Word: madrid
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Dazzling moves, ambitious targets and intense pressure - it must be off-season in European soccer. English Premier League champions Manchester United announced today that it accepted a $132 million offer from Real Madrid for fleet-footed winger Cristiano Ronaldo. The deal, which United expects to tie up before the end of the month, would smash a world transfer record set earlier this week when the same Spanish club lavished $92 million on AC Milan's midfield megastar...
...during the January transfer window, more than the amount spent in any of Europe's next four biggest leagues - are again in the mood to shop. The benevolence of billionaires helps. London club Chelsea, bankrolled by Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, reportedly bid $74 million on June 9 for Atletico Madrid striker Sergio Aguero. Manchester City, owned by Sheik Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi's royal family, is also keen to strengthen its squad. (See pictures of soccer's European championships...
...Absent its own benefactor, Real Madrid, the favored club of Spain's establishment, owes its deep pockets to a powerful brand and unrivaled commercial skills. Owned by 80,000 of its supporters, it's the richest soccer club in the world, with revenues of more than $500 million for the 2007-08 season, double the level of seven years ago. Free to negotiate its own broadcast-rights deal - top teams in England or Germany, say, must sell TV rights collectively - Madrid is halfway through a $1.4 billion, seven-year contract with broadcaster Mediapro. (See the 100 best TV shows...
...laces his guides with short and vivid histories and a scholar's appreciation for Renaissance art yet knows the best place to start an early tapas crawl in Madrid if you have kids. His clear, hand-drawn maps are Pentagon-worthy; his hints about how to go directly to the best stuff at the Uffizi, avoid the crowds at Versailles and save money everywhere are guilt-free. He pushes his readers to picnic for lunch and save their money for dinner. He sketches out amusing walks through commercial quarters from Antibes to Venice that link the ancient world...
...allowing trains to challenge airlines on shorter trips even before deregulation comes into force. The Eurostar service - the lucrative 21⁄4-hour route between London and Paris - already controls 70% of the travel market between the two capitals. Opened in 2007, a high-speed rail link between Madrid and Barcelona that cut intercity travel time to 21⁄2 hours has grabbed 50% of that market. Similar effects have been seen in Paris-Lyon, Paris-Brussels and Hamburg-Berlin transport links, where domination by fast trains has led airlines to reduce or drop services altogether. "When travel time...