The media contract and UEFA’s solidarity money have brought more money to the Veikkausliiga teams. Relegation to Ikkö would be a financially serious place for the clubs.
Samu Saatsi,
Sakari Lund,
Mats Ahlnäs
Several football Veikkausliiga teams have a question of hundreds of thousands of euros in front of them: How to keep the main league place for next season as well?
In both final series of the Veikkausliiga, there is a battle for pots of thousands of euros. While in the upper final series the fight is for access to the qualifying games of the European cup tournaments that bring home money, in the lower final series even the existence of the clubs is played.
Veikkausliiga clubs currently have more money at their disposal than before. This is thanks to both the series’ media agreement that entered into force this year and the solidarity money distributed by the European football association UEFA. Both of these have clearly grown from the former.
According to Ilta-Sanomi’s report before the start of the season, each Veikkausliiga club practically receives half a million just for participating in the series. According to IS, the media contract with the Sanoma group rose to three million euros. At the same time, Veikkausliiga’s international TV rights were sold separately. Their value increased to about two million.
The five million euro pot is not available for distribution at lower series levels. So one can ask how vital is maintaining a league position for the main league clubs now fighting for relegation?
“It would be an incredibly difficult situation”
At the moment, the fight to avoid relegation is heating up. IFK Mariehamn is in the place of direct relegation in the Veikkausliiga, chasing Kotka KTP, who are two points away from the qualifiers. The Kotka players, on the other hand, have Tampereen Ilves four points behind and Valkeakoski Haka languishing five points away.
In Åland, the season has been difficult. IFK became a series jumbo in the regular season. It won only three fights out of 22 regular season games. Started the season as head coach Daniel Norrmen got fired at the end of August. Having taken his place Jimmy Wargh has piloted the islanders to one victory in two games in the lower final series.
IFK Mariehamn has been in the league continuously for 19 years, only HJK and Inter have been longer. Managing director Peter Mattsson hasn’t even wanted to think about falling yet.
– We would lose so much income and it is difficult to take away the costs. We only have three people working in the office, so it is difficult to cut anything other than the player group and we already have the smallest player budget in the league. That would be an incredibly difficult situation. I can’t even find the right words to describe it, says Mattsson.
– The TV contract has brought everyone more money, which is really positive. But for relegated teams, the drop is greater than can be managed financially. If I’m honest, the difference between the league and Ykkönen is too big.
Ilves and IFK Mariehamn face each other today
Also CEO of Tampere Ilves Risto Niklas-Salminen emphasizes the importance of preservation.
– The economic value is relevant. Retention is a big deal for other clubs, but also for Ilves. The goal is to preserve. The contracts have grown, so it’s clear that it somehow accumulates and the importance of preservation has grown.
However, Niklas-Salminen would not consider a possible relegation as a disaster.
– Ilves is a communal club, with more than 6,000 players and more than 20,000 people in the internal network, so relegation would not be the end of the world. We can live with that, but of course it would require tough corrective measures and cost savings for the 2024 season. But I don’t see the end of operations or something like this as a possibility for Ilves.
Ilveskin has changed the head coach during the season. In August Toni Kallio was allowed to leave and Joni Lehtonen took over as head coach.
Ilves and IFK Mariehamn meet today, Wednesday. So there are really big stakes in the match.
In Kotka, the green and whites’ clearest investment in the fight against relegation has also been the change of coach. Jussi Leppälahti started the season with his team great and got an extension in July. Just under four weeks later, a day before colleague Norrmen, KTP relieved Leppälahti of his duties. Experienced Juha Malinen has piloted KTP in four fights. All of them have ended in defeat.
KTP commented briefly on issues related to the relegation battle via text message. CEO of the club Tomi Tolsa states that survival is the number one goal of every rising team and certainly of other teams as well.