Going to try another La Liga thread since there's more to the league than just @bosox4283 's beloved Atleti and the farcical Barcelona.
Interesting article came out recently that La Liga is selling a 10% stake to PE firm CVC:
The top 4 all did some interesting transfer business. Atleti was the quietest, but still made waves by signing 28 year-old Udinese CMF De Paul for €38M. As an Argentina fan, I cannot say enough how awesome De Paul is. He's the quintessential B2B MF that does everything pretty well. He's the kind of player the best clubs have to allow for all the other stars and specialists to thrive. Excellent business by Cholo and Atleti. Atleti's squad is young enough that they should be competitive in all 3 competitions without any additional transfers in.
Broke-ass Real Madrid also had a quiet window with the biggest change letting Ramos go to PSG for free and buying Alaba from Bayern. While I really like Alaba, Ramos was the heart and soul of this aging team and I think Madrid takes a huge step back this year barring Mbappe arriving. Lots of Madrid's best and most-used players are on or close to the wrong side of 30 (Casemiro, Benz, Modric, Kroos, Hazard, Bale, Isco, Vazquez, Nacho, Carvajal) and while there's some real talented youth in the squad it's not the can't miss variety (Valverde, Mendy, Odegaard, Vinicius, Militao, Asensio, Rodrygo). I've been saying the age of this squad will be a problem for the past 2 seasons and I think the cracks started to show finally last year--this year it will be more akin to Barca's breakdown of the past 2 seasons--i.e. worse!
Other broke-ass megaclub Barca finally has adults in charge and the transfer business this summer reflects that, although there were a couple of transfers that reflect the club's piss-poor financial situation. The club brought in two potential starters in Memphis and Emerson at CF and RB respectively. That alone would've made for a positive window. But the club also brought in Messi Argentina buddy Aguero to backup Memphis and give Koeman another veteran option up top to center Barca's bevy of wingers. Eric Garcia's acquisition from Citeh is a nice move too, but likely one with an eye towards the future as I think Araujo, Mingueza, Lenglet, and Pique will be hard to unseat. The transfers out have been welcome, although the club sold young players instead of overpaid stars. Trincao is on loan to Wolves, Alena has moved to Getafe permanently for €5M, Firpo was sold to Leeds for €15M (outstanding business, even if it's a loss), and Todibo was sold to Nice for €8.5M (this one hurts). The club still has a bloated squad and will have lots of expensive players on the bench for every match, even if one or two of the big 3 of bad contracts (Griezmann, Dembele, Coutinho) is moved.
Sevilla are likely losing world class CB Kounde to Chelsea for a hefty sum, but bring in world class shithouser Erik Lamela from Spurs in exchange for promising youngster Bryan Gil + €25M. They've also brought in veteran keeper Dmitrovic from Eibar.
Sociedad and Villareal may have an outside shot at breaking into top 4, but will likely be battling it out with Betis and Celta for Europa spots. Don't know much about Granada or Bilbao's situation. The rest are packed fairly close together and should make the fight to avoid relegation pretty fun on a weekly basis.
Interesting article came out recently that La Liga is selling a 10% stake to PE firm CVC:
I think Barca is done buying at the moment (would still love a true DMF to spell Busi) but they still need some cash in order to register their recent buys. If this leads to Real nabbing Mbappe, I'll be terrified.Spain's top soccer clubs including Real Madrid and Barcelona would get lucrative cash infusions under a proposed 2.7 billion euros ($3.2 billion) deal between the country's top league and a private equity firm.
The deal sparked a bout of transfer speculation in local media, including that it could help finance eyecatching moves such as top France striker Kylian Mbappe joining Real Madrid, though La Liga said the funds would mostly be for investment purposes to which it would have to agree.
La Liga said on Wednesday it had agreed in principle a "multipronged" deal with CVC including the 2.7 billion euros cash infusion in return for 10% of its revenue, as well as the creation of a newly formed company housing a range of commercial activities in which CVC would also take a 10% stake.
The deal values La Liga at around 24.2 billion euros in total and, if approved, will fund what it called "structural improvements" while offsetting some of the immediate impact from COVID-19, the league said in a statement.
The top 4 all did some interesting transfer business. Atleti was the quietest, but still made waves by signing 28 year-old Udinese CMF De Paul for €38M. As an Argentina fan, I cannot say enough how awesome De Paul is. He's the quintessential B2B MF that does everything pretty well. He's the kind of player the best clubs have to allow for all the other stars and specialists to thrive. Excellent business by Cholo and Atleti. Atleti's squad is young enough that they should be competitive in all 3 competitions without any additional transfers in.
Broke-ass Real Madrid also had a quiet window with the biggest change letting Ramos go to PSG for free and buying Alaba from Bayern. While I really like Alaba, Ramos was the heart and soul of this aging team and I think Madrid takes a huge step back this year barring Mbappe arriving. Lots of Madrid's best and most-used players are on or close to the wrong side of 30 (Casemiro, Benz, Modric, Kroos, Hazard, Bale, Isco, Vazquez, Nacho, Carvajal) and while there's some real talented youth in the squad it's not the can't miss variety (Valverde, Mendy, Odegaard, Vinicius, Militao, Asensio, Rodrygo). I've been saying the age of this squad will be a problem for the past 2 seasons and I think the cracks started to show finally last year--this year it will be more akin to Barca's breakdown of the past 2 seasons--i.e. worse!
Other broke-ass megaclub Barca finally has adults in charge and the transfer business this summer reflects that, although there were a couple of transfers that reflect the club's piss-poor financial situation. The club brought in two potential starters in Memphis and Emerson at CF and RB respectively. That alone would've made for a positive window. But the club also brought in Messi Argentina buddy Aguero to backup Memphis and give Koeman another veteran option up top to center Barca's bevy of wingers. Eric Garcia's acquisition from Citeh is a nice move too, but likely one with an eye towards the future as I think Araujo, Mingueza, Lenglet, and Pique will be hard to unseat. The transfers out have been welcome, although the club sold young players instead of overpaid stars. Trincao is on loan to Wolves, Alena has moved to Getafe permanently for €5M, Firpo was sold to Leeds for €15M (outstanding business, even if it's a loss), and Todibo was sold to Nice for €8.5M (this one hurts). The club still has a bloated squad and will have lots of expensive players on the bench for every match, even if one or two of the big 3 of bad contracts (Griezmann, Dembele, Coutinho) is moved.
Sevilla are likely losing world class CB Kounde to Chelsea for a hefty sum, but bring in world class shithouser Erik Lamela from Spurs in exchange for promising youngster Bryan Gil + €25M. They've also brought in veteran keeper Dmitrovic from Eibar.
Sociedad and Villareal may have an outside shot at breaking into top 4, but will likely be battling it out with Betis and Celta for Europa spots. Don't know much about Granada or Bilbao's situation. The rest are packed fairly close together and should make the fight to avoid relegation pretty fun on a weekly basis.