United's Gill insists Real have their sums wrong

Published on Thursday 23 July 2009 22:49

DAVID Gill has questioned the commercial strategy behind Real Madrid's mammoth summer spending spree.

Aside from finding Sir Alex Ferguson's successor when the most successful manager in Manchester United's history eventually decides to call it a day, Gill would probably concede wage inflation is the biggest problem he is likely to face as chief executive of the Old Trafford outfit.

No-one is mentioning the 700million debt piled up by the Glazer family as they completed their buy-out of the club four years ago, and Ferguson has never complained at the backing he has received from United's American backers.

Yet, just as Liverpool and Arsenal are trying to wrestle with major financial issues in addition to putting a winning team on the pitch, so must United.

Gill could therefore have done without the incredible sums spent by Madrid and Manchester City that threaten to take wages spiralling out of control.

"I don't understand the economics of what Real Madrid are doing," said Gill.

"Their turnover is not materially different to ours so I am not quite sure how they can make the profits to justify the salaries. It's none of my business I suppose but I don't think they can."

No such analysis is needed for what has happened at City over the past 12 months.

While Real Madrid president Florentino Perez appears to think anticipated additional commercial revenue from the arrivals of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka and Karim Benzema will cover the enormous cost of buying the players, City have no need to balance the books.

As long as they are being bankrolled by their Abu Dhabi-based backers, Mark Hughes' mega spending spree, which has delivered former Manchester United player Carlos Tevez among others, can continue.

"There were clearly issues with Carlos," said Gill. "Whether he couldn't grasp what being a member of a squad was I don't know.

But he has clearly gone for more money than we were paying him and economically they possibly felt it was better for him to move on."

That kind of deal does contribute to a much-changed fiscal landscape though, where top players are suddenly measuring their salaries at 200,000-a-week. Few in football are happy with this, except players lucky enough to benefit of course, and Gill cannot see an easy solution.

"You could not have a salary cap," he said. "It wouldn't just have to be Europe-wide, it would have to be world-wide. It is just not feasible.

"We are one of the wealthiest clubs but we have always had a sensible benchmark of spending 50 per cent of our revenue on wages. If you get that right you are moving along properly."