Daily Thread: 8 August 2022

The Daily Merengue is a place where you can feel free to discuss all things football. Do not be alarmed by the overt RMCF bias. It’s in the name!

Shoutout to the mods who do a fantastic job, Valyrian Steel, KungFuZizou, NeRObutBlanco, Felipejack, and Juninho!

2 days to go!!

The grass is always greener on the other side.

But maybe we should look at the squad that we’ve already put together and ask ourselves if any of them is not worth it. Some of these investments have already paid off both in terms of trophies and market value. Very few teams can boast of such a collection.

Did Real Madrid help Barcelona secure funding to sign Lewandowski, Raphinha and others?

In June Juan Laporta declared FC Barcelona clinically dead and needed emergency financial surgery. Barcelona had just booked a near €500mn loss following the 2020/21 season, a record for any football club. Fast forward to today and with the blessing of the club socios, who vote on key decisions, Laporta has since sold more than €600mn of assets, and more are on the block. Spanish journalist Pedro Morata reported that as Barcelona were about to sign with CVC, Sixth Street appeared out of the blue. It’s understood the club needed much more than what CVC was offering - as many as three CVCs to get healthy.

Now here’s the interesting part. US investment firm Sixth Street agreed to buy 25 per cent of the club’s La Liga broadcast rights for 25 years for just over €500mn, in a deal arranged by Key Capital — a boutique investment firm with close ties to Real Madrid. Key Capital is owned and managed by two good friends of the Real Madrid president: Borja Prado (former president of Endesa) and Anash Laghari. The latter, who comes from the banking world, is almost like a godson of Florentino, due to his father’s family ties. Anash was appointed secretary general of the Super League and recently registered in the Mercantile Registry.

Key Capital was also in charge of securing the television revenues for the Super League and helped arrange for a non matchday deal with Sixth Street to grow Real Madrid’s revenues through the new Bernabeu.

With the CVC deal, the Catalan giants would’ve received 270 million euros for 10pc of their 50-year TV rights and they wouldn’t even have the freedom of spending that sum - they had to use 70% on stadium or sports city works, 15% to pay off debt and just 15% was left for transfers. Most of all Barcelona would have had to give up the Super League. While the fans of both clubs bicker and want to see their rivals crash and burn, the Presidents are closer than ever and united in their goal of the European Super League. Or maybe it’s a case of keep your friends close and enemies closer.