Football's Magic Money Tree

[GodIsADeeJay81]

If they're going to carry on with that attitude about us, then I hope they sink even further into the mire and get relegated to boot.

[Chester Perry]

Rick Parry has once again been warning anyone who will listen of the castrophic consequences of banning gambling sponsorship in football - from the Financial times

EFL warns shirt sponsorship gambling ban would be ‘catastrophic’
SAMUEL AGINI MARCH 15, 2021

Rick Parry, chairman of the English Football League, has warned that a ban on gambling sports sponsorship would be “catastrophic” for smaller clubs already struggling to survive because of the pandemic.

Teams are facing potential sponsorship curbs as part of a wide-ranging UK government review into gambling legislation expected to be completed in the coming weeks. Anti-gambling activists say the close association of football with betting companies has contributed to a rise in gambling addiction and promoting the practice to children.

But Parry, who leads the body that runs the three divisions below the Premier League, told the Financial Times: “There’s no evidence to suggest that banning sponsorship will reduce the prevalence of problem gambling.”

The EFL, itself sponsored by Flutter-owned gambling group Sky Bet, is readying evidence to submit to the review. Parry said he believes the EFL will be able to make a “very good case” that the rise of betting sponsorship in football has not led to an increase in problem gambling.

Shirt sponsorships are among the biggest commercial deals available to football clubs. More than £40m of annual revenue is at stake for the EFL’s 72 clubs, money they could “ill-afford to lose”, Parry said.

The pandemic has wiped out ticket sales, which accounted for just over a fifth of Championship clubs’ £785m revenues in 2018/19, according to Deloitte. Commercial revenues represented a quarter of the total. Half of the division’s 24 clubs have gambling groups as their main shirt sponsor.

“In the wake of the pandemic it would be catastrophic,” Parry said of a potential ban.

Gambling operators, football clubs and leagues should be free to enter commercial partnerships, he added.

Executives at leading clubs expressed concern over the loss of a vital revenue stream at a time when ministers have refused to support the game during the pandemic. So far, professional men’s football has been left out of the £600m government bailout for UK sports.

“This government is guilty of snobbery towards football,” said one EFL club investor.

The Premier League declined to comment, but one club chief executive stressed that a ban would be “harder for smaller clubs because it’s easy money”. Yet Parry pointed out that a ban was “not a foregone conclusion”.

A person close to the government said the review would consider all evidence before any decision on shirt sponsorship is made.

The potential crackdown, as part of the review of the Gambling Act 2005, comes after the government slashed the maximum stake on high speed slot machines in betting shops by 98 per cent to £2. The House of Lords last year recommended that bookmakers should not be able to advertise inside sports venues or on football shirts.

Campaigners say the tie-ups normalise gambling among children and use football to reel in young men, who are then cross-sold a range of casino-style online games which they say are more addictive. There are roughly 300,000 problem gamblers in England, according to the NHS.

“Unless you were somehow able to measure it among a controlled group of people who had grown up never having been exposed to gambling advertising, it would be impossible to empirically prove its impact on rates of gambling harm,” said Matt Zarb-Cousin, Campaign For Fairer Gambling.

“The point is it’s normalising gambling among children and young people, who are most vulnerable to addiction.”

Finances at lower league clubs are already fragile. Most teams in the Championship, English football’s second tier, are lossmaking, paying 107 per cent of revenues in wages in the 2018/19 season, according to Deloitte.

There are reputational risks for clubs closely associated with gambling. Last week, betting “stock market” Football Index collapsed into administration after facing heavy criticism for reducing the dividends paid on players’ performance, leading to the value of so-called shares to crash and prompting punters to complain on social media of major losses. It said it had changed its dividend policy after incurring “substantial losses” in recent months.

Football Index was the shirt sponsor of Championship clubs Nottingham Forest and Queens Park Rangers. Both clubs have said they will remove the betting company’s logo from their shirts with immediate effect.

Entain, one of the world’s largest gambling groups and owner of the Ladbrokes and Partypoker brands, supports a ban on shirt sponsorship, though Rob Hoskin, chief governance officer, said there was “still a place” for gambling groups to sponsor sport, such as at the grassroots level.

Yet rival Kindred, the owner of 32 Red, which sponsors several clubs including Derby County, has argued that the industry is “stigmatised” in the debate.

The company said last month that 4 per cent of its revenue comes from “high-risk” players who show signs of addiction. Neil Banbury, UK general manager, said at the time: “ultimately shirt sponsorship is a bit of a red herring in the debate around problem gambling.”

Dan Waugh, an analyst specialising in gambling regulation at consultancy Regulus Partners, said smaller clubs would struggle to find alternative sponsors willing to pay as much as betting companies.

“It’s not as clear that you would have big businesses stepping up to fill the gap,” he said. “They are not the same as the Premier League in terms of global marketplace.”

[Chester Perry]

This is great as it clearly and thoroughly destroys the notion that the current elite have always been the elite while displaying the transient nature of football success before greed and privilege took over - from James Dixon at notliveandkicking

European Super Leagues
What would they have looked like in the 1990s?

https://notlivekicking.substack.com/p/e ... er-leagues

[Chester Perry]

The difficulties of the membership system at Barcelona and the electoral process, together with the complicated and expensive liabilities (I have touched on the liabilities before particularly in last summers swap transfer with inflated values that meant the then directors did not have to pay out tens of millions of Euros from their own pockets - The newly elected board at Barcelona are struggling to come up with the financial liability guarantees that will allow them to take office - the deadline is tomorrow and they are reportedly 70m euro short

https://translate.google.com/translate? ... a-11581909

[GodIsADeeJay81]

What happens if they don't find the money needed?

Does the 2nd placed lot get a crack at it instead?

[Chester Perry]

What happens if they don't find the money needed?

Does the 2nd placed lot get a crack at it instead?

there has to be another election

[Chester Perry]

I have been posting about the CAF Presidential elections (which FIFA's preferred Candidate has won - no none of the above voting here I am afraid) for a while now, including how FIFA have rigged the election by getting all the other candidates to stand down with promises of making them Vice Presidents (it is a luxury gravy train remember) it has now transpired that not only has FIFA been inappropriately involved in the election process, they have also broken CAF's own rules on the Vive President process and in increasing the number of CAF Vice President's

https://twitter.com/FrancisGaitho/statu ... 4633138180

I would say this is shocking and scandalous, but after the re-election of Thomas Bach as President of the IOC this week it hardly raises an flicker on the shock-ometer. This is Governance in 21st Century Sport

The excellent JosimarFootball.com look at the story behind new CAF President Patice Motsepe - as ever it is lengthy and detailed, but always worth the effort to read - The title gives you the gist of what is to follow

The billionaire puppet
16/03/2021

New Caf president Patrice Motsepe already has a nickname, “the new puppet of Zürich”. The Caf election demonstrated that African football is no longer in the hands of Caf, but controlled by Gianni Infantino himself.

By Pål Ødegård and Philippe Auclair

Everything went as scripted at Caf’s general assembly in Rabat, Morocco on Friday 12 March. Fifa president Gianni Infantino witnessed his favourite, Patrice Motsepe, become the new Caf president by acclamation, while his closest supporters all obtained vital positions in the Caf Executive Committee and the Fifa council. And as Caf effectively became a sub-division of Fifa in the process after the announcement of Infantino’s close friend and enforcer Veron Mosengo-Omba as its new secretary general, no objections were dared uttered by the electorate.

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With everything seemingly in place for Infantino’s plan to be rolled out, most officials went directly to the assembly in Rabat from the successfully arranged Caf U20 Afcon in Nouakchott, Mauritania. Some of them had taken part in a kickabout with the Fifa president, who wore the captain’s armband on the occasion. Such a privilege was not to befall the various U17 national teams on their way to the U17 Afcon about to start on 13 March in Morocco. Despite relatively low Covid-19 infection rates (122 new detected cases among a population estimated at 37 million on 9 March), Moroccan health authorities banned travel into the kingdom from more and more departure countries as days went by. And on 8 March, Caf announced that the tournament would be cancelled, citing the pandemic as the main cause. The squads of Uganda, Zambia, Senegal and Ivory Coast had already started their preparations in Morocco, but had to leave without having kicked a ball. For many of the boys, it was a huge disappointment, some of them having sacrificed precious education time in order to prepare for the tournament. Now, they had also lost a unique chance to be noticed by bigger clubs abroad.

Confusion and difficulties also awaited members of the media who had planned to fly in from abroad to cover the Congress. On 2 March, Caf suddenly announced that journalists could only attend the event by video streaming. Once again, the pandemic and Moroccan border restrictions were given as the reason for this decision – a decision which was then overturned the very next day, but with strict limits still imposed on the number of journalists allowed to be present in Rabat. Morocco’s increasingly draconian coronavirus restrictions meant that many of these journalists were refused entry into Morocco, despite having completed all the necessary formalities.

The same restrictions obviously didn’t apply to the officials attending the assembly, even if they came from countries that featured on the border control’s black list, like Patrice Motsepe’s South Africa. During the roll call, only Eritrea and Chad were absent (the latter after the government dissolved the football federation, which has already led to a suspension by Caf).

Coronation Street
The Fifa president too didn’t have any issues entering the kingdom, despite having travelled almost incessantly since the outset of the pandemic. His presence (or absence) had been the subject of numerous rumours before the Congress. Should he turn up on election day, wouldn’t that be close to an admission that everything that had preceded it, the Rabat conference, the African whistle stop tour, Mosengo-Omba’s criss-crossing of the continent, were nothing but stages in the execution of a plan to put Caf under Fifa’s tutelage?

Gianni Infantino himself had no such qualms. He was seen strolling into the assembly hall at Sofitel Jardin des Roses, beaming with confidence. Contrary to custom, it was Infantino who opened the assembly, rather than acting interim president Constant Omari. After thanking the Moroccans for arranging the assembly, Infantino told the delegates that he had visited almost all of them over the last few months (the Fifa president was also in Africa for the CHAN tournament in January this year).

“Alone, we lose,” Infantino said. “Football is a team sport. Football teaches us values, and perhaps the most important value is that of team spirit, something we have witnessed the last few days in Africa. In the last few days I’ve probably spoken to all of you. I’ve spoken to the four candidates for the presidency, and all share the same vision, the same idea. You all want a strong, united Africa. And today we celebrate this unity.”

The assembly went on with head of Caf’s finance committee Fouzi Lekjaa’s attempt at explaining, without much confidence or conviction, why Caf had accrued a deficit of 11 million US dollars in cash flow, a 40 million dollar loss in cash reserves, and very little room for economical manoeuvering. 24 million were also missing in commercial income compared to the previous year, a result of the cancellation of the broadcasting and marketing agreement they had with Lagardère. (reported here http://josimarfootball.com/the-pyramid-scheme/)

The budget, however, was approved without any votes against. “It’s a good thing to give money, the problem is actually having it”, Fouzi Lekjaa said as he tried to preach more austerity in the next cycle. He made no mention of the gross mismanagement of CAF finances under his watch, which was documented in eye-watering detail in a PWC report conducted in 2019, (reported here http://josimarfootball.com/out-of-africa/)

which laid out how cash was handed out without documentation. He didn’t mention either that CAF had lost its main source of income – their one billion dollar contract with Lagardère. Rather, Lekjaa tried to explain some of the losses on restructuring of referees. The red numbers didn’t seem to bother interim president Constant Omari, who was seen snoozing off during the budget presentation.

Breaking all the rules
Neither were there any objections to a proposal officially presented by the Executive Committee to increase the number of CAF vice-presidents from three to five. The electorate were made aware of the proposal less than 24 hours before the start of the Congress, although Caf statutes are clear that any such proposal must be communicated to the member associations at least 60 days ahead of the voting. Nevertheless, the proposal was approved unanimously.

The next item on the agenda, the election of the next president of Caf, was even easier, as acting secretary general Abdelmounain Bah explained that the other three candidates had pulled from the race, and that article 18.11 in Caf’s statutes allowed the Congress to elect the sole remaining candidate Patrice Motsepe by acclamation. The audience had already started clapping before Bah could finish his sentence. His follow-up words, “please celebrate your next president by your applause,” were evidently superfluous.

Motsepe, his face mask slipped under his chin, stood up smiling, but quickly showed signs of irritation as Constant Omari told him to go up to the microphone. “This is not the time for me to speak. I will give a few remarks later. Time is of the essence,” Motsepe uttered. He still had time to add: “let me also thank my brother Gianni Infantino for his vision and encouragement of unity.” Then he repaired to his seat.

The next item was what many of the officials had been waiting for – the voting on who was to fill the vacant seats on the Caf Executive Committee, as well as Caf’s spots on the Fifa council. And while the voting itself went smoothly, the counting took nearly two hours, the scrutineers openly arguing about the procedure. Nevertheless, it was to be a grand slam for the Fifa president and his closest allies when the results were finally announced. In the case of the Executive Committee, the inexperienced, almost unknown Kanizat Ibrahim from Comoros took the position reserved for a female representative with 35 votes against 8 and 9 respectively for Lawson Edzona from Togo and Patricia Rajeriarison from Madagascar.

