Europa League winners put entire squad up for sale – media

FC Sevilla needs to find ways to pay its €90 million debt 

The Spanish football club that won the UEFA Europa League championship last month for the seventh time is selling or trading its entire starting lineup, sports media reported on Friday. FC Sevilla is making calls to teams across Europe in order to scrape up money to repay its massive debt.

President Jose ‘Pepe’ Castro informed the management of the club on Friday morning that Sevilla is €90 million ($98.3 million) in debt. This means it needs to sell some of its star players, and just one or two won’t do, according to the Spanish sports outlet Radio Marca.

The debt and the need to sell players were behind the departure of Sevilla’s long-term sporting director Ramon Rodriguez ‘Monchi’ Verdejo in mid-June. Monchi is now president of football operations at the British Premier League club Aston Villa.

His replacement, Victor Orta, has reportedly already started making calls, specifically to another Premier League side, Manchester United. Orta rejoined the club on June 20, after six seasons at Leeds United. He was previously Sevilla’s technical director (2006-2103), before leaving for Russia, where he worked for Zenit of St. Petersburg for a season.

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Media reports singled out the Moroccan goalkeeper Bono and striker Youssef En-Nesyri, as well as the Argentine winger Lucas Ocampos. 

Orta’s challenge isn’t just to sell enough players to offset Sevilla’s debt. He has to buy a team strong enough for Coach Jose Luis Mendilibar to stay in La Liga. The Spanish top-flight league has traditionally been dominated by Barcelona and Real Madrid, with Sevilla placing 12th this season. However, the club managed to pull a massive upset in the 2022-23 UEFA league, defeating Italy’s Roma on penalties in the May 31 final and winning its record seventh title.

While many European football clubs have made fortunes buying and selling players in the transfer market, the sale of the entire first lineup is without precedent.

Football is a massive business, with clubs like Real Madrid valued at over $6 billion, according to a recent Forbes survey. However, the flagship Spanish side is also doing business at an annual loss of $38 million. France’s Paris Saint-Germain, ranked seventh on the Forbes list, ended the season with an eye-watering $219 million loss.