Friday, July 15th, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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By Tony Attwood
In the novel “1984″ by George Orwell (the book that gave us such phrases as “Big Brother” and “Room 101″ and the notion that newspapers exist to make up news that fits a particular political viewpoint), one of the features of the regime that runs the UK (or Airstrip One as it is known in the story) is that the leadership of Oceania (which incorporates the UK) regularly changes its mind.
Oceania is at war with Eurasia, and then suddenly it is not. Half way through a speech by a political leader Eurasia is our ally and we are at war with Eastasia. So it goes.
That’s rather how it feels reading the press in relation to Barcelona. As Anne revealed in her “Cesc the hidden truth” articles on Cesc going to Spain, stories about Cesc come and go quite a lot and (shock horror) not everything in the papers is true.
Now we find the Guardian (my own paper of choice, but not always a paper I admire) doing a “1984″. Having run endless “Cesc is on the way out” type stories, with the latest supposedly being a set of direct quotes from the official Barca web site, suddenly they have changed their tune.
I would never say it is because they have read Untold, but such a sudden turn around in editorial style and policy is odd – although maybe it is just one rogue reporter not reading the script.
Look at some of their recent headlines
Arsenal want to keep Cesc Fábregas and Samir Nasri – Arsène Wenger
8 Jul 2011
Dani Alves urges Cesc Fábregas to ‘join business class’ at Barcelona
7 Jul 2011
Barcelona play hardball with Arsenal over Cesc Fábregas deal
6 Jul 2011
Cesc Fábregas frustrated as Barcelona and Arsenal haggle over price
5 Jul 2011
Cesc Fábregas to meet Arsène Wenger as Barcelona transfer nears
A bad case of deja vu for Arsenal as the latest round of stars depart
4 July 2011
“Daily” is what you might call this onslaught, although “fixated” is another word. It has gone on like this day after day after day after… well you get the idea.
Now look at what is in the paper on 15 July
“Arsène Wenger failed to conceal his contempt for what he considers to be Barcelona’s underhand tactics in attempting to prise Cesc Fábregas away from Arsenal. This is hardly surprising. For a look at Barcelona’s finances suggests Los Blaugranes can hardly afford the Spain international. A report last month by the University of Barcelona’s football-finance expert, José María Gay de Liébana, entitled Spanish Football in the Throes of Crisis, lays bare Barcelona’s embattled balance sheet.”
Well yes, indeed. Just like the report that José María Gay de Liébana last year which we covered on Untold in a number of separate articles.
The story is this…
Barca 2009-10 turnover of €398.1m with a huge amount (€157.6m) coming from TV. If TV interest ever declines the club is in trouble. Or put another way, there’s not much chance of getting that figure up.
Net debt of €59.1m balanced against a book value of the playing squad at €213.2m. (As with most teams this is an under-estimate and is not a statement of how much the club thinks they might get – it is more a case of the value on the books as players’ values are written down during each year of a contract).
Operating costs – utterly out of control. Player-wages bill €234.8m – the highest in the world (as the Guardian says). Wages as a proportion of turnover is 76.8%. Not as bad as Manchester C where wages are much greater than turnover, but still frightening in the extreme. (Remember our stories on this site about Barca cutting costs by forbidding the use of colour in the photocopier? You thought that a joke maybe. Actually it was quite true).
Other running costs €145.3m.
As the Guardian has finally realised, “with a debt burden of €548.6m weighing heavily, there was negative interest cover, according to Gay de Liébana. For a fan-owned club, this is not a pretty picture.”
“[That] Barcelona, the Liga champions and Champions League semi-finalists in 2009-10 and winners in 2010-11, are technically in a state of bankruptcy is alarming for the entire football sector,” Professor Gay de Liébana said.
And thus finally, after all those silly headlines day after day after day, we get the Guardian’s 1984 moment. “Can Barcelona afford a £40m transfer outlay and minimum £25m future commitment in wages for Fábregas? Go figure.”
However having gone and having figured, the Guardian also has a nice little final line, a little attempt to say “It wasn’t us, guv, we didn’t do it. Blame Big Brother” It reads thus…
“By putting Xavi’s unsettling comments about the Catalan on Barça’s official website, perhaps they think they can get him on the cheap.”
Oh come on!
The Guardian has been dragged along by a story that others have run, by sloppy writing with no research, and by the view that readers will only want to read Arsenal horror stories and nothing else. Of course that is right for the under 10s who write Arsenal blogs saying Wenger must go, but I have news for the Guardian. You can’t really feed stories to the under 10s if you use the Guardian’s literary style. All those foreign words like Primera División are a bit beyond their grasp.
Anyway, at last Untold has an ally in the view that Barca can’t actually afford Cesc but are doing all this stuff each year just to keep the Real Mad supporting papers quiet as they do their regular “you can’t look after your children” pieces about the various players who give up on the bankrupt club and look for financial solidity with Arsenal. Three of them are at the club, at the last count. And I wouldn’t be surprised if more turn up soon.
Untold Media Watch is about to become a regular column on Untold under the guidance of Anne, who recently contributed a piece about the reporting of Arsenal by the Sun – as well as the earlier Barca columns. More info on this new element in our coverage of 2011/12 will appear shortly. (I’d do it now but I need to pop down the pub to get the latest football news from a bunch of reporters.)