AFP /London
The transfer value of players in 10 of Europe's top leagues could plummet by up to 10 billion euros due to the economic crash caused by coronavirus, a study from accounting firm KPMG.
Transfer spending is expected to fall dramatically, with clubs across the continent facing huge losses as a result of football's shutdown.
The top divisions in England, Germany, Italy and Spain remain committed to trying to finish the 2019/20 seasons so they can honour huge TV contracts and minimise the financial hit.
KPMG estimates that Europe's top five leagues, including France, where the season has ended, could lose four billion euros ($4.3 billion) if the campaigns cannot be completed.
With little money to spend, values could fall by nearly 10 billion if there is no more football this season, the "worst-case" scenario.
They could still plummet by 6.6 billion euros if leagues were completed behind closed doors. That modelling was based on all 10 leagues being completed, even though seasons in France and the Netherlands have been ended.
"Our recent analysis reveals that the aggregate value of all the 4,183 players in the 10 European leagues under consideration decreased by a total of almost EUR 10 billion”.
The Online Nations Cup has started. It’s a really strong team tournament with six teams participating in a double round robin format. On the first day Team India drew against Team USA in round-one and went down fighting against Team Rest of the World (ROW) in round-two, on Monday. In the first round we drew with the help of two draws by Vishy and Hari on board One and Three. On board Two Vidit lost a double bishop vs knight endgame against World No. 2 Fabiano Caruana. Its one of the more difficult theoretically winning endgames to actually win, and Caruana showed how its done. It was a tough game for Vidit, but Team India levelled the match on board four by an excellent win by Koneru Humpy over Anna Zatonskih. She kept pushing for initiative throughout the game and finished it off with a nice Queen skewer , thereby winning a knight and the game.
Coming to the second round, the eventual result did not fully reflect how the games went. In team tournaments its even more difficult to keep your nerves together than an individual game, and the shorter time control + the online format only adds to the unpredictability. On 1st board Anand saved a very difficult position from black when his opponent current World Cup winner Teimur Radjabov took the mysterious decision to repeat moves in an advantageous position. Hari played an excellent endgame against Iranian prodigy Alireza Firouza, and when it looked like he was surely getting the full point home, Firouza found a nice trick with 50…g5 and managed to draw. In his game against Jorge Cori, Adhiban fought very hard from black, refused a draw, and overstretched and lost. Its especially hard to evaluate the position with such less time on the clock. On board 4, Humpy got a tremendous position out of the opening against Mariya Muzychuk, but in the final moments missed a tactic which helped her opponent get a perpetual and make a draw.
Interesting Position from Cori Jorge – Adhiban.B from round 2. White managed to avoid the mate with 39.g4 in this position.
India is placed 4th currently with 8 more rounds to go.
Round 2 : Rest of the World won against India.
Rest of the World ( ROW ) 2.5 – 1.5 India
