€400m in debt..... They've lived beyond their means and have bought a title they can't actually afford.....
Much of that debt payable to the tax man, so they've been somewhat publicly funded..
Is a less romantic way of looking at Atletico
And would be a very harsh way of looking at it, because they can hardly be said to have "bought" a title in which they had expenditure at a third of the level of their rivals for it.
In the current climate they are at least not adding further to their debts (unlike most clubs) and having to repay the debt built up in earlier, less successful times. That debt bought nothing much, recent success is in spite of it, not because of it.
It's interesting to me that Real Madrid are always accused of being somehow supported by the Spanish state, and yet if there is any lesson from debts to the Spanish authorities it is that these have been looked upon very favourably in the cases of Atletico and Deportivo - which is not to say they will be absolved from their responsibilities to pay them, but it casts a very different light on the picture.
Yesterday I was reading the Hercules de Alicante forum and they were lamenting the fact that, whilst this week their relegation to the regional Segunda B willl probably be confimed mathematically, just three years ago they beat Atletico 4-1 to move themselves into mid-table in La Liga and leave Atletico 20 and 22 points respectively behind Real Madrid and Barcelona with less than half the season played.
The Atletico team that night included Godin, Felipe Luis, Raul Garcia, Mario Suarez, Koke and Diego Costa as well as De Gea, Forlan and Aguero.
That shows the enormity of what has been achieved in the meantime, because the huge improvement has not come from buying success with borrowed money, but during a period when what they can spend has been limited by having to manage the previously accumulated debt.
