What David Beckham Has To Do With Spain's Boom And Bust : Planet Money : NPR

What David Beckham Has To Do With Spain's Boom And Bust : Planet Money : NPR: "new skyscrapers that tower over Madrid.

“It’s like some aliens have landed at one of the ends of the city,” says Patricia Gosalvez, a Spanish architecture critic.

Those aliens say a lot — about the fates of David Beckham and other big soccer stars, about Spain’s economic boom, and about the real estate bust that could lead to the European Union’s biggest bailout yet.


Less than 10 years ago, soccer fields covered the spot where the towers now stand. Madrid’s soccer team, Real Madrid, practiced there. In 2001, as Spain’s real estate boom took off, the team’s owners did something people all over Spain would do in the coming years: They sold their land for a ton of money.

They got 480 million euros — more than half a billion dollars at today’s exchange rates. It was enough money to pay off all of their debts. And over the next few years, Real Madrid bought Beckham and three other soccer superstars."

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