It is common and fair to say that football has always been in a bit of a bubble, or in a different reality compared to the general market. But will Covid-19 change this ?
We asked Samuele Mura, a renowned entrepreneur & Football agent, originally from Sardinia now living in London.
Is Covid-19 changing the football industry, Samu?
We have seen some big transfers this summer, and the transfer window is still not closed. Having said so, the market, with Covid-19 has changed.
Some clubs are deciding to give more chances to the younger players that they already have in their squad, and we still haven’t seen clubs overbidding and going crazy over players.
The very big transfer that could have happen, everybody followed the Messi saga that dominated the news for 2 or 3 weeks, fell through.
Prior to the pandemic, even if the fees were high, there would have been 3/4 clubs willing to make that transfer work.
But that’s not all.
With matches been played behind closed doors, is not only the fans that can’t attend. Football agents and scouts can not attend live matches either and that’s the reason why the way of seeing the players and doing business is changing. Videos and stats have always been used in the industry, but in the last 6 months, this has become the only possible way to see and scout players. As with every big crises or change, the difficulties can also be seen as opportunities as this could mean new jobs ( analysts, video editors, technicians and more).
For sure there is a massive loss for the clubs in terms of unsold tickets, plus all the missing income from shirts, gadgets, food, drinks, events and everything that is related to a normal match day.
The next 6 months will definitely be very import for the future of the industry. We sometimes forget that in football, there aren’t only the top rich clubs.. but also the lower league “normal” clubs that still have many many families depending on them, and on the work they are able to provide to the local communities.”
Thanks to Samu for sharing his thoughts with us, If you have any specific questions or you want to know more on Samu’s journey you can check him out on his instagram page: www.instagram.com/samuele_mura