ISTANBUL, April 16 (Xinhua) -- Football clubs in Turkey's Super League have to set new strategies and downsize to better cope with the financial losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Enver Erkan, an economist, told Xinhua on Thursday.
"The crisis period revealed that the existing economic structures of the clubs are not sustainable," said the economist with the Istanbul-based Terra Investment.
In Erkan's view, the cancellation of the league matches until June has put an enormous financial burden on the clubs.
Furthermore, the suspension of television broadcasting deals also caused almost 50 percent of losses in their revenues, Erkan added.
"If they cannot generate additional incomes, they need to cut their expenses," he pointed out.
The rights holder beIN Sports, a global network of sports channels, has recently announced that it halted the payments of the clubs with a move that forced Turkey's Football Clubs Association to urge the broadcaster to review its decision and resume payments.
"That means that the clubs, deprived of any cash flow for the upcoming two months, might not be able to pay the salaries of their technical staff, football players, and other employees," Erkan noted.
In his view, the payments of high-value contracts of players are now in jeopardy.
"We will most probably observe the suspension of these contracts or freezing of payments in the upcoming period," he said. "Sports economy is no more operational not only in Turkey but also across the world."
"We are talking about a period that would last until June. But if there would be some more extension, things would for sure deteriorate even further for them," Erkan added.
The most valuable team in the Super League is Galatasaray, an Istanbul based-club, with 131 million U.S. dollars of player value, which is followed by Fenerbahce, Trabzonspor, and Besiktas.
Erkan also drew attention to the continuous depreciation of Turkish lira against the foreign currencies.
"The expenses of the clubs are not remaining the same. They are continuously growing as the exchange rates increase," he said.
On Thursday afternoon, the Turkish currency stood at 6.94 against the dollar, its lowest since August 2018. Enditem