Interestingly, Ibrahim, a marketing executive with no background in football administration, had been until recently president of the Fifa-appointed Normalisation Committee of the Comoros FA. Ibrahim’s mandate ended when, on 30 January of this year, a highly controversial vote saw Saïd Ali Saïd Athoumane re-elected without opposition at the head of the Comoros FA. This was the same Athoumane who, according to eyewitnesses whom Josimar has spoken to, bragged that Ibrahim would get an ExCo seat months before he himself became FA president for the second time, after being banned by his own Ethics Committee and precipitating the crisis which led to the appointment of Ibrahim in the first place.

Next, Mustapha Raji from Liberia beat Guinean Mamadou Soaré by 37 votes to 17. Soaré had just been cleared by CAS to run, when the international sports tribunal overturned the decision of Caf’s Governance Committee which had found him ineligible to run. Subsequently, Seidou Njoya from Cameroon (who appeared in a Yaoundé court on Monday 15 March, accused of having illegally re-started the Cameroonian League programme, ignoring a CAS order not to do so in the process) beat Adoum Djibrine from Chad by 45 votes to 7, before Suleiman Waberi of Djibouti, one of Infantino’s closest allies within Caf, was re-elected with 40 votes to Ethiopian Isayas Jira’s 12. The closest-run vote was for the appointee of the COSAFA region, Caf’s largest sub-region with fourteen votes, and where Elvis Chetty of the Seychelles and Maclean Letshwiti of Botswana took the two vacant positions left by South Africa’s Danny Jordaan (who did not run, in order to make space for Motsepe) and Angola’s Rui Da Costa.

Caf’s secretary general then moved on to the Fifa council seats on offer. Egypt’s Hany Abo Rida, one of the masterminds of the Rabat conference and so much else besides, was shooed in, as his only potential rival, Algerian FA chairman Kheiredine Zetchi, had stepped down at the last moment. Zetchi had just been cleared to run by CAS, which meant that he had had no time to campaign. Following Abo Rida was Fouzi Lekjaa himself. One can wonder why the powerful Moroccan had waited until now to apply for a position in Fifa’s governing cabinet. Perhaps it was because last time round, in March 2017, Fifa’s Review Committee had a different setup and wasn’t yet controlled by the Fifa president. It might well have considered Lekjaa’s prominent role in the Moroccan government – he was the director of budget at the Ministry of Finances – to constitute a breach of its regulations for eligibility. After all, hadn’t Fifa’s Governance Committee barred Russian Vitaly Mutko from Fifa office because he was a minister in Vladimir Putin’s government?

Happy people
But times had changed. This was before the Fifa Congress held in Bahrain in May 2017, when Gianni Infantino, unhappy with the eagerness shown by Governance Committee Chairman Miguel Maduro to do his job genuinely independently, had him removed from his position. Other similar-minded or inflexible individuals, like Ethics Committee’s Cornel Borbély and Hans-Joachim Eckert, were also sidelined. A number of their colleagues within Fifa’s independent committees resigned in protest. Ongoing investigations into Infantino, linked to the financing of his Fifa presidential campaign, his use of private jets owned by oligarchs and for interfering in the Caf elections last time around, suddenly stopped when Infantino appointed Maria Claudia Rojas as new head of the Ethics Committee.

The happiest of all the newly-selected Fifa Council members had to be Nigeria’s FA chairman and former CAF first vice president (he’d lost the position to Danny Jordaan in July 2019) Amaju Pinnick, a close Infantino supporter who had coveted this honour for a long time, and who is said to have played a key role in ensuring that CAF’s Executive Committee prevented Ahmad Ahmad from standing for re-election. He obliterated his opponent, Malawi’s Walter Nyamilanu, by 43 votes to 8. For the last available position, that of the confederation’s designated female representative on the Fifa Council, it was a much closer affair. Sierra Leone’s Isha Johansen got 28 votes, beating Burundi’s Lydia Nsekera by just four votes. Although it meant the world to Johansen, who faces serious challenges to her presidency at home, and who was also leaving Caf’s Executive Committee, it was probably not such a big deal for Infantino, as both candidates are considered to be loyal to him.

A league of their own
With that, the Congress itself came to an end. But Motsepe still had a press conference to go through, which was both more and less than the press present had hoped for. Less, because Motsepe refused to comment much on specifics about how to run Caf, and emphasised the need to harness the private sector in each country rather than address Caf’s serious governance issues. And more because he had brought along Augustin Senghor, Ahmed Yahya and Jacques Anouma, the three candidates who had pulled out in order for the ‘African unity’ to work out. All of them looked increasingly uncomfortable as Motsepe also acted as the media officer by directing the difficult questions to them.

“I will answer the easy ones, these the hard ones” was said in jest, but came across as deadly serious. Motsepe himself twice answered questions by “Yes, next question, please”, clearly wanting to end the session as swiftly as possible.

This left several questions unanswered, especially about an African ‘super league’, a pet project suggested by Fifa when it had intervened in Caf in 2019; but that wasn’t followed up by the Executive Committee. The plan, a closed league of twenty teams which would have to buy themselves in, similar to the model used in the United States of America and its Major League Soccer, had come up again in a tweet from one of the guests present at the Congress, the Tanzanian club SC Simba’s CEO Barbara Gonzalez, which read:

“It was great catching up with Fifa President, Gianni Infantino on the sidelines of the CAF Elections 2021. The rollout of the African Super League with 20 permanent member clubs is underway. We look forward to having Simba SC Tanzania participate soon.”

This was a bold statement considering such a league had not been on the agenda for the assembly.

The biggest indication that Infantino’s African coup was complete came the following day in a press statement from Caf. The five vice presidents had been appointed. Senghor became 1st vice president, while Yahya took the second spot. The Mauritanian was also co-opted onto Caf’s Executive Committee for good measure. The Executive Committee now consists of 25 members, that is to say almost half of Caf’s constituency. The Committee had been expanded in 2017 by Ahmad to make room for those who had supported him. This time, it was necessary with two extra vice presidents. Fifa itself has six, one for each confederation. But Caf did not divide them into the respective zones, and of the five selected, four are from Western Africa.

Suleiman Waberi is now third vice president, while the last two were more surprising as Seidou Njouya now is the 4th vice president, and the delighted Kanizat Ibrahim as 5th.

While the consensus seemed to be universal at the assembly, as motions were passed without any votes against, and nobody dared to voice disagreement in public, Josimar knows that many officials clapped while gritting their teeth. One official sent a message to Josimar expressing:

“”CAF is now a FIFA department. It is the saddest moment in CAF history. [Gianni Infantino] has created a nasty and very dangerous system. He can suspend anyone with his toy from the Ethics Committee. And no one dares protest, because if he does, he will be suspended and banned on trumped-up charges or they set up a Standards Committee to sideline you.”

Ishmael Bhamjee of Botswana, who formerly presided over the COSAFA region within Caf, sent a similar message, which Josimar has seen, just a couple of days before he passed away on 8 March after contracting the Covid-19 virus:

“Caf is captured. African football is gone. It’s to be controlled by Infantino. Motsepe is just a front. Now I ask who the hell he is to tell Africa who should take what position. I’m just disgusted”.

The decisive nail in Caf’s coffin was the announcement of the new secretary general, Veron Mosengo-Omba, Infantino’s close friend from his days at the university in Fribourg.

Fifa’s colonisation of Caf was complete. But how did it all happen? Let’s take a look behind the curtains.

The set up
Jacques Anouma thought he knew what was in store for him when he arrived at the sprawling Sofitel Hôtel Jardin des Roses in Rabat on the morning of Saturday 27 February. He’d responded to the invitation of Fouzi Lekjaa, president of the Royal Football Federation of Morocco, head of finances and third vice-president of Caf, who wanted to gather the three West African candidates to the CAF presidential election scheduled to take place in the same luxurious venue on 12 March.

The idea – or so Anouma, 69, had been told by Lekjaa – was that he, the Ivorian veteran of African football politics, Mauritanian FA President Ahmed Yahya, 44, and Senegalese FA President Augustin Senghor, 55, should discuss the possibility of putting aside their personal bids to unite behind a single name. Should they come to an agreement, whichever of them three ticked the most boxes would then be designated as the sole challenger of the fourth candidate, South African mining billionaire Patrice Motsepe, whom everyone knew enjoyed the friendship and thinly, very thinly-veiled support of FIFA president Gianni Infantino. This sole remaining challenger would by all accounts stand an excellent chance to be CAF’s next president, now that the fifth candidate, incumbent and previous favourite Ahmad Ahmad was no longer in the race.

Ahmad, the subject of a 5-year-ban imposed by Fifa for a number of violations of the Ethics Code 5, had seen the Court of Arbitration for Sport lift his suspension on a temporary basis, and had been declared eligible by CAF’s Governance Committee. But a tumultuous meeting of CAF’s Executive Committee held on 5 February in Yaoundé had seen him thrown out for good. No matter that, just a few months before that, 46 of the 54 Member Associations which compose CAF had written a letter of support for the Malagasy official. He was out of the picture for good.

One possible scenario which enjoyed significant support in the region was that the doyen Anouma, who could only serve one term as president, as he would be over the age limit (70) when the next election would be held, would take Senghor as his first vice-president and groom him as his successor. Yahya, widely perceived to be another Fifa choice – a ‘Plan B’ who could deputise for Motsepe if need be and would divide the French-speaking West African vote in any case – would not be able to stand in the way of such an agreement. A lot depended on what Anouma’s and Senghor’s respective heads of state Alassane Ouattara and Macky Sall would decide anyway.

This, however, was not quite what Lekjaa had in mind, as Anouma and his entourage quickly discovered. They first were told that the first meeting, which was originally scheduled for 11am, had been delayed. The explanation they were given by their Moroccan hosts surprised them. “The interpreters aren’t here yet”. “Interpreters”, really? Lekjaa, Senghor, Anouma, Yahya, all of them spoke French. Why wait for “interpreters?”, they asked, but no answer was forthcoming. Senghor, meanwhile, was waiting patiently in his room, where Lekjaa called him to have their own private conversation, which went on for a couple of hours.

Anouma and his advisors had quickly realised that something was afoot, and confirmation of this came when they noticed the presence in the hotel lobby of two of the closest, if not the closest of Giannis’s Infantino’s lieutenants, Fifa’s Head of Member Associations Véron Mosengo-Omba, later to be given the job of CAF’s secretary-general, and Fifa’s deputy secretary general Mattias Grafström. Then they recognised another familiar face, that of Egyptian Fifa Council member Hany Abo Rida, the only survivor of the ‘Old’, pre-FBI raids Fifa, the man who, despite being the subject of an Ethics Committee investigation for the best part of ten years, still held considerable sway in the African confederation and beyond. Abo Rida hadn’t come alone. Ahmed Megahed, the chairman of the Fifa-appointed normalisation committee of the Egyptian FA, was also there.

Then, at 17:30, the main guest made his entrance, flanked by bodyguards: Patrice Motsepe in person.

By then, Yahya had already been made aware of the grand plan elaborated by Fifa with the support of two of the continent’s most powerful power-brokers, Morocco and Egypt. The Mauritanian had agreed to it. The ‘united’ West African candidacy was a red herring, a lure. Motsepe would be allowed to run unchallenged. There would be no ‘election’. This would be a coronation by acclamation – just like it had been for Infantino when he was crowned Fifa president in Paris in June 2019. Yahya’s reward would be the position of second vice-president of CAF, a prestigious springboard for a young and ambitious man like him. Djibouti FA chairman Suleiman Waberi, a faithful ally of Infantino’s, who’d recently accompanied Mosengo-Omba on a trip to Comoros, would become 3rd vice-president. Senghor, whom Lekjaa had informed of Fifa’s wishes in their private chat, had yet to respond positively, despite being offered the 1st Vice-presidency. Anouma, to whom a position as “advisor to the president” was proposed, was always going to be the toughest nut to crack. We were then a long away from the “consensus” which would later be trumpeted as a magnificent show of ‘African unity’ by CAF and Fifa.

Now that all the cast was assembled, the play could go ahead, but only after another hold-up. Mosengo-Omba and Grafström asked to be present in the room where the four candidates would listen to and discuss Lekjaa’s proposal – Fifa’s proposal, in other words -, but all of them refused to have Fifa employees being party to these confidential talks. Mosengo-Omba and Grafström withdrew, and the four candidates talked for three hours that night, with Lekjaa joining them shortly before they broke up for the day. No agreement had yet been reached, other than to reconvene on the following day.

Everyone – including Waberi, Abo Rida, Megahed, Mosengo-Omba and Grafström, who shared a taxi back to the hotel with Senghor – then repaired to a restaurant to have a relaxed conversation between friends over dinner, as they did over breakfast, lunch and dinner on the following day.

“Submitted by Fifa”
As Senghor confirmed in a statement published on his website, two meetings took place at the Hôtel des Roses on the Sunday at 11:00 and 17:00. By the end of the first one, Senghor was starting to sway, but Anouma was still holding firm, whilst Yahya was already ‘in’, as he had probably been for quite a while. At one point, Lekjaa said that Gianni Infantino was ready to fly in on Monday to vouch for the arrangement in person. This did not prove necessary in the end, but showed how crucial this meeting was in the eyes of the Fifa president. Lekjaa also insisted that all four candidates should sign a common statement, something which Senghor and Anouma refused to do. This had been a secret conference, so secret, in fact, that at least two of the people who took part in it had no idea it would take place in the form that it did until after they’d arrived in Morocco. There had been no public statement released prior to the meeting, there should be none afterwards. But they still signed the minutes of the discussion – which have not been made public yet. The deal was almost in place, but not quite. All it needed to be concluded was a little persuasion, a little push in Anouma’s back.

