Until points are at stake, football clubs started the budget struggle

The new competition season from the First football League brings records on financial plan, especially due to the big earnings obtained for the TV rights, coming back in of the Romanian teams in the Champion League circuit and development of the sports marketing. However, it is a long distance against the Western championship in what concerns the organization or transparency.

According to the figures available on the market, the total budget value of those 18 teams from the First League is estimated to about 130 million euro. A record sum for Romania, but for big clubs from England or Spain it represents a sum they usually spend in a season. The biggest budgets were announced by the champion CFR Cluj and by Steaua – each 30 million euro. CFR Cluj follows to participate in the UEFA Champions League, while the participation of Steaua is conditioned by a preliminary tour. Iuliu Muresan, president of the club from Ardeal, stated that 10 million euro from the next season’s budget are allocated for the stadium infrastructure, and the rest of 20 are for sustaining the activity in sports. The next places are occupied by Rapid, Dinamo, Poli Timisoara, FC Vaslui and FC Arges Pitesti. Not all the clubs have announced the budgets for this season.

Too unbalanced

Besides the differences in absolute figures, the Romanian clubs are far away from the Western clubs, especially through the differences of organization. Firstly, the signification of the term “budget” seems to be different understood. In the countries with advanced professional football, the budget means the sum that a company can afford to spend as a result of the incomes that it forecasts. In most of the cases, clubs operate the same as companies, so they can’t afford major unbalances between incomes and expenses. In Romania the budget represents the sum which the owner or the director council is willing to spend for sport performance – transfers, wages, bonuses, training camp. This sum depends a lot of the owner’s businesses or of the mediate exposure which he fallows. The clubs from Romania benefit of financial support from some businessmen which are more known in the sport world then even the football players: George Copos, Gigi Becali, Fathi Taher, Arpad Paszkani, Nicolae Badea, Vasile Turcu, Marian Iancu, Dumitru Bucsaru or Cornel Penescu.On one hand, the owners consider the investment in football as an investment in their own person. The benefit is certain – the statute of public person.On the other hand, a club from Romania would have big difficulties in calculating the budget in base of the probable incomes even if it would want.

A professional club bases on three big types of incomes: television rights, commercial rights (especially with image partnerships) and incomes recorded in the day of the match (tickets, T-shirts, scarves). Real Madrid, the club which recorded the biggest incomes two seasons ago – 351 million euro, had a distribution of incomes quite equilibrate. According to a report of the consultants from Deloitte&Touche, 39% of the Spanish club incomes had at base the commercial rights, 38% - television rights and 23% - incomes obtained in the match,

The sports management – at puberty

In what concerns the Romanian clubs, the only major income that can be anticipated for sure is the one from the TV rights. The consortium made up of Antena 1 and RCS/RDS won the auction for the TV rights of the football matches from the First League for the next three, for 102 million euro, a record for Romania. The Professional Football League distributes annually this sum towards clubs. According to the current algorithm, a new promoted team receives over 700.000 euro, while the champion team of the previous season receives over 2 million euro. In case of some participation to the Champion League, a club can rely on a sure minimum wage of 5 million euro, just from Tv rights. In case of those other types of incomes, the Romanian football is seriously harmed. With few exceptions, the clubs from Romania don’t seriously base on the incomes with the image partnership or from ticket sales and subscriptions. These incomes are generally or inconsistent, or variable.

The reasons are diverse. The strong companies hesitate to “post” the image to a sport in which abounds the scandals. Moreover, the Romanian supporters aren’t educated in the spirit of the idea that they have to pay a ticket in order to take part to a show and the differences for the chapter power of purchasing against the Western states are still big.