In the kicker title topic (Monday edition), Max Eberl, Michael Zorc, Oliver Ruhnert and other people in charge in the Bundesliga talk about the effects of the corona pandemic on the transfer market.
In conversation with kicker: Michael Zorc, Oliver Ruhnert and Max Eberl (from left).
imago images (Montage)
The corona pandemic has largely brought the transfer market in football to a standstill – and put many clubs on the defensive. The industry is prepared for the fact that summer 2021 will be even more difficult for them than it was a year ago. And already there – as in winter 2020/21 – the effects of the crisis could also be read in transfer data.
In total, the clubs of the five top leagues in Europe have transfer expenses for newcomers of around 3.45 billion euros in the two transition periods of the season just ended. A year earlier, the transfer expenses of the first division clubs from England, Spain, Italy, France and Germany were still around 6.44 billion euros.
In relation to the Bundesliga, the value fell from 930 million euros in 2019/20 to 369 million euros in 2020/21. The Premier League clubs made the highest expenditures with 1.72 billion euros in 2019/20 and 1.45 billion euros in 2020/21.
The English clubs find the green meadow
Max Eberl, sports director at Borussia Mönchengladbach since 2008, knows the transfer market with all its facets. In the kicker interview (Monday edition) he says about the general market situation: “I see a very small buyer’s market. And an extremely large seller’s market.” And the 47-year-old sees the English clubs “clearly at an advantage”. Eberl says: “The buyer’s market will come from England.”
And: “The English clubs find the green field. They can approach almost any club on the assumption that this club has to sell and cannot play big poker.” With their “powerful television contract”, “the English tip the scales”. England will “ultimately be the market that decides when and to what extent it starts”.
Many clubs will have to wait to generate income.
Nobody in the industry believes that the personnel carousel will gain momentum sooner or more in the upcoming transfer summer than it was a year ago. “It’s still very quiet on the transfer market – not only when it comes to notifications of execution, but also when it comes to the usual initiation processes for changes,” said Borussia Dortmund’s sports director Michael Zorc in an interview with kicker.
He expects only “a few really big transfers” this summer and explains: “Many clubs will have to wait until they generate income in order to then invest themselves. This makes planning more difficult. It should take longer for the clubs to get their squads have finally put together. ”
Everyone is waiting for the whole thing to start in a kind of domino effect.
Oliver Ruhnert, managing director of professional football at Union Berlin, says: “Everyone is waiting for the first big transfer to take place so that the whole thing starts with a kind of domino effect.” And he states: “You can clearly see that there is less money in the pot for players and that it is being spent.”
Eberl also says: “There will be smaller contracts for a lot of players. And because the clubs are reducing their squads, there will also be more unemployed players.” Eberl made the experience that the effects of the pandemic are not always taken into account by everyone.
“As far as the players and advisors are concerned, my impression is that all of the players and advisors have not yet fully understood what Corona really means for football. Of course, Corona is always an issue in discussions. But when it comes down to it the numbers go, then suddenly I no longer notice that Corona is still playing a role. ”
In our print edition on Monday (also available here as an eMagazine from Sunday evening) In the nine-page cover story you can read how the transfer market collapsed in the wake of the Corona crisis, what problems and solutions the Bundesliga clubs have and how the makers react. And Max Eberl speaks in a detailed interview about the consequences of the pandemic on the industry, about creative transfer models, about exit clauses for coaches – and also about Borussia Mönchengladbach, Marco Rose and Adi Hütter.
