Chelsea FC chairman Roman Abramovich looked a bit glum in the Italian resort of Portofino with his girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, with his yacht the Eclipse parked nearby. Was this because he has been upstaged as football’s biggest spender? After all, as Simon Kuper notes in today’s FT, it’s a status symbol. “Buying Bale is not like buying a machine that will provide an annual return,” he noted in today’s FT.
“It is more like buying a Picasso: a beautiful thing that give its owner status.” Indulge the Londoner on art vs footballers for a moment: Bale was sold to Real Madrid for £85 million. The highest-priced Picasso was Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, a 1932 oil painting of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, which had played midfield in the Frances Brody collection. It was sold in 2010 for £66 million at Christie’s to a mystery buyer who loaned it to Tate Modern. Because it is shown in London, its owner is thought to be a wealthy UK-based art lover. Perhaps Abramovich admires Picasso more than Bale after all?
