Clubs can no longer sign players from Europe until they turn 18 years old, and are now relying on points calculators to determine whether a deal is worth pursuing or not. “When we look at players, we immediately go, ‘Can he get a visa?’, and if he can’t then we go, ‘Well, what’s the point? Let’s move on.’”

Paolo Nicolato, the coach of Italy Under-21s, complained this week about a lack of strikers coming through and said, at this rate, he may have to resort to scouting the third division for talent, while Gabriele Gravina, the president of the Italian Football Federation, highlighted how only 30 per cent of players at under-19s level in Italy are Italian.

Linfield’s finances underline the modest state of the game in Northern Ireland. Total revenues in 2019-20 were £ 1.5 million and wages accounted for £ 1.1 million of overall income. The club’s average attendances, pre-covid, were around 2,400 which equated to almost double the league average. The biggest wage bill belongs to Cliftonville, but around 40% of their outlay is on non-football staff. Larne, Coleraine and Glentoran pay out close to half a million in salaries.

But despite improved facilities, crowds are still poor for league games, the average top division attendance in 2021-22 is only 2,500 but in both 2018-19 and 2019-20, the league had shown good progress with gates going close to 3,500.  The pandemic has certainly had a negative effect. But even with positive growth, it is still a far cry from the days when the top Budapest teams could call on 20,000-plus per game.

The problem facing leagues such as the Nemzeti Bajnokság I is the appeal of the elite competitions abroad and the lack of money. Total revenues were just € 160 million in 2020, a mere fraction of the money earned by the bigger leagues. Almost half of clubs’ income is derived from sponsors.

In terms of wages, Hungary is probably punching above its weight, € 82 million was spent on players salaries in 2020 and the overall wage-to-income ratio was a modest 51%. This makes Hungary the 19th best paid league with an average monthly wage of € 8,200. Encouragingly, the trajectory is upwards, with players also benefitting from tax changes for higher earners in Hungary.

A study by the Swiss think-tank CIES published earlier this month showed that, since July 2015, Benfica’s Seixal academy is the most profitable in Europe, bringing in a colossal €379 million. That’s not a bad return on the €10 million investment Benfica make in it every year.

“You can be very focused and have strong success. But you have the theory and then the practical terms. Some coaches are more focused on promoting young players. Others are more focused on having guys who are mature and experienced to deliver results. It’s our responsibility as a board to try in every moment to align again the strategy with what we have defined as the strategy.”

“<...>Portugal is such a small country. The amount of revenues you can generate internally is very limited. <...>Among our top 10 sponsors, we have one Portuguese company.”