Strangely, or not so strangely, the word got through that the Ivorian candidate had been requested – ordered, rather –

by head of Fifa’s governance Committee Mukul Mugdal to provide an explanation for claims made in a handful of media that his bid was directly financed by his own government to the – quite extraordinary – tune of €15m. Those claims were unfounded, and Anouma had no trouble brushing them away. But it sounded ominously like a warning shot. The deal was as good as done, as Josimar was told on Sunday evening, and as was confirmed when, on 2 March, following consultations with his Head of State Macky Sall and his own FA, Senghor announced that he had accepted ”the consensual proposal submitted to us by Fifa, Morocco and Egypt, in the name of the Superior interest of the unity of African Football that we have put forward in our profession of faith”.

Whether Senghor, a man whose probity is not in doubt, realised it or not, the mention of Fifa as one of the authors of the proposal showed how far down the road to submission and subservience CAF had gone, and how brazen Fifa had become in its pursuit of ever-greater control over the affairs of its vassail. CAF was supposed to be an independent body. CAF’s 54 Member Associations are members of Fifa, but CAF itself isn’t. Its statutes, and Fifa’s own, expressly prohibit any kind of interference of that kind. Yet a man who had bid to become its president accepted that the governing body presided over by Gianni Infantino could bend the African confederation to its will.

Anouma threw in the towel a few days later, on the eve of another summit meeting between the ‘candidates’, in Nouakchott this time, to the disappointment of many who’d seen him as the last rempart of CAF’s independence, the last beacon of resistance in Fifa’s scramble for Africa. Yahya, who’d kept very quiet until then, pulled out of the race as planned. Patrice Motsepe would have no challenger.

But why was Fifa so anxious that this would be the case?

Made by Fifa
Josimar has told elsewhere how Ahmad Ahmad’s ascent to the top of African football was almost entirely Infantino’s doing, from the inception of the Malagasy’s bid to the campaign which reached a climax at the CAF Electoral AGM of Addis Ababa in March 2017, when the previously all-powerful Issa Hayatou was finally unseated.

To start with, Ahmad’s candidacy had been treated with a degree of disdain. Within CAF’s Executive Committee, he was the silent one, barely noticeable and barely noticed. CAF delegates studiously avoided him in the run-up to the election, as being seen with the nondescript Ahmad could be interpreted as a show of disloyalty towards Hayatou. Then, as Infantino worked his magic, votes started to gravitate towards the former pariah, whose eventual triumph was primarily Fifa’s.

Ahmad, however, did not prove quite as pliable as Fifa had hoped he would be, at least not in the last thirteen months of his term, when the ‘puppet’ of Zurich showed signs of wanting to cut off the strings which were held by his manipulators. He’d accepted that Fifa Secretary General Fatma Samoura (whom he knew very well thanks to her five-year stay as a UN official in Madagascar, when he himself was a minister there) run the affairs of his confederation when she was appointed regent (in all but name) of the confederation on 1 August 2019. As Josimar recently revealed, he agreed to cancel Caf’s 1 billion US dollars contract with French broadcasting giant Lagardère at Fifa’s behest. Then he rebelled – after a fashion.

Ahmad had become something of an encumbrance in any case. His arrest and questioning by French police in June 2019 – whilst attending Gianni Infantino’s re-election at the head of Fifa – followed revelations by Josimar and others that Caf had cancelled a huge equipment contract with PUMA to hand it to a completely unknown French company with zero experience in that field, a company which happened to be run by a close friend and former French army comrade-at-arms of Loïc Gérand, Ahmad’s personal advisor.

A full dossier on the affair had been passed on to Fifa’s Ethics Committee in March 2019 by Caf’s secretary-general Amr Fahmy, who was to die from cancer one year later, aged just 36. Fahmy was sacked by Ahmad as a result, a sacking which heralded an in-depth purge of Caf’s administration. Fahmy had also included incriminating information about how Ahmad had used Caf money to finance an expensive ‘minor’ (‘Umrah’) pilgrimage to Mecca for Muslim African football officials, including Ahmed Yahyah and Suleiman Waberi, who’ve just been appointed 2nd and 3rd vice-presidents of CAF. These accusations would prove the bedrock on which Fifa’s Adjudication Committee based their decision to ban Ahmad for five years on 23 November 2020, effectively preventing him from being a candidate to his own succession in March 2021.

The delay between the moment when Fifa received the incriminating documents from Fahmy (31 March 2019) and the date at which it formally opened its investigation into Ahmad’s alleged wrongdoings (25 March 2020) seems inordinately long, given Ahmad’s arrest in connection with the affair over nine months previously, and the fact that, judging from Fifa’s final Ethics Committee report, dated October 2020, almost no new evidence had been unearthed by Fifa compared to what medias like Josimar had published when Ahmad was questioned by the French investigators (who we can confirm are still working on this case).

What had happened that could explain such a delay, given the seriousness of the allegations and the preeminence of their target? One hypothesis is that Fifa, which has now weaponised its independent committees and its use of normalization orders to an unprecedented degree (see Josimar’s investigations into the TTFA, the Comoros FA and the FKF as examples), decided to sit on Ahmad’s case until such a time when this leverage could be used for maximum impact. What happened in this case certainly does nothing to invalidate this theory. It was only after Ahmad had clashed with Infantino’s desire to reform the CAF competitions calendar (the Fifa president had spoken at a conference held in Rabat, advocating a 4-year cycle for the African Cup of Nations) and refused to renew Samoura’s regency mandate for a further six months that the indictment process was activated.

The time to get rid of Ahmad had come. But whom to replace him with?

Hands-off president
The name of Patrice Motsepe was not an obvious one to come up with. The South African multi-billionaire was known to be the owner of South African elite club Mamelodi Sundowns, who’d enjoyed excellent results under his stewardship, winning the African Champions League in 2016. He was also known to be somewhat distant from the actual running of the team, and not especially au fait with the issues currently facing African football, as was shown during the Rabat Conference, when Augustin Senghor challenged him to name five members of CAF’s current Executive Committee, something which Motsepe was allegedly unable to do. It has also been obvious from his press conferences that the mining magnate’s knowledge of the conditions faced by the people who’d elected him was scant at best. It is highly unlikely that Patrice Motsepe will be a ‘hands-on’ president of CAF.

In that respect, this made him an excellent candidate as far as Fifa was concerned. Wealthy as he was, he would not be tempted to use his function to enrich himself. If he kept his distance from the day-to-day running of the confederation, this would enable Fifa’s envoy – at one time thought to be Fatma Samoura, now confirmed to be éminence grise Véron Mosengo-Omba – to have an almost free hand in the actual management of Africa’s supreme governing body.

Motsepe had also been recommended by Rwandan president Paul Kagame, a highly controversial and divisive figure in Africa, revered by some, considered a brutal tyrant by many others, whose advice Gianni Infantino has often sought in the past. Moïse Katumbi, the influential owner of one of Africa’s powerhouse football clubs, TP Mazembe, is also known to have approved of Motsepe’s choice.

The South African businessman is also a friend of Gianni Infantino’s. The two had been seen together at the infamous birthday party thrown by Zimbabwe’s FA chairman Phil Chiyangwa in Harare in February 2017, only one month before the Fifa-orchestrated ousting of Issa Hayatou. Motsepe and Infantino had also been photographed sitting next to Donald Trump in Davos in January 2020.

Motsepe’s own motivations for seeking out office at the head of CAF were not as clear. One explanation was that the increased access he was bound to get to heads of state and top civil servants would help his business. Another was that he harboured political ambitions in South Africa, and saw himself as a possible future successor to his brother-in-law Cytil Ramaphosa, the current president of the South African republic.

One thing that was out of the question for him, however, was to lose, and there was no chance of that happening if he ran against Ahmad. It didn’t matter how many letters of support Ahmad could get. All it took to remove him from the equation was a decision to ban him from all football activities by Fifa’s Ethics Committee, which had all the ammunition it needed to execute this if and when required. Which it did.

So the path looked clear for a while, until Jacques Anouma, whom Josimar was told was encouraged to stand by the Ahmad clan, decided to throw his hat into the ring, being closely followed by Augustin Senghor. Motsepe had yet to declare himself formally, as did Fifa’s supposed ‘Plan B’ Ahmed Yahya, and waited until 9 November to do so. His problem was that almost anyone who stood against him had a chance of beating him in a CAF election. Motsepe was an outsider. A rich man, no doubt, but not a football man. Unlike Anouma, Senghor, Yahya and Ahmad, he did not know who the people who would elect the next CAF president were. He would be seen as the candidate imposed by Fifa. He could lose. Unless Fifa intervened. And Fifa did.

Horse trading
Failure was unimaginable. It would be more than a humiliation if Motsepe wasn’t elected. It would jeopardise the grand plan of keeping CAF on a tight leash and ensuring its support for the global changes Infantino wished to implement in the future, such as the creation of a new, gigantic version of the Club World Cup which would weaken the hold of confederations (UEFA in particular, and its ally CONMEBOL, to a lesser degree) on club football, and re-channel revenue from various Champions Leagues competitions to the coffers of Fifa. And should a man other than Fifa’s favoured candidate, that is to say Motsepe, win the election, CAF and its 54 Member Associations (out of the 211 which compose Fifa) could also become a major stumbling block on the road to Infantino’s own re-election in 2023.

So Infantino took the matter in his own hands. It was not enough for his right-hand man and chief enforcer Véron Mosengo-Omba to criss-cross the continent as he’d done indefatigably in the past six months, pandemic or no pandemic, offering financial support through Fifa’s Forward and COVID relief programmes whilst reminding MAs of the threat of normalisation if they didn’t play by the book – Fifa’s book, that is. Infantino had to do that job himself.

One of the main reasons for this is that, contrary to what happens on other continents, Europe in particular, the real power in African football politics does not lie with the federations and their presidents, but with the governments. This is reflected in many of those FAs’ statutes, which place them under the direct control of their country’s Ministry of Sports. All of these FAs also receive direct subsidies from their governments, with the consequence that sitting on an association’s board becomes an act of public service, and is actually treated as such in legal terms in a number of African countries. In other words: it would be unthinkable for African FA chairmen to vote against the wishes of their heads of state. If Alassane Ouattara and Macky Sall told Anouma and Senghor to make way for Motsepe, they would have no choice but to comply. Gaining access to these heads of state and pleading the case for a favoured candidate – in this case, Motsepe – was therefore key to ensuring the success of the plan. Only Infantino himself could do that.

It would look like blatant interference into the affairs of CAF. It also constituted a brazen violation of both the confederation’s and Fifa’s statutes, which specifically target interference into their internal affairs as one of the most damning statutory breaches of them all. What’s more, it is worth keeping in mind that CAF is not a member of Fifa, even if its Member Associations are. But, as one former high-ranking Fifa official told Josimar, the magnitude of the interference was such that it could, paradoxically, go unnoticed. Cram the room with elephants, nobody will notice anything anymore, which is why so little was made of Senghor’s breath-taking public admission that the proposal adopted at the Rabat conference had been mooted by Fifa, when it should have unleashed a torrent of criticism – and even provoked a rebellion from African MAs. It would look like neo-imperialism, or neo-colonialism, and would be denounced as such. It was, in private by many, in public by a few, like former chiefs of Liberian and Togolese FAs Musa Bility and Tata Avlessi. But this would not matter in the end, as who would be Fifa’s judge? Fifa itself. Fifa was not going to condemn or punish itself. Infantino could start his African journey with his mind at rest.

Touring Africa
He had visited the African continent as Fifa president a number of times beforehand, but never in this extraordinary fashion. His previous tours, such as those which took place in January and November 2019, had lasted just a few days and consisted of only a handful of stopovers. This time, in the midst of a global pandemic, he managed to cram in visits to eleven countries in the matter of ten days.

Infantino’s offensive started on 16 February in Mauritania, where the pattern was set for the rest of his African blitz. The Fifa president would inaugurate a new Fifa office or a facility funded in totality or in part by the governing body’s Forward programme, shake hands or bump fists with local football officials and, most importantly, hold private talks with the local Head of State or key government advisors. This, by the way, demonstrates how much prior planning must have gone on before the tour took place: prime ministers and presidents do not find free time in their schedule at the drop of a hat.

On 16 February, Infantino was in Nouadhibou, taking this opportunity to lavish praise on FFRIM president and CAF presidential hopeful Ahmed Yahya in what just stopped short of a clear endorsement, before meeting Mauritanian president Mohammed Cheikh El Ghazouani. The following day, he was the host of Augustin Senghor and president Macky Sall in Dakar, Senegal. From there, straight on to Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, where he was made a Commander of the Ordre National de la Reconnaissance by PM Firmin Ngrédaba and met president Faustin-Archange Touadéra (18 February). Two countries were on his schedule on the 19th. The first port of call was Rwanda’s capital Kigali, where president Paul Kagame, a key ally in the inception of the Motsepe bid, received him. Another hop on the private jet, put at his disposal by Fifa partner Qatar Airways, and he landed in the evening in Congo-Brazzaville, where he met with president Denis Sassou Nguesso. On the 20th, Infantino crossed the river Congo to Kinshasa, where his host was president of the DRC Felix Tsishekedi, who’d been recently appointed Chairman of the African Union. No time to breathe – next box to tick was Patrice Motsepe’s home country, South Africa, where COSAFA (the Council of Southern African Football Associations, which includes 14 Member Associations from the south of the continent) was holding its AGM in Johannesburg on 20 February, the perfect occasion for Infantino to stress the importance of ‘African unity’ to an audience of FA presidents before visiting Cape Town, where he was granted an audience with president Cyril Ramaphosa, Motsepe’s brother-in-law.

