Pelle’s Malaga triumph was based on mega money

Blind Hammer looks at a false comparison.

 

When Manuel Pellegrini arrived there was talk of West Ham being comparable to his previous club Malaga where in 2010 he transformed and also ran Spanish club into Champions League contenders.

There was a hope that he could provide a similar revolution for the Hammers.

 Pellegrini was given the biggest transfer budget in Malaga’s history, over 100 million euros. Eventually this transfer and wages investment led Malaga to fall foul of Financial Fair Play rules. It also resulted in dramatic disinvestment, requiring financial restructuring

 Yet along the way Malaga fans experienced unprecedented excitement.

 Investment by West Ham last summer, similar to that provided at Malaga suggested this could emulate a template for success.

 Yet to suggest Pellegrini’s Malaga’s could ever resemble the challenge facing West Ham completely fails to recognise the comparative challenges of the Spanish and English Premier Leagues.

 Comparative European turnover figures are sometimes difficult to trace. Whilst failing to get 2010 figures, helpfully the Football Observatory provided figures in 2015 which provide some context.

 These figures revealed how massive Pellegrini’s transfer budget must have been in relation to Malaga’s turnover which was recorded at only 14 million Euros. This reflected the massive inequality in the Spanish League.

Malaga were11^th in the Spanish turnover league, with Real Betis 10^th at 17 m Euros, Celta Vigo at 20 m Euros  and Athletico Bibao at 37 million Euros. Only the top 4 Spanish clubs, including both Madrid’s, and Barcelona approached anything like English Premier League turnovers. The majority of Spanish clubs in 2015 had turnovers between 10 and 15 million Euros.

This is tiny compared to English Premier League wealth.

Before Pellegrini arrived at Malaga their record signing was £3 million, which they paid out for Uruguayan striker Sebastian Fernandez. Pellegrini smashed this record by a factor of nearly 7 when Santi Cazorla arrived from Villarreal for £20 m.

That is a figure higher than their entire turnover only a few years later. This is like West Ham suddenly paying out over £170 million for a player.

The Football Observatory report recorded West Ham as having then a turnover of 143 million Euros. In other Words nearly nine times greater than Malaga. The team with the lowest turnover in the English Premier League, Bournemouth was still over twice as big as Malaga with a turnover of 37 million euros.

 In the context of these Spanish figures the Pellegrini transfer budget, backed by a one off investment of Arab oil money, was truly enormous. It represented an investment, compared to most Spanish clubs of between 5 and 10 times their turnover.

 Given this investment it would have been extraordinary if Malaga had not competed for the Champion’s League.

 For West Ham to have a similar transfer budget to the boost provided to Malaga the investment last summer would have had to have been truly enormous, at least 500 to 1,000 million euros.

 Expectations that West Ham could emulate the Malaga experiment was then, always unrealistic.

The reality is that Pellegrini is facing one of his most challenging managerial roles. He has nothing like the financial advantage he experienced at, not just Manchester city, and Madrid but even Malaga.

At the Spanish club  he received financial support that the vast majority of managers in the La Liga could only dream of.

 

What Pellegrini does have at West Ham is greater unfettered control than he ever enjoyed at previous clubs. The West Ham that evolves under Pellegrini will truly be his creation.

 

COYI