How have Atlético Madrid evolved under Diego Simeone?

1 – A solid financial and ownership background

Usually, when one talks of a stable financial background, there are thoughts of billionaire investors who; like knights in shining armour, come in and rescue a struggling team from the claws of bankruptcy straight to the safety of the Champions League in a modern romantic fairy-tale. Popularising that narrative would be simply disingenuous in the case of Atlético, as Peter Staunton’s article brilliantly shows on Goal.com.

“By 2011, they owed a scarcely conceivable €517 million (£424.3m) to creditors – including as much as €171m (£140.3m) to the tax authorities alone. The Spanish government could have done more to call in the debt instead of offering Atlético a favourable rate of 4.5 per cent interest per annum while they paid off €15m (£12.3m) of their tax bill every year” meaning that “perversely, the economic meltdown in Spain, where unemployment stands at around 26%, gave Atlético the opportunity to alleviate their own predicament.”

Then came the sponsorship deals with Azerbaijan – 12 million a season from a notoriously repressive and authoritarian country led by Ilham Aliyev – which were slammed by most human rights organizations. That was followed by the investments of China’s richest man – Wang Jianlin paid 45 million for a 20% share in 2015. This is not meant to pass judgement on Atlético since it is precisely what big clubs like the aforementioned slain giants in Munich and Barcelona do with Qatar. It is basically a necessity in modern football, and the following three images provide some context on where Atlético ranks.

The image below details the TV money from Europe’s five biggest leagues. Due to the Premier League’s dominance, you can see why teams like Bayern or Atlético would need to seek out sponsors.

http://www.trollfootball.me/upload/thumb/troll_football_image_061e90ec685cda88ffc548c18c03c9d7.jpg

Secondly, in terms of total revenue, Atlético have increased by 10%, but are still substantially behind those big Bundesliga clubs like Dortmund or Schalke, despite virtually identical TV money.

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