Beckham makes Real 137% more profitable :o

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/europe/6280032.stm

Real Madrid made more than £300m during David Beckham's four years at the club.

Beckham, who is set to make his debut for LA Galaxy in the USA later in July, moved to Spain for £25m from Manchester United in 2003.

And Madrid claim they sold one million shirts within the first six months of Beckham's arrival at the Bernabeu.

"In four years that Beckham played in Madrid we generated more than £300m in commercial activities," marketing director Jose Sanchez told The Sun.

"In the time that Beckham was here, profits from merchandising increased by 137%," he added.

The former England captain, 32, will be officially unveiled by LA Galaxy on 13 July after signing a five-year contract with LA Galaxy which could be worth up to £125m in salary and endorsements.

Advertising firm Saatchi and Saatchi last month told BBC Sport that Beckham's departure would not affect Madrid's finances.

Alex Fynn said: "If Real win La Liga and Beckham goes, there won't even be a blip that will be felt.

"If Real win La Liga and Beckham goes, there won't even be a blip that will be felt," Fynn told BBC Sport.

Deloitte and Touche rate Real as the world's wealthiest club in terms of sales as its revenues rose to £202m from £186.2m in the last 12 months.

You now understand why they bought him.

Technically it would make him Real MAdrids best ever signing

He's up there with Zidane and Ronaldo, regarding the amount of money he's made us from merchandise.

But on the pitch, no where near. Main reason, he never learnt the langauge.

TM wrote:He's up there with Zidane and Ronaldo, regarding the amount of money he's made us from merchandise.

But on the pitch, no where near. Main reason, he never learnt the language.

Seriously? That's bad.

Besides Arsenal fans, the English simply don't learn second languages.

Why bother? Everybody speaks the language anyway. We have conquered the world blut, you should try it one day...again....

I think Beckham did try to learn Spanish, the simple fact of the matter is that he wasn't very good at it. He's not the brightest footballer around to start with, and to just try and learn a foreign language from scratch at his age can be difficult, particularly for British people who have little experience of other languages compared to most other European people.

He isn't the only one who struggles though, Pires never really mastered English despite living here for a long time and there are a number of players who struggle with a new language years after moving to a country.

Solidus wrote:Why bother? Everybody speaks the language anyway. We have conquered the world blut, you should try it one day...again....

Even if we succeed (we are working on it), it still would be a futile case on the island. We could feed you Sauerkraut all day, and you'd still fart like you've eaten ordinary cabbage, to put it in metaphorical terms.

A funny Jarman, who would have thunked it.

Apart from the shirt sales, it doesn't indicate anywhere that this revenue is attributable to Beckham. In fact, it states his departure does not affect RM's finances.

Is it just me or do 'shirt sales' not tell the whole story. I mean, if Beckham never signed, wouldn't a similar amount of shirts be sold with a different players name on the back?

Crouching Tiger wrote:Is it just me or do 'shirt sales' not tell the whole story. I mean, if Beckham never signed, wouldn't a similar amount of shirts be sold with a different players name on the back?

exactly, I always think the "shirt sales" issue is nice enough, but in many cases not nearly sufficient to explain certain profits. The article's author I believe had his conclusion made up before he started writing or investigating.

And let's not forget, it was Beckham or Ronaldinho...