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The Covid-19 pandemic has cost European football 7 billion euros in two seasons, says UEFA in a report published on Thursday February 3. The European football body also notes a sharp decline in the transfer market for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 financial years.
According to a UEFA report published on Thursday, the Covid-19 pandemic has cost European football 7 billion euros in two seasons. The European football body indicates that the clubs faced a shortfall of 4 billion euros in 2019-2020, and 3 billion in the following financial year, after 20 years of uninterrupted growth.
Sharp drop in ticketing revenue
In question, ticketing revenues in sharp decline due to stadiums without supporters (with 4.4 billion euros in lost revenue), reduced commercial and sponsorship activities (a projection of 1.7 billion euros decline) and TV rights also slightly impacted (0.9 billion). Results in line with the forecasts unveiled by the body in May 2021, which envisaged a decline of 7.2 billion euros over two years for 711 first division clubs in Europe.
UEFA also notes a sharp decline in the transfer market for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 financial years. “ Transfer revenue fell by 40% in the summer 2020, January 2021 and summer 2021 transfer windows “compared to their original level, points out the European body, quantifying the expenditure of European clubs at 3.8 billion euros in the summer of 2021, against 6.5 billion in the summer transfer window of 2019.
UEFA nevertheless underlines a rebound in the transfer window during the winter window which has just ended at the end of January. Indeed, 950 million euros were spent last month in Europe, according to UEFA estimates. A total down only 10% compared to the average winter transfer window between 2017 and 2019.
The Premier League is spending to buy players
Premier League clubs spent £295m (€353m) in January, the second-highest amount ever in the winter transfer window, thanks to a wave of late signings. And the arrivals of Luis Diaz, Bruno Guimarães and Rodrigo Bentancur in the last days of the month have pushed up spending in the English championship, according to figures published on Tuesday by the financial company Deloitte.
While the January 2018 record (£430m, €515m) still stands, spending this year is more than four times that of last year, which was £70m ( 83 million pounds), when the Covid crisis had affected club budgets.
Fifa recorded some 18,000 international movements in 2021, a figure close to the record reached in 2019 and up 5.1% compared to 2020, the year of the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. The transfer of Belgian striker Romelu Lukaku, who went from Inter Milan to Chelsea for 115 million euros according to the press, is the most expensive recorded in 2021 according to Fifa (which does not confirm any figures), ahead of those Englishman Jadon Sancho (from Dortmund to Manchester United) and Moroccan Achraf Hakimi (from Inter to PSG).