Why Monaco let Falcao leave

Paul Doyle's piece on the about turn at Monaco is worth a read:
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/sep/04/monaco-radamel-falcao-manchester-united-dmitry-rybolovlev

Text:

If only, as George W Bush might put it, the French had some way of saying volte-face. Or, as we can now say in English, “doing an AS Monaco". After all, this time last year the club from the principality were splashing out record sums in a bid to become an almost-instant European superpower; now they have decided to rein in their expenditure and cash out on top recruits such as James Rodríguez and Radamel Falcao, leaving fans and onlookers angry about the abrupt change of direction.

“There are two ways to go," the Monaco vice-president Vadim Vasilyev says. “One is either you invest a lot of money and do it quickly, the other is you build up an intelligent project and you have to base yourself on your academy and sound principles of working and scouting well and basically that’s what we’ve decided to do." All very laudable, and all in total contrast to the approach that Vasilyev had initially pursued after being appointed last year by Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian billionaire who bought a controlling stake in Monaco in 2011 at a time when the seven-times champions of France were slumming it near the bottom of the country’s second tier.

After winning promotion last year, Monaco forked out around £150m to attract two of the most sought-after players in the world, in Rodríguez and Falcao, along with other coveted players such as João Moutinho and the gifted young French midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia. Huge salaries also lured Ricardo Carvalho and Eric Abidal on free transfers. “We are ambitious, we are Monaco," became the club’s slogan, appearing on ubiquitous promotional material, usually accompanied by pictures of Rodríguez and Falcao.

Now both Colombians have left – Rodríguez to Real Madrid for almost double the £39.5m that Monaco paid for him, and Falcao on loan to Manchester United. Factor in the departure of less glamorous personnel, such as the striker Emmanuel Rivière to Newcastle, and 25 players (although this figure includes players from the academy and out of contract) have left the club this summer. Like-for-like replacements have been conspicuous by their absence so the club that spent around £200m in the previous two years made a profit of about £70m on transfers this summer. Vasilyev, however, insists that he and Rybolovlev remain “strongly committed" to Monaco and rejects suggestions that the Russians are flogging the club’s top assets before pulling out.

Such suggestions have become common in the French media. Indeed, a radical about-turn was almost expected from Rybolovlev in May after a Swiss court ordered him to pay a world-record divorce settlement of £2.7bn to his ex-wife, Elena. “My responsibility is managing the club, I make it a principle not to discuss the private affairs of my president," says Vasilyev when asked whether that ruling is behind Rybolovlev’s reprioritising at Monaco. Other club sources, however, claim that the effect of the court’s decision have been exaggerated, noting that several caveats in the ruling, plus what is expected to be a long appeal process, make it unlikely that Rybolovlev will ever have to pay anything close to the headline sum.

Another theory floated by L’Equipe this week is that Rybolovlev has watered down his investment in protest at Monaco not giving him a passport. The tycoon already holds a Cypriot one after living and investing heavily in that island but that document, unlike a Monégasque one, would not grant anyone protection from extradition to Russia if, for some reason, such a scenario were ever to arise.

Vasilyev, however, says that the club’s change in policy is motivated by football reasons, particularly the hostility of European and French footballing authorities. He says that last year’s splurge was a one-off intended to “jump-start" a newly promoted club so that they qualified for the Champions League at the first attempt, which they did, but he acknowledges that the original plan did not provide for quite such a sudden drop in investment.

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