鸿俊洞见：投资足球不计回报？这并不是好事

最近一段时日，我听闻很多中国俱乐部表示，他们将斥巨资引进世界一流球星，聘请世界一流教练，签约国内“出色”球员。而且据悉他们可以动用的投资金额，远远超出了多数英超乃至欧洲出色球队用于引援的资金。这些投资者之所以热衷于此道，是因为引援是提升球队实力最为简洁明快的方法，但是这对于这个国家足球的长期发展并不是一件什么好事。

近期我通过思考也逐渐发现，这样的投资其实只是源于当下潮流如此，而并非真正理解了一家成功俱乐部真正发展的方式。就这样的足球兴趣不足以支撑这项运动在这个国家的长久发展，在不久的将来，如今投在足球上的钱又会拿去投资别的东西。

就我个人来看，这就像中国的汽车工业一样。如今中国有着不少能造出靓丽外观汽车的生产厂商。可是这又有什么实际作用呢，说不好听点还是个绣花枕头，绣花枕头里面没有对设计的严格要求，没有对做工的精益求精，没有对细节的一丝不苟，只有一个好看的壳子。大多数中国人在财力允许的情况下，绝对不会考虑购入一辆国产牌子的汽车。运营一家足球俱乐部也不是一件简单的事，内部的精心雕琢才是球场上出色表现最为有力的保障。

我对如今相对不很成熟的中国足球始终抱着一种欣赏的的态度，但是这里的人们却总是心太急，总想一口就吃成个胖子，总想一夜就变成足球强国。如果想要在中国把足球行业发展成一个伟大的娱乐产业，那么中国的投资人和俱乐部所有者需要稍微学习一下优秀球队运作的相关知识，我所指的优秀俱乐部并不仅仅只是那些英超豪门或者西甲两强，我指的是国外各种各样身处于各个级别的职业球会；他们的区别只在于球会的大小和预算不同，而其他一切都是相对可以发生改变的。

当然非常幸运的是今天中国足球俱乐部的所有者大多都是国有企业，他们入主足球产业也并不是因为利益驱动，所以他们在大量往里投钱的时候也并不指望能有所回报；毕竟又不是自己的钱，干嘛那么较真呢？或许他们唯一需要担心的只是，当他们有一天想出手的时候要是没有别的国企想要接盘怎么办，到头来估计还是只能指望私企。到那时中国足球还能指望私企年复一年数以亿计不及产出的投入？我想估计没有哪家私企会这么干，毕竟这种投入真的不是个好的商业决策。

无论身处何方，如今任何一家现代职业俱乐部面临的最大问题都是如何挣钱，或者说尽可能地减小亏损。据统计报告称，由于近几个赛季转播权都拍得了不错的价钱，从下个赛季开始英超各俱乐部都将开始挣钱或者说逐渐偿还欠下的债务。当然了他们还是把俱乐部接近80%的资金都用来买人或者给球员发工资了。英超俱乐部的老板和CEO绝对不会在看不到回报的地方乱花钱，他们始终都关注着俱乐部的财政健康以及收支平衡。

他们多花钱，要么是为了吸引更多观众，要么是为了提高票价，不然就是为了多卖出一些周边产品或者提高赞助收入，在我看来这才是正确的“花钱姿势”。如果他们想节约球员转会方面的花销，要么就是改善自己青训质量，这样就不用花钱买人，或者自己能产出出色球员，通过卖人的方法来为俱乐部牟利。

对于中国足球来说，问题其实很简单。所有中超球会的老板基本上都同意在接下来的一年里继续投钱，好让球队新的一年里有足够的资金继续发展。而且似乎每一年俱乐部老板都在给球队投更多的钱，而且丝毫不计较回报和产出，似乎没人觉得这是一笔生意。而反观世界上其他地方的大多数俱乐部却没有那么好的命，他们背后没有这么财大气粗的老板每年给他们源源不断地投钱，他们只能靠自己去拉赞助，只能靠详尽的财务报表去拉取新的投资，而且通常他们还需要进行极其详细地财政评估，毕竟对于任何一项生意来说，现金流都至关重要。

就拿买人来举例吧！假设某中超俱乐部想要花6000万人民币买个球员，他们只要和老板申请，老板写张支票给球员所在俱乐部就行；而在现实的足球世界中这是根本不可能发生的。

没有哪支球队能每周都随随便便拿出如此巨大的一笔现金去买人，他们不想或者说也负担不起，所以在达成球员交易的时候，在谈好了合同所有细节的时候一般都是分期付款，比如说6000万买下某球员签下三年合约之后，他们不是一次性支付6000万，而是在接下来三年中每个月支付167万，这时长等同于球员的合同时长。通过这样做他们不需要随时拿出一大笔资金来付给对方，但同时他们需要支付相应的利息，毕竟一次性支付对他们的现金流管理来说是个过于巨大的威胁，这是他们在转会上的最佳解决方案。

纽卡斯尔联队的老板麦克-阿什利(Mike Ashley)就不太喜欢支付利息，所以他都会以一个较低的利率把钱借给球队买人，这样也简化了俱乐部现金流的管理操作。如今你还需要知道，如今影响英格兰俱乐部的一个重要因素就是俱乐部拿到电视转播分成的时间及方式。

英超俱乐部对于转播分成的依赖绝对超乎你的想象，尽管英超转播费中的一部分需要用于补贴他们的三级职业联赛。电视转播分成将会在每年一月以及七月交付到各俱乐部手上，也就是说在冬季和夏季转会窗开启的时候，所以说这一时期英超俱乐部会有一笔非常可观的进账，这让他们可以大肆挥舞着支票买人，此时每家俱乐部都会有一大笔资金流入，然后再相对快速地流出。在这一时期，他们对现金流的管理也非常到位，所以他们经常给人造成英超俱乐部非常富有的假象。

