Word: soccering
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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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...
...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...
...theory, top-flight European soccer, with its loyal fan base and long-term contracts, should be shielded from the worst of the recession. Indeed, attendance across the big five European leagues - England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain - rose 2% in the season just finished. And German and English clubs will all enjoy new and improved broadcast deals in the coming two seasons. But that's not to say the downturn doesn't throw up stiff opposition. "Beyond that very affluent, élite core," says Chadwick, "the mood of austerity is still very, very strong...
...Read "Soccer's Billion-Dollar Players...