Anil Murthy: “COVID-19 will change the football industry, but I see opportunity in this”

Valencia CF president Anil Murthy gave an interview to OFF THE PITCH this week. The media outlet specialise in the economy and running of sporting entities, and they discussed some of the main objectives and features of the current project at the club, which is focused on sustainability and viability amidst the absence of Champions League football and the impact of COVID-19.

Responsibility in a difficult economic situation

"When you stop LaLiga, your cycle is totally affected because you are basing your payments to others on what's coming in. But when you don't play, TV doesn't pay."

"We stopped playing for nearly two-and-a-half months … it pushed the entire financial cycle off.”

"It's extremely important to the club to maintain its debt repayment schedules." 

"There are two ways of handling this. Of course, you can go and borrow, like so many clubs have done and kick the ball down the road. Let it be someone else's problem and maybe Anil Murthy won't be president one day and then I'll say 'hey, good luck guys, that's your problem in the future.'"

Necessary measures taken for financial viability

"This season we took big decisions. The biggest risk today is if LaLiga stops. (If it does) I think we will be in a much better position today to deal with it. I guarantee you there are many clubs that are not in a position to deal with another break in LaLiga.”

"But for us – and I think for most football clubs – the impact is this season and next season. Minimum. Why is that so? Because the (transfer) market was very depressed this year and it won't recover by next summer. I'm guessing it will be maybe 50 per cent. 
COVID is going to change, and should change, the way the football industry works."

"It's important for the club to be ready for this. In all these crises, you must extract the maximum opportunity.”

An absence of signings this past summer

"We decided to take the sensible approach. The best way to deal with this is to sell. Sell players, reduce the cost of the team, manage the cash flow, use this cash to make payments to people who we owe.

"There's the salaries of players, salaries of staff, payments to Bankia, payments to service providers, and we are meeting all these payments because we have sold players. I wanted to sell more. But the transfer market was at 20 percent of its usual."

Strengthening the commitment to the VCF Academy

"I see an opportunity in this because for the longest time we've been saying that we want our academy to be the future of this club.”

"What we have done is make space for young players coming in. When young players are choosing between academies, they're going to say 'if I go to Valencia, I have a chance to play in the first team.’”

"In summer, I personally went and chose eight (young) players and said 'these guys are going for preseason'. Sometimes there's some tension with the coach because that's sending a signal that I'm not going to sign players. But I think this club is bigger than any coach, bigger than any player, bigger than me.”

"The project is important and Peter (Lim) is very clear that the academy must function."

"The reason why the academy's cost came down is because we were loaded with players whom we knew would not make it to the first team in Valencia or any first team in LaLiga.”

"But nobody felt it was their responsibility to say 'hey, listen, you've played with us all these years, we don't think you're going to make it here. I'm going to find you another club where you can play.’”

"We just look for quality. I'm not going to put a young boy from the academy in the first team if he doesn't have quality, of course not. You must create talent in the pipeline, quality in the pipeline.”

"You need to have a mix of youth and experienced players to guide the youth…  What we have today I feel in the first team is a good balance and the older ones are good people. The toxicity that may have been around sometimes in Valencia has gone.”

Valencia CF is not for sale

"This small group is getting even angrier because the more they try, the more they see that they can't make decisions for the club.”

"Do they represent the fans? Well, they represent some people. The same people who have lost any control, including the violent ones. They're trying their best to go back to the past. The past is gone.”

"What we're doing may not be absolutely right. I mean, if we were so good, we would be winning LaLiga every year and Champions League and everything else. Of course, we make mistakes. But at the end of the day, we make the mistakes.”

"I mean, can you imagine putting in €220 million or €250 million in investment and someone else makes the decisions for you?”

"Rumours are absolutely not truth, If he wanted to sell he would not have put more money into the club to settle its debts. If you look at Peter's companies, he doesn't sell.”

"For him, football and managing this club is a challenge that he enjoys. He wants to see the club do well.”