ANKARA: In Turkey’s indebted soccer league, Fenerbahce just bet the house on Robin van Persie.
The Istanbul club agreed to pay as much as $6.2 million a year for the former Manchester United striker last week. While entry to the UEFA Champions League, the sport’s most lucrative club tournament, would pay at least twice van Persie’s keep, failure risks inflating debt that’s jumped to $184 million from $1 million in four years.
Fenerbahce isn’t the only high roller in Turkey. Half of the most debt-laden clubs in the Stoxx European Football index are Turkish, reflecting the growing disconnect between the stakes that the country’s clubs are paying and their success in the biggest competitions. Turkey’s only side ever to win a European trophy is Galatasaray — also the only Turkish team so far to reach the lucrative group stage of next season’s Champions League. It signed world cup winner Lukas Podolski from Arsenal this year.
“Galatasaray is buying because Fenerbahce is buying, and Fenerbahce is buying because Galatasaray is buying,” Emre Deliveli, an Istanbul-based consultant for Roubini Global Economics, said by phone this month. “It’s what economists would call a war of attrition.”
