The project could well spark other major European clubs to
think out of the box about how they will fund themselves once the new UEFA rules
kick in and merchandising and sponsorship prove insufficient, particularly for
the purchase of high-priced players.
The legendary club received this month government
approval for a 28 megawatt plant in the hills above Trabzon, the
Black Sea city it helped make famous and that is known for its
fanatical football fans and hot-blooded residents who pick a fight
first and think later, according to the Financial Times. The plant
is expected to cost up to $50 million and gross annual revenues of
$10 million. Trabzon is considering building a smaller, second
plant.
Trabzonspor chairman Sadri Sener, a local
construction magnate, expects the hydro plant to benefit from the
mountains surrounding the city and its usually high annual rainfall.
“The club needs a guaranteed source of income, and we have the ideal
conditions for hydro power,” the Financial Times quoted a Trabzon
club official as saying.
Energy is a booming market in Turkey that grows
by eight per cent a year. The government projects that it needs to
increase installed capacity by 45 per cent from 55,000MW to 80,000MW
in the next eight years to be able to meet demand.
Trabzonspor’s move into energy prepares it not
only for the introduction of UEFA’s financial fair play rules but
also for concerns that Turkish soccer runs the same risk of economic
difficulty that the country faces. Turkey got a taste of the risks
when external funding tightened last year because of the global
financial crisis and the country’s currency devalued more than had
been predicted.
“Turkey’s declining success in football can be
mapped to economics,” a Renaissance Capital research note said early
this year.
Like the economy, Turkish soccer “imports almost
all their best players from abroad, and exports (only) one or two
good players every year” incurring high levels of debt to attract
stars, the note said. It said Istanbul clubs like Fenerbahce,
Besiktas and Galatasaray operated as commercial companies that
eschew competitiveness for profit.
Renaissance Capital cautioned that buying
expensive but old has-beens such as former Real Madrid stars Roberto
Carlos and Gut boosts merchandising, but does not add real quality
to a team. The focus on sales rather than soccer performance
produces the ills many Turkish companies face: complacency and
reduced competitiveness.
The proof is in the pudding. Turkey’s top
Istanbul clubs have dominated the country’s soccer for decades, but
failed twice in a row recently to win the Turkish league or qualify
for the Champions League. The poor performance mirrors a trend in
Turkish economic development as growth shifts from the country’s
economic capital to Anatolia.
Trabzonspor alongside Bursaspor, among Turkey’s
recently most successful teams, hail from the inland. Renaissance
Capital pointed to a further trend in line with the economy: Bursa
and Trabzon boast trade surpluses while Istanbul accounts for 60 per
cent of Turkey’s trade deficit.
To be sure, the similarities between the economy
and soccer are not absolute. In some way, Turkish soccer is more in
line with its European counterparts than the economy is. Turkish
soccer economics mirror those of European clubs that operate on the
basis of high debt levels to import rather than export talented
players.
The model in contrast to the Turkish clubs has often translated into
performance for their European counterparts. One reason is that
Turkish clubs have not seen the kind of influx of foreign
investment, particularly from the Gulf, from which teams like
Manchester City and Paris St. Germain have benefited. Nonetheless,
in contrast to the Turkish economy and most European clubs, Turkish
soccer thanks to domestic demand has so far not faced problems
accessing funds.
[James
M Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in
Singapore and the author of the blog, The
Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer.]
