The Covid-19 pandemic is likely to cost club football $14 billion this year worldwide, around one third of its value, a leading official at global soccer body FIFA said on Wednesday.
Olli Rehn, who heads the Fifa committee set up to tackle the effects of the pandemic, said that Fifa, along with financial consultants, had estimated the club game to be worth between $40 billion and $45 billion worldwide.
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He said the figure of $14 billion was based on the current scenario, where football is slowly restarting after a three-month hiatus earlier this year, but it would be a “different ball game” if the pandemic did not let up.
“Football has been hit very hard by the coronavirus pandemic,” Rehn, a former EU commissioner and now governor of the Bank of Finland, told Reuters television.
“It has created plenty of turmoil at different levels with some professional clubs facing very serious difficulties. I’m also very concerned about youth academies and lower division clubs.”
Rehn said that football in South America had been especially hard hit, while Africa and Asia were also a concern.
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