Sudan was next, on 21 February, where he was welcomed by Chairman of the Transitional Sovereignty Council Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, followed by Morocco, which Infantino calls “a powerhouse of African football”, a description which is doubly apt in the circumstances, as the man who greeted him on the tarmac of Rabat airport, CAF VP Fouzi Lekjaa, would also be the crucial go-between and facilitator of Fifa’s grand plan to ‘unite’ the CAF presidential bids behind the sole Motsepe, as we’ve seen. Infantino signed off his whirlwind tour of the African continent with meetings with the interim president of Mali Bah Ndaw and, last, on Friday 26 February, with Beninese head of state Patrice Talon, just as Jacques Anouma, Augustin Senghor and Ahmed Yahya were getting ready to fly to Rabat.

There was one glaring absentee in the list of countries which Infantino had visited to promote his vision of African football’s future, and who should be in charge of it: the Ivory Coast, the country of Fifa’s irritant Jacques Anouma, who had said things such as “it’s up to Africans to decide. Do they want to put at the head of CAF a federation president in the pay of FIFA or someone who has time to give them”, a barb which absolutely everyone knew was directed at Motsepe. The official explanation was that a visit had been planned, but that clashing schedules had forced its postponement.

No new date for the visit has been announced yet.

[Chester Perry]

I have seen these kinds of studies before and I remain unconvinced by the findings related to those who would be willing to pay for legitimate services, or rather that rights holders would cater to those requirements including price points - from SportsProMedia.com

Study: Sports rights holders missing out on US$28.3bn a year due to piracy
Synamedia and Ampere say identifying consumer triggers can transform piracy into a revenue opportunity.

Posted: March 16 2021By: Sam Carp

- OTT sports streaming services alone stand to gain US$5.4bn by eradicating piracy
- Survey of 6,000 sports fans finds 74% would convert from illegal services if legitimate alternative is available and illegal streams become unreliable
- 52 per cent of those most likely to switch to legal platforms pay for a pirate service

Sports service providers and rights holders are missing out on up to US$28.3 billion in new revenue each year as a result of piracy, according to a new study by video technology company Synamedia and market research firm Ampere Analysis.

The report found that over-the-top (OTT) sports streaming services alone would stand to gain US$5.4 billion - equivalent to 19 per cent of the total - by eradicating piracy, with the remainder available to pay-TV broadcasters.

The overall figure in the study, titled Pricing piracy: the value of action, was generated by identifying the demographics and characteristics of illegal users that are most likely to convert to legal services, including their reaction when illegal viewing is disrupted.

As part of the report, a survey of 6,000 sports fans conducted by Ampere Analysis found that 74 per cent would be willing to switch from illegal services if a legitimate alternative is available and if the illegal streams become unreliable.

By understanding those motivations and behaviours, the report says that service providers can target interventions - such as disrupting streams and incentives - at the ‘converter cohort’, which refers to viewers most likely to switch to legitimate platforms.

The study found that the converter cohort primarily comprises younger fans and are often families with young children. The group is made up of avid sports viewers, many of whom watch ten or more different sports using connected devices.

Some 40 per cent of the converter cohort said they would subscribe to OTT sports streaming services, including single-sport platforms operated by rights owners, with the balance opting for traditional pay-TV services, particularly those with exclusive coverage.

Despite being the most likely to switch from illegal streaming, the study also found that 57 per cent of the converter cohort already pay for legitimate subscriptions, while 52 per cent are putting money in the pockets of illegal services.

The study therefore calls on service providers and rights holders to ‘transform piracy from a cost centre into a revenue opportunity’ by identifying the triggers that lead consumers to turn to piracy. Some of the reasons that consumers favour illegal streams are listed as flexible access without complex installations or long contracts, ease of use, availability on every device in any location and a price point that is often much lower than a traditional pay-TV contract.

Yael Fainaro, senior vice president of security at Synamedia, said: “After years of growth, a recent downturn in rights fees has been exacerbated by the pandemic, hitting sports rights hard. But just as the value of rights is being eroded, there is now the prospect of creating new revenues by converting illegal viewers into paid subscribers.

“While previous attempts to value the revenue leakage from sports streaming piracy took a crude approach, we now have the detail to develop targeted approaches and the tools to deliver quantifiable results, ensuring every investment hits the jackpot.”

It is the latest report on piracy released by Ampere and Synamedia, which last year carried out a ten-country study of more than 6,000 sports fans. That analysis that found 51 per cent of respondents still used pirate services to watch live sport on a monthly basis, despite some 89 per cent of participants owning a subscription to a pay-TV or OTT platform.

[Chester Perry]

This has bee discussed for years but it seems that a Beneliga (a combined Dutch and Belgian League) could happen after all Belgian clubs in the top 2 divisions voted it through - from SportsBusines.com

Beneliga takes step towards reality as Belgian clubs give ‘unanimous support’ to plans
Adam Nelson, Europe office
March 16, 2021

The proposed ‘Beneliga’ – a super league comprised of top Dutch and Belgian football clubs – has taken a step towards becoming reality after top clubs in Belgium backed plans for the competition.

The general assembly of the Pro League, the governing body of the top two leagues of Belgian football, voted unanimously to support moving forward with the concept at a meeting earlier today (Tuesday).

All 24 teams in the First Division A and First Division B gave their backing to the proposal, though no specifics were agreed upon.

Peter Croonen, the president of the Pro League, said: “There is unanimous support for giving the possible realisation of the Beneleague every chance. This must be accompanied by the assurance of economic stability for the other professional clubs through the creation of one national top league.

“The future ambition is based on respect for the sporting aspirations for the top clubs and the need for economic stability for the remaining professional clubs based on sustainable licensing and competition rules.

“We have now chosen a direction, which hopefully will allow us to make logical decisions for the future.”

The Pro League will now attempt to conduct further conversations with both its Dutch counterpart and its broadcast partner, Eleven, with whom it reportedly has a clause allowing for the eventuality of a ‘super league’ being established even during the current rights cycle, which runs until the end of the 2024-25 season.

Earlier this year, professional services firm Deloitte announced the results of a study finding that a combined league could generate media rights sales of up to €400m ($476m) per season – a considerable rise on the €80m each league is currently estimated to generate from their respective TV deals.

The concept was first mooted in 1996 as a way for Dutch and Belgian clubs to keep pace with the commercial changes in European club football. The concept has cropped up several times over the past 23 years, but a group of Belgian clubs known as the G5 – AA Gent, Club Brugge, KRC Genk, RSC Anderlecht and Standard Liege – have been the driving force behind the recent resurgence of the idea.

In 2019, representatives from the G5 met with six Dutch Eredivisie teams – AFC Ajax, AZ Alkmaar, FC Utrecht, Feyenoord, PSV Eindhoven and Vitesse – to discuss the idea, with support at the time believed to have been strong among those clubs.

Later that year, the Dutch Football Association (KNVB) confirmed that it had commissioned Deloitte to carry out a study into the feasibility of the project, with the study reportedly finding that even the smaller teams in the Belgian and Dutch leagues would benefit from the increased commercial visibility and media rights selling power of a combined league.

Towards the end of 2020, Club Brugge chief executive Vincent Mannaert said that recent discussions had progressed to the point where a Beneliga could be a “realistic prospect” in time for the 2023-24 season.

The two countries already enjoy a shared league in handball, with the BeNe League having been founded in 2008, and ice hockey, whose BeNe League features teams from both countries and began in 2015.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Just spotted this Belgian and Dutch league merger online, interesting proposal.

[Chester Perry]

Just spotted this Belgian and Dutch league merger online, interesting proposal.

The BeNeLiga idea has not always had such a favourable response, particular if you are called Michel Platini and you suggest it

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/ ... gues-merge

[Chester Perry]

The title is crass, but as we have seen there has to be specialist middleman knowledge in the buying of a football club, some of course have better reputations than others, though I am sure what fans think and what prospective owners think are often quite different on that scale of measurement. the same is likely to be said re owners and fans. The Athletic on the "Estate Agency" for football clubs, of course no one really likes estate agents so that gets them off to a bad start for many

https://theathletic.com/2445242/?source=twitteruk

[Chester Perry]

Sky Italia/KPMG's Football Benchmark looks at the new investors in European Football - particularly those from Private Equity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh8tbcwGWn4&t=3s

as ever subtitles are available at the 5th icon at the bottom right of the video

[Chester Perry]

It has come as no surprise to those of us who have been watching these things for some time but the proposed takeover of Derby County by Sheikh Khaled has collapsed - from the Telegraph

Derby County furious after takeover collapses - so why does Sheikh Khaled find it so hard to buy football clubs?
John Percy, Mike McGrath 3 hrs ago

Derby County's protracted takeover by Bin Zayed International has finally been scrapped, with the Championship club understood to be "furious".

Mel Morris, the Derby owner and chairman, has ended negotiations with Sheikh Khaled and his party after the Dubai-based businessman failed to meet a final deadline to complete the deal.

After nearly 12 months of talks, Morris is understood to have told BZI they had until Monday to deliver the necessary funds, but with no resolution the deal is off with Derby now pursuing other options.

It is now the third time that Sheikh Khaled, a cousin of Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour, has fallen short in his bid to buy a football club after previous attempts with Liverpool and Newcastle.

Derby announced on November 6 they had agreed a deal in principle with Derventio Holdings, a company set up by BZI, and the takeover was approved by the English Football League.

Three separate deadlines have now been missed, including one on Christmas Eve, and the delay threatened to plunge Derby into financial crisis earlier this year.

In January, it is understood that Derby's finances were woefully low and Morris had to provide funds from his own pocket to keep the club afloat. The sales of Kaide Gordon to Liverpool, George Evans to Millwall and Morgan Whittaker to Swansea also helped to generate cash flow at a crucial time.

Derby have not discounted the prospect of legal action for breach of contract now that negotiations have ceased.

Morris is currently talking to other parties, including Spanish businessman Erik Alonso and at least two other consortiums who are said to be credible.

Derby secured a 2-2 draw with Brentford at Pride Park on Tuesday night and are currently 19th in the Championship table.


Sheikh Khaled's murky history with English football
By Mike McGrath

When the news alerts started pinging on mobile phones, Derby County fans started getting excited. Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan had previously been reported to be close to a takeover at Pride Park but now it was official.

In black and white, the club confirmed it. Derventio Holdings Limited, read Derby’s statement, had passed the EFL’s “Owners and Director’s test” (sic). The company funded by Sheikh Khaled was expected to complete the transaction imminently and there would be no further comment from any of the parties. There seemed little need for more detail with the deal so close.

That statement was on Nov 6. Four months later and the Sheikh’s deal has collapsed, making it the third time he has failed with a takeover. He has left a trail of disappointment and questions over why a billionaire from the Abu Dhabi royal family cannot complete seemingly straightforward deals.

Since the expected takeover was announced, Derby have sacked one manager and appointed the country’s greatest international goalscorer [Wayne Rooney]. Former England manager Steve McClaren has been appointed technical director in anticipation of the £60 million deal, but the collapse leaves the club in limbo.

Players have been waiting for the deal to be completed. They were told, via email, that a last-minute delay in the takeover transaction meant their wages were not paid at the end of December, but it would be ironed out in good time. Yet there was still no sign of the takeover being finalised.

Sheikh Khaled, reported to be a cousin of Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour, never spoke publicly about Derby. Indeed, he has never been on the record about the three clubs he has tried to buy. In 2018 he was interviewed at the Malta Blockchain Summit, a technology trade event, when he looked a little older and thinner than the stock pictures of him accompanying stories of his efforts to enter the world of football. He has seldom been seen since.

The public face of Sheikh Khaled’s takeover bids has been Midhat Kidwai. As a director of Derventio, missing out on Derby County has made it a hat-trick of takeovers where Kidwai - London-born and educated, and who started a civil engineering degree before going into chartered accountancy - has promised billions worth of investment from Abu Dhabi only for deals to fizzle out.

The first mention of Kidwai in the national press came in 2018 when The Daily Mail revealed Sheikh Khaled had failed in an audacious attempt to buy Liverpool for £2 billion in what would have been the most expensive takeover in the history of football.

Kidwai, on behalf of Sheikh Khaled, had met Liverpool chairman Tom Werner in New York. The Bin Zayed Group (BZG), the Sheikh’s company, had seen the potential of investing in a global brand.

The meeting is not even a footnote now at Anfield, with the club returning to the top of European football under their existing Fenway Sports Group (FSG) owners. “I don’t think it was very serious,” said one club source recently. At the time, that view was backed up with a categorical denial of an agreement being made.

