Blind Hammer looks at the financial power of the rivals lurking in the Stadiums of Europe.
It may be tempting fate to count chickens but it looks like West Ham will be returning to the Stadiums of Europe again next season. Given the relatively short lived experience of our two previous European Campaigns, last year we exited the Europa League against Astra Giurgiu before even the start of the Premier League Season, and before that in 2006 we did not past the first round of the UEAFA Cup, losing 4-0 to Palermo, it is reasonable to ask what we can reasonably expect from anew European Campaign.
English sides no longer dominate Europe as they once did. Manchester City’s exit to Real Madrid has meant that once again an English side has failed to get to the Champion’s League Final. English teams Performance in Europe over the last few seasons have placed the fourth qualifying place for the Champion’s League under threat. Italy is breathing down our necks to try and claim this place.
On one level it is the very competitiveness of the Premier League which may be detracting from English success in Europe. Seth Fàbregas was confident in believing that if Barcelona were playing in the Premiership they would not have the squad who would be able to win it. Barcelona has a squad of gifted players who can rise to the challenge of playing a Madrid, or Manchester United and give them a footballing lesson. However over a season they would be ground down by the constant and unremitting demands of the Premier League as well as the English climate. As Fàbregas described it, Barcelona would not win at Stoke on a cold Tuesday evening in February.
If we look at transfer and wage resources we can see Fàbregas’ point. The competitiveness of English Clubs is underpinned by massive financial clout compared to European leagues. According to a Financial Report from the Football Observatory West Ham are the ninth highest spenders in the Premier League, with a player transfer spend of 143 million euros. If we compare the spend in other European Leagues the disparity is startling. In Spain the equivalent club in ninth position is Celta Vigo who only deployed a seventh of this at 20 million Euros. In France the ninth club is Lorient who again only spent 27 million Euros. In Italy the ninth club is Torino who spent just over a third of West Ham’s budget at 57 million Euros, and finally in Germany Hanover spent about a quarter of West Ham’s budget at 38 million Euros.
So West Ham, just in relation to their transfer budget, is already a major player in European terms, looking at the data in another way if West Ham played in Germany they would be the third highest spenders, dwarfing most sides, and even exceeding sides like Borussia Dortmund, Leverkusen and Schalke. Only Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg spent more than West Ham.
Similarly if playing in Italy, West Ham’s spending power would place them in fifth place behind Juventus, Inter, Napoli and Roma, their spend actually eclipsing sides such as AC Milan, and Lazio. Even in the powerhouse of European football, Spain, West Ham would still be in fifth place, behind Barcelona, Real and Athletico Madrid and Valencia. They would be jostling with the resources of the Spanish elite, with a spend double that of sides like Sevilla at 77 million Euros and Real Sociedad at 51 million Euros.
The feature of many European Leagues is that there is a far greater inequality in resources between teams at the top and those in the middle and bottom. In Spain Real Madrid dominate to an amazing extent with a transfer spend of 587 million Euros. Barcelona follow with 394 million, Valencia with 226 million, Athletico Madrid with 182 million Euros, but after that the spend collapses. With teams like Rayo Vallecano and Gijon only spending a meagre 5 million Euros. The team with the lowest spend in the Premier League; Bournemouth still spent 7 times as much as this at 36 million Euros.
There is a similar picture in Germany with Darmstadt spending only 5 million Euros and Bayern spending 337 million Euros. Here 12 of the Premiership teams spent over 100 million Euros, and even the lowest spenders Bournemouth outspend teams like Stuttgart at 28 million Euros.
So what does this mean for West Ham’s European adventures? To my mind there are two countervailing pressures. On the negative side the generalised financial clout of nearly all teams in the Premier League means that they attract the cream of talent, certainly from Europe and potentially, with work permits, the World. This undeniably places much more competitive strain on Premiership squads, who from top to the bottom of the league, are strengthened by this attraction of global talent. It is impossible to prove but my suspicion that even the disaster that has been Aston Villa this year would have been comfortable if their squad have had to play in say Spain or Italy or Germany. They would have struggled against the biggest teams in each of these leagues but would have faced much weaker mid table and bottom of the table opponents.
This competitive pressure is, I believe, the biggest factor in the enigma of Premiership teams slipping from their position of European dominance. Putting it simply Bayern, Barcelona, Real Madrid and so on do not experience anything like the same pressure from their mid and lower table opponents compared to the pressure Manchester United and City or Arsenal now have to cope with.
The expansion of TV money to teams like West Ham means that it is far more likely that we will be able to attract the talent which enables us to go to Manchester City, Arsenal and Liverpool and win on their own grounds. This domestic pressure can tell on English teams in Europe. Unlike in other leagues there are no easy rides here. We were struggling to beat Aston Villa until they imploded and had their best player sent off.
However our success in winning against the cream of Premiership sides this season tells us also that, at full strength, we have little to fear from most teams in Europe. The crucial phrase here is full strength.
So to my mind there is a need for a far greater squad depth amongst English Teams competing in Europe to succeed in all of Premiership, Cup, and European challenges.
We have some grounds for optimism here. It is interesting that we have over-performed in terms of transfer spend. We have spent less than not just the top four but also teams like Newcastle, Southampton and Liverpool, all of which are below us in the table. The recruitment team has played a blinder over the last couple of seasons.
The new TV deal will bring even more, never before seen, riches to Premiership clubs when compared to our European rivals. We may query the morality of such resources going to a few Football clubs to this but this is the competitive environment West Ham has to operate in. It should provide even more capacity to develop the strength of our squad.
If the recruitment can be just as spectacular as over the last two seasons, we may dare to hope that it is not only amongst top clubs in England that respect and wariness of the skills of West Ham will grow.
COYI
David Griffith
The figures in this article are drawn from the Football Observatory Report. Due to my need to use a screenreader I have had to use virtual scanning software for the figures to appear correctly but these are accurate as far as I can tell. The report is available HERE