The Premier League's impact on the continent's four top leagues this summer has been a multidimensional athletic feast. This impact is led by the traditional top six teams, but also thanks to the active participation of those emerging "second team" middle-class teams. However, in the four continental leagues, apart from the top giants who have shown great financial strength, the traditional "second teams" have not been able to unleash their purchasing power as expected.
La Liga
和
Serie A
Despite each having some group dominance, performances this summer have been sluggish overall, especially with the exception of Barcelona and
Juventus, Italian football team
Outside of that, none of the other teams have performed as well.
Looking back at the summer transfer market for the 2019/20 season, the trio of Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid took the top three spots in terms of money spent, with Sevilla also among the top ten. And teams such as Valencia have invested more than 100 million in recent years. However, the impact of the new crown epidemic on La Liga is particularly serious.
Real Madrid soccer team
Thanks to the renovation of the Stadio Bernabeu, the summer investment is less than a quarter of what it was in 2019, while Barcelona has invested 158 million euros, almost half of what it invested three years ago, through four "leveraged" sales of family assets. Atletico Madrid, Sevilla and Valencia, the "second team" due to the crisis of the soccer industry in the doldrums, although Atletico Madrid to retain Felix, but also considering reducing the cost of Griezmann. As for Sevilla and Valencia, they have even reached the point of selling their core players for cash.
Serie A
The situation is slightly better than La Liga, but the summer market has seen inputs plummet by more than 40% compared to its peak before the outbreak. Despite leading the input list three years ago, with Napoli, Inter Milan, AC Milan and Roma all investing over 100 million, Juventus invested just over 100 million this summer, and relied on the sale of De Ligt to break even. Although Atlanta invested nearly 100 million, but Napoli, Milan duo, Rome duo have tightened the budget, the highest input Milan surprisingly only 26 million euros, which is equivalent to the return to the Champions League bonuses and profits in advance. Even the Milan duo with Champions League profits are so cautious, other middle-class teams are even more cautious.
Ligue 1 has been hardest hit by the epidemic economy. Originally, the huge investment by Paris brought additional commercial value to Ligue 1, as well as boosting the revenue totals and purchasing power of the market for middle-class teams such as Marseille, Lyon, Monaco, Lille and Nice. However, Ligue 1 lost the majority of its TV broadcasting fee revenue in the 2020/21 season, resulting in a complete loss of purchasing power for middle class teams other than Grand Paris. While Marseille dared to invest more because they reached the Champions League group stage, Monaco, Lyon, Lille, Nice and others opted for a conservative strategy. Monaco, in particular, lost at least €40 million in Champions League profits by exiting the Champions League qualifying rounds. Despite investing 43.5 million, Monaco also had to continue selling players to cover this loss.
The huge difference in television broadcasting revenues has led to a general downturn in the investment of the "second team" in the four major continental leagues in the summer market. This slump will be difficult to recover from for a long time to come.
