THE EURO FILES: Real Madrid are back splashing the cash, the Super League is NOT off the table and rogue buggies kill Germany’s £850m deal

We are on the brink of the abyss,” Real Madrid president Florentino Perez said in April 2021 as he appeared on Spanish television to announce a new European Super League. “We’ll be dead in 2024.”

Well, here we are in 2024 and it turns out Real Madrid isn’t dead. In Monty Python parlance, they’re not even resting.

On the contrary, they just signed a five-year contract with the most expensive player in the world.

When Kylian Mbappe is finally presented, it will likely be against the backdrop of the famous photo of him as a 14-year-old with posters on his wall of Cristiano Ronaldo playing for Madrid.

The talk will be about boyhood dreams, but if Madrid had been the sentimental option, Mbappé would not have stayed at Paris Saint-Germain for seven years.

He goes there in large part because Real Madrid is the club with the highest turnover in the world, according to Deloitte’s most recent money list.

Mbappe, 25, will receive a basic annual salary of €15 million (£12.8 million) after tax, rising to €20 million (£17.1 million) over his five-year contract. That equates to a starting wage of €30 million gross, rising to €40 million (£34.2 million), with Madrid paying 50 percent of that amount as tax.

His fee will exceed the €100m (£85.4m) mark – no problem for a club whose last La Liga-imposed salary cap was calculated at £620m, £340m higher than any other club in Spain.

Madrid will fill the newly renovated Santiago Bernabeu not only for Mbappé’s matches, but also for his presentation.

They want that event – ​​which will take place before the European Championship if PSG, who have him under contract until the end of June, allows it – to be the largest of its kind, one of many planned for a stadium the club thinks that they can change it. to the European Madison Square Garden.

Taylor Swift’s performance there at the end of May is already sold out, except for around 300 tickets, ranging in price from £650 to £2,122. And Spain’s new UFC featherweight world champion Ilia Topuria wants to fight Conor McGregor there.

Madrid have borrowed £1 billion to renovate their stadium, but they believe the £51 million repayments over the next 30 years will be dwarfed by the revenue that could come from meeting the target of 180 days a year organize events.

In one of the driest cities in Europe, the retractable roof is not there to keep the rain off the football players. It creates the atmosphere in the arena and the retractable court protects the playing surface.

With such a bright financial future, why still bang the Super League drum? Bernd Reichart, the CEO of A22 – the company pushing it across Europe – sat next to Napoli president Aurelio De Laurentiis during the Champions League last-16 first leg against Barcelona on Wednesday, as part of a Serie A promotional campaign A.

Reichart does not share the view that a Super League is impossible without English clubs. He believes that if they can get the rest of Europe on board, the Premier League teams should follow suit; they cannot play a ‘European Cup’ on their own.

Reflecting on what Perez said during that bizarre late-night TV appearance two years ago, one quote that stood out came when he was asked who would become the president of the new governing body that would effectively replace UEFA.

‘I wish it for everyone. Joan Laporta, Andrea Agnelli, whoever wants,” he said, checking the names of the then presidents of the other two rebel clubs. Once you’re in charge of football, who knows where the boundaries are. Playing in Saudi Arabia? Timeouts mid-match allowing commercial breaks?

The worst scenario for Madrid is that clubs across Europe stick with the devil they know. But they won’t suffer if it turns out this way. They weren’t at the poorhouse door in 2021 and probably won’t be there anytime soon.

They topped Deloitte’s money league despite being knocked out in the semi-finals of the Champions League last season. When they last won the award in 2022, it earned them £78 million.

With Mbappe playing alongside Jude Bellingham, prize money is another source of income that is unlikely to dry up any time soon.

Rogue buggies destroy £850m German deal

So how do you smuggle a remote-controlled buggy into a top football stadium? Perhaps the stewards of the Werder Bremen-Weser Stadium were as opposed to the controversial plan to let a private equity firm buy into German football as the protesting fans.

It was last December when the German Football League (DFL) agreed to let investors take an eight percent share of TV rights and marketing revenues over the next twenty years in exchange for a lump sum of around €1 billion. ).

The money would be distributed among the clubs in the top two divisions after they voted yes to the proposal with the necessary two-thirds majority.

But the supporters said ‘balls to it’, tennis balls to be precise, which they threw onto the pitch along with chocolate money, before releasing flares mounted on radio-controlled cars.

The DFL announced this week that they would not go ahead with the plan – it had gone up in smoke due to the disruption of matches caused by the protests.

The problem was less the money and more the influence fans feared the outside investors would buy, affecting the 51 percent majority most clubs have over private owners.

Daniele De Rossi starts running

Daniele De Rossi has won four of the five league games he has managed at Roma since replacing Jose Mourinho as head coach last month.

He has also guided Roma past Feyenoord to reach the last 16 of the Europa League, where they meet Roberto De Zerbi’s Brighton next month.

“He lacks experience,” said the doubters when De Rossi was appointed, but 18 seasons at the club as a player seems experience enough – at least for now.

In tougher tests, the former Italy midfielder, 40, may fall short, but so far his move from his predecessor’s back five to the back four has strengthened Roma’s midfield and made them better with the ball.

And his decision to make Serbian goalkeeper Mile Svilar his No.1 in all competitions ahead of Rui Patricio certainly appears to have boosted the 25-year-old’s confidence after he saved two penalties in Thursday’s shootout win over Feyenoord.