Proof of funds or a £25m down payment for the deal never materialised. FSG went on the record and insisted they would “consider taking on a minority investor” but the club was not for sale.

So the biggest deal in Premier League history collapsed but the Bin Zayed Group was now on the map; new players among football’s wealthy and looking to invest in the right club. Within nine months, they were trying to buy Newcastle United.

This time it was The Sun who broke the story of Mike Ashley agreeing to sell to Khaled, his asking price of £350m small in comparison to the money he was prepared to spend buying Liverpool. It appeared, on the face of it, an easy deal. The money needed was a drop in the ocean for the Sheikh and Newcastle supporters wanted change after 12 years of Ashley.

Kidwai was now centre stage. As managing director of the Bin Zayed Group he released statements about the takeover. “We have agreed terms and are working hard to complete the transaction at the earliest opportunity,” he said.

There were a few warnings, lingering doubts over the deal going through, but this was a perfect storm for Kidwai. Fans were desperate for new owners, desperate for Rafa Benitez to stay at St James’ Park and for the Sheikh to spend his billions on the world’s finest players which would take the club back to the 1990s when they were competing for the title.

In the circumstances, anomalies could be overlooked. It was not considered significant that the Bin Zayed Group official website looked rudimentary, its copyright date at the bottom of the home page dated 2008 and looking barely updated since.

They used stock pictures of the man behind the wealth and his profile opened with the line, “Sheikh Khaled Bin Zayed Al Nehayan is a pioneer extraordinaire”. He is also listed as president of the UAE Sailing and Rowing Federation, whose official website is defunct.

The Sheikh was once billed as a cousin to City’s owner but the relationship seemed unclear. A source close to Mansour recently told The Daily Telegraph there was “no meaningful relationship” between the pair and if they are related, it is distant.

It has been Kidwai who has spoken about the group’s diverse interests in construction and energy, trading and industry, real estate, technology and financial services. He explains his business background in a 2015 interview with Human Resources expert Amro Bullock. On an interview set looking like a living room, Kidwai says he worked in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia but had been back in England since around 2008.

When the Newcastle takeover attempt became public, it was Kidwai who was the face of the bid. But later in the summer, messages started coming via Pete Redding, a disc jockey in Dubai with the Twitter handle @dubai_geordie. “Press claims of no bids or Premier League approval processes are simply untrue,” read part of BZG’s statement through Redding.

A few months after declaring they had agreed to buy Newcastle, it went quiet in the Middle East. It is difficult to say exactly when the deal collapsed, but by the time Ashley was interviewed by The Daily Mail’s Martin Samuel in July 2019, there was no hope of a takeover. "The last bid, the one from UAE, he's a prince and he's got £38bn or £100bn, all these numbers - well, why would you even care what you're paying then?” he said.

What is unclear is how close the Newcastle takeover was. Was BZG put off by the terms being changed? Did it have the money? Kidwai did not reply to calls and messages over the takeover.

The news of interest in Derby County broke last October through a different media outlet. This time The Athletic reported Sheikh Khaled was interested in the Championship club, who were struggling at the wrong end of the table but had Wayne Rooney, who would soon become manager.

Derventio was the name of the Roman town that evolved into Derby, a nod to a glorious past and hope of a return to the former glories. Those supporters whose mobiles pinged with the news of a takeover have ultimately been frustrated, although they can console themselves with the knowledge that they are far from alone.

When considering how takeovers work, it is worth reading Ashley’s interview with Samuel again. In contrast to the soundbites on television, the Newcastle owner gives answers with depth and explains himself fully. He suggests when Newcastle is sold the first people will hear about it will be when the takeover is completed. (you can read that interview here https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... owner.html)

These deals rarely come with a long run-up.

[Chester Perry]

This makes for interesting reading - CIES Football Observatory looks at Sustainable squad management

https://football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr63/en/

What is particularly interesting is how many English clubs are at the top end of the overall sustainability rating - and yes we do quite well

[Chester Perry]

The Guardian with the sorry take of Birmingham City - I cannot for the life of me understand why Bowyer has left Charlton for them. Also we can add this club to the list that have sold their own ground to themselves, though this was considerably cheaper and considering it's semi-condemned state you wonder if there is another motive, though the location is not one you would call salubrious


'Staring at the abyss': Birmingham City's tale of endless turmoil
Lee Bowyer is the latest manager tasked with trying to revive a club struggling under a Hong Kong-based holding company

Ben Fisher - Wed 17 Mar 2021 08.01 GMT

“Normally we do this every 12 months, or less,” said the Birmingham City chief executive, Xuandong Ren, at Aitor Karanka’s unveiling last August. It was a haunting soundbite that had those present at St Andrew’s, renamed three years ago to incorporate the name of the Hong Kong-based holding company that owns the club, Trillion Trophy Asia, squirming. Ren’s opening gambit was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek but there is more than a grain of truth behind the sentiment.

It was an ominous start to life under Karanka and sure enough the Spaniard has gone less than eight months into a three-year contract, with Lee Bowyer named the club’s eighth manager in less than five years. Bowyer was part of the side that lifted the League Cup at Wembley 10 years ago but following relegation that season Birmingham have left behind Europa League trips to Brugge and Braga and face the prospect of returning to the third tier for the first time since 1995.

Before hosting Reading on Wednesday they are three points above the relegation zone. “It has been a sad decline,” says the former Birmingham defender Michael Johnson. “Lifelong fans are worried about the club’s future.”

The threat of relegation is nothing new – Birmingham have not finished above 17th since turning to Gianfranco Zola when sacking Gary Rowett in December 2016 with the club seventh, a decision that looks more baffling by the day. Harry Redknapp, Steve Cotterill, Garry Monk and Pep Clotet have played the role of firefighter since and, after avoiding dropping into League One by two points last season, now it is over to Bowyer to channel Red Adair. Going further back, it is seven years since Birmingham rallied from 2-0 down to stay up on the final day courtesy of a 93rd-minute equaliser at Bolton. “You breathe a sigh of relief and hope lessons will be learned,” says Johnson. “But the club has not moved on and here we are again staring at the abyss. It is a club that seems to be weekly, monthly, yearly in turmoil.”

Recruitment staff have been furloughed since last year and scouting outsourced to companies in France and Spain. Ren regularly attended training under Clotet last season in a club tracksuit but perhaps the most bonkers story came to light over the weekend, when Karanka’s last supper played out in a bizarre episode at the club’s Wast Hills base. As first reported in the Daily Mirror, on Sunday staff and players, in for their recovery session after a 3-0 loss to Bristol City, reported for a celebratory lunch to belatedly mark Ren’s 39th birthday. Karanka had just been sacked but sat through the pleasantries anyway.

Ren was adamant Karanka was the man to return Birmingham to the Premier League but the chairman, Wenqing Zhao, is understood to have pressed the button to relieve the manager. “It doesn’t matter who you put in charge, if the culture is not quite right, there are always going to be things that surface to the top,” says Johnson. “Unless someone can go in and have a good sweep out of the garage, you are just creating more trouble and issues.”

Karanka publicly throwing players under the bus hardly endeared him to a dressing room low on confidence after a run of three wins since Christmas. Several longstanding staff members have departed, with Julia Shelton, the club secretary for two decades, among a quartet of senior administrative figures to leave in January 2019. Last week, her replacement, Ciara Gallagher, handed in her notice. The former academy coach Richard Beale, instrumental in the development of Nathan Redmond and Demarai Gray, left after 15 years in June 2019. He recently said he was “pushed out for the same reason as five or six of the other people”, because he was “not willing just to sit back and let what was happening happen”.

The owners have invested millions but wasted millions. Scattergun recruitment led to exorbitant spending during Redknapp’s reign in 2017, with top earners on about £30,000 a week and a wage bill totalling £38m for 2017-18. They have twice been found guilty of financial misconduct under English Football League regulations and received a nine-point deduction in 2018-19 after breaking profit and sustainability rules. Ren has defended his regime and told the BBC last month: “My top priority is to make this football club self-sustainable. The more self-sustainable you become, the less you have to rely on the owner or the parent company. The club is getting very close to becoming self-sustainable. We have a healthy squad.”

Birmingham’s chief executive, Xuandong Ren, pictured last September. Photograph: Paul Greenwood/BPI/REX/Shutterstock
Last year Birmingham’s plans to shelve an academy structure that produced Jude Bellingham, sold to Borussia Dortmund last summer for a fee rising to more than £30m, in favour of a B-team model caught senior academy staff by surprise. The announcement caused consternation within the club and, 24 hours later, they U-turned and confirmed their intention to attain Category One status. They are undergoing the auditing process.

In December the former academy manager Kristjaan Speakman left for a sporting director role at Sunderland after 14 years. “It is sad to see some people who have had some real longevity move on to pastures new,” says Johnson, formerly a club ambassador and now England Under-21s assistant manager. “When you lose those people in any environment, you lose a lot of the emotional connection and DNA. Those people are the kind that are supposed to finish at 5pm but come 7pm you’ll still see them there working”

To cap it all, the stadium, sold for £22.8m last year to a company controlled by the owner Paul Suen Cho Hung is no longer fit for purpose. A routine inspection by Birmingham city council in December found two stands – the Tilton and the Kop – failed to satisfy safety guidelines and there are major doubts as to whether they will be fixed in time for the expected return of fans next season. “A huge amount of repair work has to be done,” Ren said.

[Chester Perry]

It's deja vu time at Serie A again, another week another failure to agree the Domestic rights deal or International rights, as ever more talks required - from SportsBusiness.com

Serie A fails to award domestic rights again, more private talks for international rights
SportBusiness Staff
March 17, 2021
Mergim Vojvoda of Torino, Ivan Perii of Inter during Serie A match (Photo by Massimiliano Ferraro/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Italian Serie A football clubs have once again failed to reach a consensus on the allocation of domestic broadcast rights for the 2021-24 cycle.

Meetings held on March 4 and March 11 failed to deliver a consensus and a follow-up assembly meeting held yesterday (Tuesday) resulted in a similar outcome. Incumbent rights-holders DAZN and Sky Italia have been vying for the contract but clubs have not been able to reach a majority decision.

The latest impasse comes as Lega Serie A has decided on another phase of private negotiations over the sale of international rights.

Lega Serie A did not disclose details of how clubs voted but reports in the Italian press claim that Atalanta, Fiorentina, Hellas Verona, Inter Milan, Juventus, Lazio, AC Milan, Napoli, Parma and Udinese favoured DAZN’s offer.

Benevento, Bologna, Crotone, Genoa, Roma, Sampdoria, Sassuolo, Spezia and Torino abstained from voting, while Cagliari was absent from the meeting.

The clubs who abstained are the same nine who reportedly did so in previous meetings held on March 4 and February 26. Cagliari had previously voted in favour of DAZN’s proposal, which carries the support of telecoms operator TIM.

A total of 14 votes are needed to approve any deal.

Clubs will continue to evaluate the offers received in a new assembly meeting scheduled for next week.

DAZN has submitted the leading offer of €840m ($1.01bn) per season for rights to seven exclusive matches per matchweek and co-exclusive rights to three matches. Ahead of the February 26 meeting, Sky sought to increase pressure on the clubs by flagging concerns over the effect on market competition of the DAZN-TIM proposal.

Along with streaming on its OTT platform, DAZN currently airs Serie A action on its linear channel, which is available on Sky’s pay-television platform. The DAZN offering is also available as an add-on for subscribers to Telecom Italia’s TIMvision live streaming and video-on-demand service, and to Vodafone’s television customers.

Should DAZN be awarded the rights on the terms offered, then 40 per cent of its bid would equate to €336m per year. TIM’s payments would be settled in six annual instalments of identical amounts “made to an escrow bank account to be used exclusively for payments to Serie A”, according to details of a letter published by Bloomberg.

Serie A’s existing deals with Sky and DAZN (from 2018-19 to 2020-21) are worth €973m per year.

Sky is thought to have bid €750m for Package 2, one of the ‘mixed’ marketing packages offered by Lega Serie A, comprising rights across all platforms but with only co-exclusivity for internet, IPTV and mobile rights. It recently emerged that Sky has offered an upfront payment of €505m as part of its offer, including the settling of the disputed final instalment for the 2019-20 season.

International rights
The subject of international media rights was also up for discussion during yesterday’s meeting, with Lega Serie A stating that it has entered into a second round of private negotiations.

Earlier this month, Lega Serie A made alterations to the countries and regions on offer in some of its international rights packages as it invited agencies and broadcasters to increase their bids for the 2021-24 cycle by March 10.

The league’s second round of bidding was launched after it concluded a phase of private negotiations launched in January.

The global tender was launched on November 23 and was divided into 57 packages, including 52 country-specific packages, four continental packages and one ‘global’ package.

Rights in the Middle East and North Africa (along with Italy, San Marino, and the Vatican City) continue to be excluded from the global offering with the league having entered private negotiations in the Mena region after inviting bids by February 28.

International rights are currently held by the IMG agency in a deal originally worth just over €380m per season. That covers international broadcast rights, club archive rights, betting rights, a marketing spend and fee for access to the broadcast signal.

IMG, Infront, Sportfive and Mediapro are among the agencies thought to have bid in the global tender, along with the likes of Aser Ventures, the media group that owns subscription broadcaster Eleven, and the Disney-owned ESPN.