综上所述，我们可以看出如今中国足球的经营方式是很难持续发展下去的，如果继续这样发展下去，中国将会创建出一个和世界其他地方完全不同，而且投入和产出完全不成正比的足球市场。当然了高薪确实能吸引国外高水平教练和球员来这里淘金，不过对于整个联赛的观赏性、竞技性却没有很大帮助，这也很难吸引到更多的观众，所以电视转播费也很难继续上升。所以说可能整个商业模式都需要改变，想要让中国足球重回正轨，必须先让中国足球像世界上其他地方的足球模式一样，以盈利为目的。

2015年12月10日

于中国上海

GETTING THE RIGHT RECIPE FOR CHINESE FOOTBALL

10th December 2015

Shanghai, China

In recent days I have heard about many football clubs in China claiming that they will spend massive amounts of money on bringing in foreign coaches and players and even some ‘top’ Chinese players into their teams. The numbers quoted in many cases are far larger than an EPL or other top European clubs are likely to spend. Owners maybe throwing the cash around at the moment because they can and its great for their status, but this isn’t really helping the long-term development and improvement football in the country.

What has always been apparent to me is that the thinking behind these investments is driven by cultural practices and not by any real understanding of how to operate a successful football club. The current interest in football will not be maintained forever and the current levels of cash will be applied to some other market in a few years.

To make my point, lets look at cars. China has many car manufacturers some of whom now produce vehicles that look relatively good on the eye. However, this attraction is only skin deep and what sits below the body is not that well designed, made and finished, and the attention to detail is non-existent. Given the choice and the money, most Chinese people would not buy a local car brand if they could afford a foreign one. A football club is a hugely complex business, the insides of which are fine tuned to deliver the best possible results on the pitch.

I appreciate that football is relatively immature in China, but people here are keen to learn yet conversely they expect success to come overnight and will not give it the time required. If football is to develop into a great entertainment industry, investors and owners need to learn every little detail of what makes a good football club function, and by this I don’t only mean an EPL or La Liga giant club, I mean professional clubs at all levels; the only difference is their physical size and budget, otherwise everything else is relatively scalable.

Of course clubs in China are fortunate that many of the owners are state owned businesses that are not driven or controlled by the same rules as a private enterprise, so pouring cash into a football club and never expecting to see any of it back again isn’t a problem; its not their money so why should they care?

Maybe what they should care about however is that one day in the future they do want to sell it and other government owned enterprises are not in a position to buy, so the only other choice are private companies. Will these businesses put hundreds of millions of RMB into anything that loses massive sums of money year after year and shows no signs of ever generating real income; probably not because that would be a bad business decision.

The problem a modern football club anywhere in the world faces is to make money, or at worse case to lose as little money as possible. As of next season, just about all the EPL clubs will be in a position to make money and clear their debts due to increased TV revenues. Of course they still have to spend their cash sensibly and in particular control player salaries and transfer fees that can represent almost 80% of the clubs spending.

Club owners and CEO’s cannot and will not spend money they don’t have or that they cannot see a return on, they have to consider the overall business situation and balance all aspects of this. To spend more money they have to attract more spectators, maybe increase ticket prices, sell more merchandise or increase sponsorship income, it's a case of getting the recipe right.

If they want to save on player transfer fees they need to improve the number of players coming through their academy so they don’t need to pay them, or to produce great players that they then sell on and as a result generate income for the club.

For a Chinese club the challenges appear to be very simple. The owner agrees to spend a huge sum of money for the coming year, and the club then goes out and spends it. The bucket of cash is usually filled each year, and often with more money than the previous year, so nobody has to think to carefully about generating income, and nobody really has to think about running a business.

Most clubs elsewhere in the world do not have a rich benefactor just sitting there giving them money, they have to fight for investment and justify it in detail. And often that investment requires detailed financial analysis because like any business, cash flow is critical.

Lets take for example buying players. In China a club may agree to buy a player for 60 Million RMB and basically, the owner writes a cheque for this amount and pays it to the player old club; in real world football this doesn’t happen. No club can afford or wants to hand over large sums of cash that it will need to fund the business each week, so they agree to buy a player and then when the deal is done they amortise the cost over the life of the players contract.

So instead of paying out 60 Million at one time, they pay the selling club 1.67 Million each month for three years, which is the length of the players contract. Of course by doing this, they incur interest for not paying it once, but because the challenge they face is cash flow, this is the best option for them.

The owner of Newcastle United, Mike Ashley doesn’t like to pay interest, so he actually funds the purchase of players by loaning the cash to club and taking on the debt at a much lower interest rate, this way the clubs cash flow is simplified. There is another financial factor that affects English clubs that you need to understand; this is how and when TV money is paid.

EPL clubs in particular rely on TV money, although a proportion of this does trickle down into the three professional leagues below. TV money is paid out twice a year, in the summer and in January just at the time of the transfer windows, so this is the time when clubs see a huge inflow and relatively quick outflow of money. In between this period, it has to manage its cash flow very well, the impression many people have of football clubs being very rich is incorrect.

So, the purpose of bringing up the subject of the recipe for football in China is to point out that the current business model is not sustainable, and if it carries on for a long period it will create a situation where cost/performance ratio of the industry will be totally disproportionate to that of football elsewhere in the world.

Yes, big salaries will attract foreign coaches and players to come and spend one or two seasons here just for the money, but the overall quality of the play on the pitch, the spectator experience at a match and the sponsorship and TV rights will not improve. The entire business model needs to change and a new recipe must be created to turn football in China into a profitable business that is comparable to the other football sectors in the world.

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