a huge problem with wages.
Inter's wages currently stand at 234m euro's for the 09/10 campaign and since they won the UCL you can expect amortizations to go up meaning an even higher bill for the next season. I read somewhere recently that Inter has the third highest average weekly pay for any football team (only behind Barca and Madrid). Terrible signs. This is a problem that will take years to fix due to multi year contracts.
Milan's debt is huge. 164m euros makes up about half of Serie A's total debts. Inter's debt is less than half of Milan but is still huge. Way to large. Terrible. Terrible.