Along with Serie A, the tender also includes rights to the knockout Coppa Italia competition and Supercoppa tournament with the packages covering these divided along the equivalent package lines as the league.

In-flight and in-ship rights are also included in the global ITT.

[Chester Perry]

With all the Private Equity Interest in Sport it should come as no surprise that other kinds of financial shenanigans/instruments are moving in on the act - today saw the announcement of Sports first Exchange Traded Fund - you can find out what exactly an ETF is here https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/etf.asp

As ever these type of things need to build credibility so I am a little surprised that Joseph Pompliano of the hugely respected sports industry newsletter HuddleUp as got involved at such an early stage - here's what he has to say about it

https://huddleup.substack.com/p/the-fir ... Kq5KLJNvL0

needless to say it is not for me

[Chester Perry]

It is not that long ago that Middlesbrough saw us as great rivals, but things have moved on some what since then as football fortune once again conspired against them. They are a very different club to us, specifically as they have an owner that appears continually willing to pour money into the club to fund losses - he has been doing that for over 30 years now. Here we see there 2019/20 financial results

Statement of Accounts
https://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/sites/ ... 019-20.pdf

Summary of Accounts
https://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/sites/ ... 019-20.pdf

@KieranMaguire has had a look to

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 4585459715

It is noticeable that this is another club that is working to reduce it's transfer liabilities - while understandable in the division, this is part of a welcome trend across the game, as is the fact that the analysts are paying greater heed to that debt.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

You seen the new NFL TV deal set to start from 2023?
Over $100 billion for 10yrs

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Losses of £206 million at Boro.... Just wow.

I remember when they were bragging over their PL signings of Valdes etc.
Pretty sure a few of us said it would end in tears.

[Chester Perry]

You seen the new NFL TV deal set to start from 2023?
Over $100 billion for 10yrs

It is not a surprise, and had been forecast for some time, it was posted on this thread a couple of months back that this was possible - as I have said recently it is one of a small handful of sports rights that drives subscriptions, the length of the deal also allows broadcasters/rights holders to build business plans that will give them a return on the investment - which is exactly what Claire Enders was telling the Premier League to do as there is no rivalry between the domestic broadcasters know, they are all happy with the shares they own. The Premier League being in that elite group of sports rights that can drive subscriber numbers.

There are lessons to be learned here, will the Premier League use them?

Here is the Washington Post with the low down on that deal, not that from some broadcasters the deal starts earlier than others so that all end on the same date in 2033, also note how the different slots have warranted different price growth

What the NFL’s new TV deal means for the league, fans and networks

By Ben Strauss March 18, 2021 at 8:57 p.m. GMT

The NFL on Thursday announced a slew of new media rights deals that further cement the league’s status as the most valuable property on television. Here’s what it means for viewers, the league and the media companies forking over billions to stay in business with football.

Who will broadcast NFL games?
Sundays and Mondays will look very similar for NFL fans, with CBS continuing to carry the predominantly AFC package, and FOX carrying its traditional slate of games involving NFC teams. NBC will broadcast the Sunday night game, and ESPN will hang on to Monday Night Football.

ABC will also enter the Super Bowl rotation, which would put the Monday Night Football crew — Steve Levy, Brian Griese and Louis Riddick — in line to potentially to call the game. Expect ESPN to deliver its “Megacast” concept to the Super Bowl, meaning several different feeds will be available to fans on its cable channels and streaming service, ESPN+.

Streaming services ESPN+, Peacock (NBC) and Paramount+ (CBS) will also carry games.

Thursday night is where fans will see the biggest change, with Amazon getting exclusive streaming rights to those games. Local markets will still air games over broadcast TV, but other fans will need to be Amazon Prime subscribers (or have a friend willing to lend their login) to watch.

How long are the deals?
CBS, Fox and NBC signed 11-year deals, with ESPN signing up for 12 years, which will allow the deals with those networks to expire together at the end of the 2033 season.

How much are the networks paying?
A lot.

Fox, CBS and NBC are paying around $2 billion annually, basically doubling the amounts they are paying in their current deals. ESPN, which currently pays around $2 billion for its Monday Night package, will pay around $2.7 annually in the new pact. Amazon will pay around $1 billion for its right to stream Thursday night games.

The amounts are staggering, and they show just how tied to the NFL the networks are. This is especially true of Fox and CBS, which are smaller companies than Disney, which owns ESPN, and Comcast, which owns NBC. Fox will be paying annually around 10 percent of its current market capitalization, which is just above $20 billion. CBS will be paying around 3 percent of its current market capitalization which is around $60 billion.

ESPN’s new deal looks slightly different from the others. Currently, it pays higher rights fees than CBS and NBC because it also gets access to highlights that fuel ESPN programming for much of the year. ESPN also pays a premium, according to some insiders, because it is the only network that takes the NFL’s games off broadcast TV, which has the largest reach of any media.

With Disney paying $2.7 billion, the two sides reached a compromise that will pay the NFL lots of money and allow Disney executives to say to shareholders that they held the line on the NFL’s demands.

Why are they paying so much?
After a year in which sports TV ratings were down across the board, the NFL still maintained its dominance. The league delivered 33 of the top 50 TV audiences in 2020, including 14 of the top 20, according to data compiled by Sportico. If advertisers want to reach big audiences — even if those audiences are smaller than they have been in the past — sports, and more specifically the NFL, is increasingly the best place to do that.

Thursday Night Football is here to stay, isn’t it?
Yes. The NFL introduced Thursday night games in 2006. CBS, NBC and most recently FOX have all taken turns as broadcasters. Fox currently pays an estimated $650 million for the package, after signing a five-year pact in 2019.

The networks were less keen to bid on Thursday night games moving forward both because of the price increases for the other packages and because NFL Network and Amazon would likely have been simulcast partners. Without exclusive windows, it is harder to monetize the telecasts.

In turning over its Thursday night slate to Amazon, the NFL is trading reach for a bet on the future. The NFL televised one game exclusively on Amazon last season, which drew around 4 million viewers, much less than the average game on linear TV.

Does Sunday Ticket have a new home?
Not yet. DirecTV currently pays around $1.5 billion annually for the package, which offers a full slate of out-of-market game to customers. That the package wasn’t announced with the others could suggest there isn’t as robust a market for it, though streaming services like ESPN+ and NBC’s, Peacock, are considered favorites to eventually land it.

What do the deals mean for the future of football-watching?
In announcing the deal, the NFL touted its expanded streaming presence, with games on Amazon, ESPN+ and network streaming partners. Both NBC and ESPN will have exclusive games on their streaming platforms, meaning fans will need to purchase them to watch every Sunday and Monday night game. CBS will also make all of its telecasts available on Paramount+, its streaming service. All three media companies hope to use the NFL to boost their subscribers.

But legacy media companies remain the predominant home of the NFL. The league has always prided itself on reaching the most fans, and the best way to do that continues to be broadcast TV.

The broadcast channels will likely increase the fees they charge cable companies to carry them over the life of the deal, meaning fans will ultimately pay for some of the higher rights fees. Fans will also have to purchase multiple streaming services--ESPN+, Peacock, Amazon Prime--to watch NFL every game.

What does it mean for the league?
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones can buy an even bigger yacht, probably. Also, the salary cap will eventually rise, though it fell for the 2021-22 season. The Cowboys signed quarterback Dak Prescott to a four-year contract recently worth around $160 million, signaling that some players will also see a windfall from the new deals.

What does it mean for other sports?
With media companies ponying up enormous sums for the NFL, there have to be cuts somewhere, right? Almost certainly. But it remains to be seen which properties might be affected. The NHL just announced a big new deal this week with ESPN and will sign another one in the coming weeks. Major League Baseball and the Southeastern Conference also consummated large rights deals last year. Major League Soccer and the Pacific-12 conference will be looking for new deals soon and may find the landscape stingier after the NFL’s bounty.

Mark Maske contributed reporting.

[Chester Perry]

This is an interesting blog piece (from a football agent) on the illegal recruiting of underage footballers to agencies - something we have been seeing a few articles in the media about in the last few weeks

https://footballagentblog.chironsportsa ... scretions/

[Chester Perry]

Manchester United will have a new shirt sponsor next season, replacing the £64m a year Chevrolet deal. Significantly the value of the deal is considerably less, as the post Covid economy begins to bite, however much they try and talk it up (I make it £47m a season on current exchange rates) - from the Guardian

Manchester United sign £235m shirt sponsorship deal with TeamViewer
Five-year contract starts next season
Club believe deal is sport’s most lucrative during pandemic

Jamie Jackson
Fri 19 Mar 2021 13.27 GMT

Manchester United have announced a five-year €275m (£235m) shirt sponsorship deal with TeamViewer, which starts from next season.

The club believe the contract is the most lucrative struck during the pandemic by any sports team and a sign of their commercial resilience.

TeamViewer, a software company, will replace Chevrolet on the front of United’s shirts but the club intend to introduce a separate automobile sponsor, which will bring a new line of finance.

Discussions are under way regarding a fresh deal for United’s training kit and Carrington base, with AON the current sponsor.

[Chester Perry]

It is not that long ago that Middlesbrough saw us as great rivals, but things have moved on some what since then as football fortune once again conspired against them. They are a very different club to us, specifically as they have an owner that appears continually willing to pour money into the club to fund losses - he has been doing that for over 30 years now. Here we see there 2019/20 financial results

Statement of Accounts
https://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/sites/ ... 019-20.pdf

Summary of Accounts
https://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/sites/ ... 019-20.pdf

@KieranMaguire has had a look to

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 4585459715

It is noticeable that this is another club that is working to reduce it's transfer liabilities - while understandable in the division, this is part of a welcome trend across the game, as is the fact that the analysts are paying greater heed to that debt.

@SwissRamble looks at those Middlesbrough 2019/20financial results

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 2770132993

he has done the usual summary sheets too

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 1359023104

[Chester Perry]

Leicester City announce their 2019/20 Financial results - another club with huge losses (£67m)

https://www.lcfc.com/news/2071687/lcfc- ... lts-201920

full accounts can be found here

https://resources.lcfc.com/leicesterfc/ ... imited.pdf

@KieranMaguire has been having a look

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 2863780865

[Chester Perry]

Wolverhampton Wanders have also announce their headline 2019/20 financial results - a more contained loss of £44m

https://www.wolves.co.uk/news/club/2021 ... or-201920/

full accounts here

https://www.wolves.co.uk/media/16897/ap ... d35c85dfa7

@KieranMaguire has been looking at these too

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 1208040455

[Chester Perry]

It is interesting to see what West Ham Managed to secure their £120m loan from MSD Holdings on

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 1587267585

full details here dated 17th March 2021

West Ham United Football Club Limited
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

WH Holding Limited
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

West Ham Sportswear Limited
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

West Ham United Limited
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

[Chester Perry]

I must say I thought this had already happened - UEFA to form a business with the clubs that shares ownership of Champions League and opens up joint marketing and media rights opportunities - just so wrong as it further cements the current elite in position in perpetuity

https://twitter.com/muradahmed/status/1 ... 6974827530

this week Outline stopped being able to access articles at the Financial Times, New York Times and The Telegraph amongst others - so I can no longer share them with you - we can still access the general news elsewhere on the web but the depth and quality of the writing is no longer accessible for those that cannot afford - I am starting to think that this thread has a finite life

[Chester Perry]

An Interesting piece in the Guardian looking at the success of CFG's club's in Asia and the Far East and how it the group has a number of hurdles looming as those clubs grow in strength

Mumbai triumph enhances City Football Group brand but clashes loom
John Duerden
Powered by Abu Dhabi’s wealth, the Guardiola blueprint works in India and across Asia – though conflicts of interest await

Fri 19 Mar 2021 08.00 GMT

A decade ago, I sat in a high-rise Bangkok office decorated by Oasis gold discs on the wall. As well as being a massive entertainment company in Thailand, BEC Tero also owned a leading local football club and in 2005, they entered a strategic partnership with Arsenal and declared big plans, even changing the club logo to resemble that of the English team. BEC wanted to be genuine football partners but felt that Arsenal, over time, saw the relationship primarily in commercial terms. It was, they said, the way of big European clubs in Asia.

Whether those attitudes have changed or not, the approach certainly has. Mumbai City’s first Indian Super League title win last Saturday was forged partly in Manchester. While the triumph was not quite as dramatic as that Sergio Agüero moment, a 90th-minute winner that seals a come-from-behind victory and the championship title would go down well everywhere – well, across the branches of City Football Group at least.

All around Asia league officials talk of which country CFG may turn up in next – South Korea? Indonesia? Vietnam? – and fans speculate as to which club might be chosen to join a global network that started in Abu Dhabi and has Manchester at its head.

“We are a big family,” says Mumbai’s star striker Adam Le Fondre, formerly of Reading, Bolton Wanderers and Sydney FC. “We had lots of well-wishes from people within the group and a message from Pep [Guardiola]. City are the main club but the point is that everyone else does well. They are happy with our success and proud that we are flying the flag for CFG in India. We want to be as successful as Man City.”

In November 2019, the City Football Group bought a 65% stake in Mumbai City, adding it to a stable containing clubs in Manchester, New York, Melbourne, Yokohama, Montevideo, Girona, Sichuan and, subsequently, Lommel and Troyes.

Unlike in Manchester, where it took City four years under the Abu Dhabi owners to win the title, the investment in Mumbai delivered fast results. It seems CFG are getting better at running their Asian network.

Soon after buying a 20% stake in Yokohama F Marinos in 2014, staff in England realised that they had underestimated just how different Japanese football culture was. They took time to get to grips with it all. Hiring the Australian coach Ange Postecoglou in 2017 was a big step and two years later, he led Yokohama to the J-League title playing a style of football that Guardiola has called “incredible”. The approach with Mumbai – where the owners hired 17 new coaching and playing staff before the season started – has been hands-on from the get-go.

“We had weekly calls with our football support unit in Manchester and biweekly calls with Brian Marwood, who runs our global football operations,” CFG’s India CEO, Damian Willoughby, told the Indian Express. “Our colleagues in Manchester were intimately familiar with what was going on in our world. So Sergio and his staff were comfortable asking for advice and discussing football-related issues.”

“Sergio” is Sergio Lobera, the head coach who was an assistant to Tito Vilanova at Barcelona. Le Fondre says the hiring of a Guardiola disciple was no accident. “The coach emphasises that we want to play the way City play, 100%. He would say that he was heavily influenced by Pep. A lot of people here were influenced by Barcelona.”

Just like global fast food franchises can offer familiar and comfortable food for travellers, CFG’s presence can be pivotal for players contemplating a change. “It was prominent in my thinking,” says Le Fondre. “Especially as I was going to a foreign country where the level is not seen as very high. I felt that if I went to the City Group they would be more professional, have the best coach, the best facilities and everything I needed as a footballer. They have also said that when I finish playing football that they will help me in whatever pathway I choose, coaching or something else.”

Will CFG’s involvement in Mumbai help Indian football? It has been largely welcomed so far, though with fans absent from stadiums this season it can be hard to tell. There has not been much outside investment in the sport and being part of a global network is seen as exciting. Football is growing in popularity, especially among the urban middle classes – though Mumbai has never been one of the country’s football hotspots. If CFG can help to change that, it would be another step forward for Indian football.

The test for CFG will be when interests clash. There is a realistic chance that Melbourne, Mumbai and Yokohama, as well as Sheikh Mansour’s original Abu Dhabi team, Al-Jazira, could all meet in the 2022 AFC Champions League. Fans can be sensitive if other clubs are perceived to be more important. In 2014, Melbourne City supporters didn’t like it when the Spanish striker David Villa left for New York City after just four games in Australia. Another complaint in Asia is that big European clubs are happy to send famous old names to run a few coaching sessions but don’t trust their Asian counterparts enough to send their young prospects for a season or two.

If Manchester City did so it would be well received – but what would really make headlines is a player going the other way. “The dream is to have Indian players go to Manchester,” said Le Fondre. “In Indian football, the next 5-10 years will be crucial. There will be a young player who comes out of India who will be a star. That will be a big deal.”

[Chester Perry]

You seen the new NFL TV deal set to start from 2023?
Over $100 billion for 10yrs

More on that NFL deal - Amazon get Thursday nights taking the total to $113m and overall 80% uplift for the NFL that sees all parties able to plan for the coming decade - that is the significant element, certainty.

this article from the Associated Press makes a big deal of the NFL's ability to pick it's moment with technology shifts, though it should be noted that this series of deals allows viewers of all media platforms to see games. Will the Premier League take note - I suspect in the next cycle there could be a limited package of say 10 games in the season for terrestrial broadcast on a Sunday night even with last pick of the weekend fixtures. This would be as a result of the audience numbers that the BBC has generated

https://apnews.com/article/amazon-gets- ... 5560c91da4

Amazon gets Thursday night games, NFL nearly doubles TV deal
By JOE REEDY
yesterday

Much like they did with cable in the 1980s and satellite television in the 1990s, the NFL on Thursday made another significant transition in the way its games are viewed.

The league’s new rights agreements, worth $113 billion over the 11 seasons of the new deals that begin in 2023, include a streaming service receiving an exclusive full season package for the first time when Amazon Prime Video will be the home of 15 “Thursday Night Football” games.

“This is a seminal moment for the distribution of our content,” commissioner Roger Goodell said. “These deals remind me of back in the ’60s, how NFL content and games were a big part of the broadcast TV growth, and then going into the ’80s, with our first commitment to cable television, and then the ’90s with our commitment to satellite television and our Sunday Ticket package. I’m sure we’re going to look back on these deals the same way that we did back in the 1980s.

“This provides our fans with greater access. We want to provide our games on more platforms than ever before.”

The new contracts also mean the NFL will nearly double its media revenue to more than $10 billion a season. The league took in $5.9 billion a year in its current contracts.

The total of $113 billion is an increase of 80% over the previous such period, a person with direct knowledge of the contracts told The Associated Press. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the money figures were not made public.

Amazon has partnered with the league to stream 11 Thursday night games since 2017, but it will take over the entire package from Fox, which has had it since 2018. Amazon streamed a Week 16 Saturday game between the 49ers and Cardinals last year that was seen by an estimated 11.2 million total viewers and had an average minute audience of 4.8 million. That was the largest audience to stream an NFL game.

“Over the last five years we have started the migration to streaming. This is another large step in this direction,” said New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, chairman of the league’s media committee. “Our fans want this option and understand streaming is the future. We have created a unique hybrid of viewing options and streaming. This should provide a smooth transition to the future of content distribution.”

Marie Donoghue, Amazon’s vice president of global sports video, said the next couple seasons will be used to test certain things.

“Our relationship with the NFL has been a process. It is incredible trust the league has put in us which is largely based on our track record with them,” she said. “It is a game changer for us. We are really excited for the innovative technologies and ways to serve fans.”

Games on Amazon will also be carried on over-the-air broadcast stations in the cities of the participating teams, also the case with games aired on ESPN and NFL Network.

ABC gets back in the Super Bowl rotation with two games over the 11 seasons. ESPN gets some flexibility in its schedule on Monday nights, with the NFL agreeing to potentially move as many as five games from Sunday, and will have three doubleheaders, up from one.

The contract also expands digital rights for the other networks as well. ESPN+ will air one of the London games and NBC’s “Peacock” platform will also have one exclusive game per season for six years beginning in 2023.

Games will continue to air on CBS, Fox, NBC as well as ESPN/ABC. ESPN’s deal was scheduled to end after 2021, while the others expired a year later, but ESPN will have a bridge deal for 2022.

Full Coverage: NFL
The new deals kick in with the 2023 season and expire after the 2033 schedule. The league was able to get a sizable increase despite ratings for regular-season games decreasing by 7% after two years of growth. The declines have been largely attributed to the coronavirus pandemic and a presidential election.

Even with declines, regular-season games last year averaged 15.6 million television and digital viewers, according to the league and Nielsen.

Here are other key points of the new contract:

INCREASED REVENUE: With the hefty new contracts the 32 NFL teams and their players can look forward to increased salary caps throughout the decade. The cap decreased by nearly $16 million this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The broadcast partners also figure to get an extra game per season, likely beginning this year. NFL owners are getting ready to implement a 17-game regular season. Goodell said discussions about the new schedule will be conducted during the owners meetings later this month with an announcement expected within the next three weeks.

The media deals have wrapped up a hectic 12 months for the league, which included completing a new labor agreement and having no games canceled in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

BIG WINNER: Without a doubt it is ESPN and ABC. Not only does ABC return to the Super Bowl rotation for the first time since the 2005 season, but it finally gets those flex scheduling options for “Monday Night Football”. That was a right only previously given to NBC when flex scheduling was introduced in 2006. ESPN’s flex option will start in Week 12 and can be done on 12 days notice.

There will also be three weeks of multiple games, including two on Saturday in the final week of the regular season with playoff implications for the first time, and a divisional round playoff game to go with their wild-card weekend contest. The two Saturday games will begin this year as part of the bridge agreement.

While the other networks saw their rights fees double, Disney’s increase came to 35%. It will still pay the most though as its contract averages $2.7 billion per season.

SUNDAY AFTERNOON STABILITY: Fox will remain the primary network for the NFC while CBS will have the AFC. Eric Shanks and Sean McManus, chairmen of the respective networks, said it was important to retain those unique identities.

Fox will average $2.25 billion a year and CBS’ rights fees come to $2.1 billion. Both networks also have provisions for their streaming services: Tubi for Fox and CBS’ Paramount+.

QUITE A COMBINATION: NBC’s next four Super Bowls, beginning with next year’s game in Los Angeles, will also come during the Winter Olympics, which was important to the network. “Sunday Night Football” has been the top-rated prime-time program since 2011.

NBC also retains the opening Thursday night NFL Kickoff game as well as a Thanksgiving night game and flex scheduling beginning in Week 5.

MORE ALTERNATE BROADCASTS: After the success of CBS doing a kids-friendly broadcast on Nickelodeon, and ESPN’s MegaCast during the NFL playoffs, there will be an increase in alternate presentations. The networks will also have greater flexibility to use stats and integrated social feeds on their digital presentations. Amazon experimented with on-demand highlights and increased use of Next Gen stats during Thursday night games last season.

[Chester Perry]

I must say I thought this had already happened - UEFA to form a business with the clubs that shares ownership of Champions League and opens up joint marketing and media rights opportunities - just so wrong as it further cements the current elite in position in perpetuity

https://twitter.com/muradahmed/status/1 ... 6974827530

this week Outline stopped being able to access articles at the Financial Times, New York Times and The Telegraph amongst others - so I can no longer share them with you - we can still access the general news elsewhere on the web but the depth and quality of the writing is no longer accessible for those that cannot afford - I am starting to think that this thread has a finite life

I said the story would be available elsewhere - SportsProMedia and that tale of a joint venture between Europe's biggest club's and UEFA

Report: Uefa and ECA in ‘advanced talks’ over Champions League joint venture
European soccer bodies could create new vehicle for commercial rights sales, reports the FT.

Posted: March 19 2021 By: Michael Long

- Joint entity would manage media and sponsorship rights for Uefa’s top club competitions
- Proposal would give ECA clubs greater say in commercial decisions and more freedom with rights
- FT reports that a potential new streaming service and private equity investment are also being discussed

Uefa is reportedly in ‘advanced talks’ to create a joint venture with the European Club Association (ECA) that would see the continent’s elite soccer sides given greater control over the media and sponsorship rights related to the governing body’s top club competitions.

According to a report by the Financial Times (FT), the move would coincide with a mooted revamp of the Uefa Champions League that will see the creation of more matches between Europe’s top teams from 2024.

Last month, Uefa and other soccer bodies in Europe discussed proposals for a new-look Champions League that could see the competition expand to 36 clubs, with the number of matches per season rising from 125 to 225.

The revamped format is part of an effort to head off the threat of a breakaway European super league, which is said to have the support of some clubs, including Spanish giants Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

Citing ‘people briefed on the talks’, the FT reports that the joint venture would manage and market rights to the second-tier Europa League as well as the Champions League, which is Uefa’s biggest money-spinner.

Uefa currently has the final say over the commercial rights to all of its club competitions, although the ECA advises the body through a company called UCC SA, which was formed in 2017.

According to the FT, that company could be restructured as part of the new proposals, or an entirely new entity could be created in which the ECA, whose chairman is Juventus boss Andrea Agnelli, would have an equal say.

Rights packages could also be reworked to give clubs greater control over content distribution and the ability to display their own sponsors within stadiums more prominently during continental matches.

The FT adds that ‘even more radical changes’ could also be introduced, such as the development of a dedicated streaming service or allowing private equity funds to invest in the competitions.

The ECA, a 246-member body that represents Europe’s elite clubs, has been pushing for a greater say in the governance of the continental game for some time. Currently, Uefa distributes €3.25 billion to participating clubs each year in the form of prize money and revenue from commercial rights deals.

Speaking to SportsPro earlier this year, ECA chief executive Charlie Marshall said: “The one thing that Covid has clearly done is reinforced the message that the clubs are the key economic actors in the industry and, therefore, they should be in more of a position to make the decisions on the basis of which the industry operates.

“The ECA’s view is that there needs to be balance. There are many stakeholders in the industry, and they all make up what is a very, very vibrant industry, the world’s number one sport. What Covid has definitely shown is that clubs need and can be delivered - if we continue to do our work - more of a say in how those decisions are made.”

[Chester Perry]

Belgian giants, Club Brugge have announced that they are to take a stock market listing - and hope to develop a 40k stadium - The surprising (and useful) thing about this thread is the number of European clubs that already have a stock market listing, a few may surprise you

https://twitter.com/Football_BM/status/ ... 0076283905

Club Brugge's IPO is likely to value them at 230m Euro or something around that of Burnley, this is a club with regular European football, the recent news of the BeNeLiga could boost interest - from SportsProMedia

Club Brugge’s IPO values Belgian champions at €229m
Pro League club set to debut on Euronext Brussels later this month.

Posted: March 18 2021 By: Ed Dixon

- Club Brugge plan to sell at least 30% of shares
- Move to help fund new €100m stadium

Belgian soccer champions Club Brugge are set to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in a deal that could value the club at €229 million (US$273 million).

Reports first emerged in February that Club Brugge planned to go public, a move that would make them the first Belgian soccer team to be listed on a public stock exchange.

Now, the club’s IPO on the Euronext Brussels stock exchange is set to go ahead on or around 26th March. According to a prospectus, Club Brugge president and majority shareholder Bart Verhaeghe will sell at least 30 per cent of the Belgian Pro League outfit. Verhaeghe is looking to sell shares at between €17.50 (US$20.90) and €22.50 (US$26.87 ) each.

Verhaeghe will continue as Club Brugge’s largest shareholder and president, a role he has held since 2011.

Club Brugge will join European soccer heavyweights such as Manchester United, Juventus and Borussia Dortmund, as well as Dutch champions Ajax, in having shares listed in public markets.

The IPO will partly help fund Club Brugge’s new 40,000-seater stadium, plans for which were announced in January 2020. The new venue, which will replace the Jan Breydel Stadium, is set to cost €100 million (US$119 million).

For the 2019/20 financial year, Club Brugge posted a record turnover of €137 million (US$163 million) and a net profit of €24.5 million (US$29.2 million).

[Chester Perry]

there is actual a lot of sound content in this but it can read like propaganda - there have been a few such pieces coming out in the last week or so about the state of Chinese football - this from SportsProMedia

Opinion | Why Chinese soccer has to die before it can really learn to live
Shenzhen-based sports and entertainment entrepreneur Greg Turner explains why the appearance of trouble at the top of Chinese soccer should not be mistaken for deep-rooted issues in the foundations.

By Greg Turner Posted: March 18 2021

At first look, recent news regarding China’s soccer industry doesn’t bode well for the sport in the Middle Kingdom and its well publicised soccer reform effort.

Suning.com, the last big investor in the international game, recently shut down its Chinese Super League (CSL) team. This is in spite of the team claiming the league championship last year. PP Sports, also owned by Suning, has run into issues with its various media rights deals from football leagues around the world, and most notably is still dealing with the legal fallout of the collapse of its deal with English soccer's Premier League. Finally, word is out that Suning-owned Inter Milan may be up for sale, or at least on the look out for additional investors to help Suning reduce its liability.

This news, combined with similar stories since the reform effort began and together with what can only be summarised as a checkered history for the sport in China, has led some to suggest that once again the state just cannot get out of its own way in reforming the sport.

However, a deeper look at how policy has developed since the start of the reform and where progress has been made in developing the sport shows that in spite of the misplaced initial euphoria that drove the massive Chinese investment into the elite levels of the game, the actual reform work has focused in large part on the grassroots and school levels to a degree never seen before in the country.

Kicked off with great fanfare by Xi Jinping back in 2014, the reform was meant to be the mechanism that will raise Chinese soccer up to the level of the world’s leading nations. It was also the route to finally realise Xi’s own dream of China hosting a Fifa World Cup.

But reforming something with as many entrenched interests as soccer in China isn’t going to be done overnight. Xi himself acknowledged the challenge the state's soccer push faced in a speech back in 2015, saying: “The success [with soccer] does not have to be during my time. It takes a long time to work, so continue to work hard, start from the basics, from the grassroots, and from the mass participation.”

That message seems to have made an impression.

Leading the reform, the State Council released a number of guiding policy documents in 2015 and 2016. The documents set a variety of different directives including reforming the Chinese Foootball Association (CFA) and the professional leagues, improving campus and community soccer and increasing the number of facilities available to players, teams and clubs at all levels of the sport.

And there has been notable reforms accomplished since 2014:

- The CFA has achieved its greatest degree of independence from the government ever and has a new leadership group with the political heft and professional experience to drive real change
- The CSL now has financial control systems to ensure it runs in a more responsible and sustainable way
- There are now more than 70,000 soccer pitches in China, raising the ratio of fields to people from 0.08 fields to 0.5 fields for every 10,000 people
- More than 24,000 designated ‘soccer schools’ have been established across the country

In fact, if you look at the short-term goals laid out by the policy documents there’s been substantial progress made on all of them. Now, as the reform enters its next phase, the foundations supporting grassroots and campus soccer are stronger than ever.

This is not to say there has not been missteps or that we should not expect more growing pains.

Anyone familiar with getting things done in China knows that every step can be a challenge. Issues that seem settled today can flair up tomorrow without warning. Dealing with nationwide reform is especially daunting. Local leaders and politically connected interest groups can quickly derail the best laid plans.

However, policy continues to evolve and build on the successes achieved so far. Importantly, the reform is opening more doors for private industry to get involved. Just recently, the General Administration of Sport released the 'Guiding Opinions on Strengthening the Opening and Operation and Management of Social Football Venues'. This document essentially requires those 70,000 fields remain available for community use and encourages local governments to employ private operators for long term stability and growth.

While the current issues facing Suning.com with its soccer investments may seem unsettling for the future of the sport in China, in actuality it may reflect a final last gasp of the traditional 'business as usual'.

Instead, the smart money will increasingly be following the government reform efforts. While it may lack the headline appeal of the world’s top professional leagues and players, China’s real soccer future will be found on those 70,000 pitches - with a target for that to grow to 140,000 by 2030 - and the players, teams and clubs who cultivate their love of the sport there.
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Greg Turner has successfully led increasingly complex organisations in building, financing and presenting live experiences. Based in China since 2000, he has previously held senior leadership positions in both the live event and venue management industries. He has dealt extensively with various level of Chinese government and has vast experience working in first to fourth tier Chinese cities.

[Chester Perry]

Not sure how this will go down in French Football - a company related to Mediapro Cheif Exec Jaume Roures has provided a slice of the finance that helped Joan Laporta take charge of Barcelona on Wednesday - remember there were challenges in raising the necessary financial liability guarantees - from SportsBusiness.com

Mediapro chief Roures says Laporta guarantee ‘neither loan nor donation’
Ben Cronin, Europe Editor, March 19, 2021

Mediapro chief executive Jaume Roures has issued a statement distancing himself from a financial guarantee provided to Joan Laporta following his recent election as FC Barcelona president.

Spanish publication Expansión reported on Wednesday the media mogul had provided €30m ($36m) of the €125m figure, equivalent to 15 per cent of the club’s budget, that new presidents are required to present within 10 days of being elected. This must also be ratified by LaLiga, or the club would have to hold a new election process.

Although this was not against any rules, the revelation led to accusations of a conflict of interest, given Mediapro holds the international media distribution rights to the Spanish league and handles its VAR reviews.

However, in the statement, Roures said today (Friday): “I have not provided any personal endorsement, nor have I paid anyone any amounts.

“A company I have personal ties with, Orpheus Media, SL, and which is completely separate from Mediapro, guaranteed a credit facility Banco de Sabadell SA established with the members of the Board of Directors of FCB. This guarantee is only valid for some months. It is therefore, neither a loan, nor a donation of any kind.

“Orpheus Media, SL has neither sought, nor requested consideration whatsoever from the members of the Board of Directors of FCB, other than the reimbursement of costs associated with the guarantee at the end of its period of validity. As such, it is not a question of a commercial transaction or gaining control over the club, or involvement in the Board.”

Roures added that his primary motive was to ensure avoidance of elections having to take place for the club presidency again.

“This collaboration was made to supplement the amount of the guarantee required by the LFP and with the sole purpose of averting the repetition of elections at FCB, an eventuality which would have been particularly damaging to FCB and ultimately, for club members as a whole, as it would have plunged the club into a crisis, the proportions of which are difficult to gauge,” he added.

“Presenting the guarantee ensures the election results are honoured, as the highest expression of FCB members in democratically choosing their president and Board of Directors.”

Earlier in the week it was revealed the Mediapro agency is looking to restructure its debt and has applied for state aid as it seeks to secure its future in the face of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The firm has turned to the Rothschild & Co financial advisory group and ‘Big Four’ accountancy firm KPMG to lead the restructure and has also reached out to shareholders and venture capital groups to inject resources, according to a report by Spanish publication Palco23.

Additionally, the agency is negotiating with Spain’s state-owned industrial holding company the Sociedad Estatal de Participaciones Industriales (Sepi) for solvency support.

The agency has had a number of high-profile disappointments in the last 12 months in its media-rights arm, including the collapse of its media-rights deal with the French Professional Football League and the recent default of Brazilian basic-tier broadcaster TV Walter Abrahão for rights to a handful of South American nations’ 2022 World Cup qualifying matches.

[Chester Perry]

We know that Newcastle are to go to arbitration with the Premier League (at the invitation of the Premier League) over the failed Saudi bid, this is a n interesting twist to it - Newcastle United have failed in a High Court bid to change the chair of that Arbitration panel

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 0480525312

with Teeside not Newcastle/Gateshead winning one of the 8 freeports just announced you wonder whether the Saudi's would still be interested anyhow

This is an interesting article on that Newcastle judgement re the chair of the Arbitration panel - bit os a legal rarity it seems from Littleton Chambers

https://littletonchambers.com/articles- ... rbitrator/

Rare public judgment on s.24 application for removal of arbitrator
16.03.21

Commentary by Charlotte Davies

The Commercial Court (HHJ Pelling QC) recently handed down judgment in the case of Newcastle United Football Company Limited v (1) The Football Association Premier League Limited (2) Michael Beloff QC (3) Lord Neuberger (4) Lord Dyson [2021] EWHC 349 (Comm).

In rejecting Newcastle United’s attempt to remove an arbitrator on grounds of apparent bias under s.24 Arbitration Act 1996, this rare public judgment provides helpful guidance on the legal principles and approach to be applied in such cases.

The background

The underlying arbitration arose in relation to Newcastle’s plan to sell their shares in The Football Association Premier League Limited (the “PLL”) to a company ultimately owned by a Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund. There was a dispute between Newcastle and the PLL as to whether that fund is controlled by the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. If so, there may be an issue as to whether the PLL was required to refuse to agree a change of control or appointment of a director under the relevant section of PLL’s Rules.

On 12 June 2020 PLL issued a decision letter concluding that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia would become a director of Newcastle pursuant to the PLL Rules because of the control it would exercise over the company owned by the sovereign wealth fund. No decision was made on whether the Kingdom would be disqualified from being a director or whether PLL would refuse to agree the proposed change of control.

Newcastle disputed PLL’s conclusion, and the lawfulness of the process by which it was arrived at by PLL, and referred the matter for arbitration as a ‘Board Dispute’ in accordance with PLL’s Rules.

Following the appointment by each party of their nominated arbitrators, they each agreed to the appointment of Mr Beloff QC as the chair of the tribunal. Mr Beloff QC certified that there were no circumstances which existed to give rise to justifiable doubts as to his impartiality in the role of chair.

Newcastle was subsequently informed by PLL’s solicitors that in the past three years it had been involved in 12 arbitral proceedings in which Mr Beloff QC had been an arbitrator, although he had only been appointed by PLL’s solicitors in three of those, two of which appointments were made after Mr Beloff QC had been appointed in the present arbitration between Newcastle and the PLL. PLL’s solicitors also informed Newcastle that Mr Beloff QC had advised PLL on four separate occasions all in excess of two years before his appointment in the present arbitration, including in March 2017 when he provide advice in respect of a particular section of PLL’s Rules.

Newcastle said it would not have agreed to Mr Beloff’s appointment had it known of these matters and asked him to recuse himself, which he declined to do. It stated it would make an application for his removal under s.24 AA 1996. Mr Beloff QC then entered an exchange of emails with PLL’s solicitors, in which Newcastle was not copied, regarding the request for his recusal and issues of privilege in respect of the March 2017 advice he had provided to PLL. This email exchange was disclosed to Newcastle the following day, and Newcastle relied on it as another ground in its s.24 application.

Legal principles and approach

HHJ Pelling QC starts his judgment by confirming that the test applicable to an allegation of apparent bias under s.24 AA 1996 is the same as that which applies at common law to judges sitting in courts and tribunals: see Halliburton Co v Chubb Bermuda Insurance Ltd [2020] UKSC 48. The applicable test is the familiar one identified in Porter v Magill [2002] 2 AC 357 of whether the fair-minded and informed observer, having considered the facts, would conclude that there was a real possibility that the tribunal was biased. This is an objective test.

In terms of an arbitrator’s duty to disclose matters to a party, he held this applied to anything that could arguably lead a fair minded and informed observer to conclude there was a real possibility of bias. This applies to a potentially wider group of circumstances that might ultimately justify recusal, because parties need such disclosure to decide whether or not to challenge an appointment.

He agreed with Newcastle that, in deciding the s.24 application, he should consider the cumulative effect of the four separate factors relied upon, those being: (1) Mr Beloff QC had given PLL advice in 2017 in respect of PLL’s Rules; (2) Mr Beloff QC’s other appointments as an arbitrator by PLL’s solicitors; (3) his failure to disclose these matters to Newcastle; and (4) the private email exchange between him and PLL’s solicitors.

Decision

HHJ Pelling QC comprehensively rejected Newcastle’s arguments for removal of Mr Beloff QC. In respect of the points relied upon by Newcastle he held that:

• The March 2017 advice Mr Beloff QC had provided to PLL did not relate to the issue in dispute in the current proceedings, and it was fanciful to suggest there would be overlap. Both Mr Beloff QC and PLL’s solicitor had confirmed that he had not, when providing that advice, considered the particular rules relevant to the current proceedings. Unless it was found they were lying, this was an end to any suggestion of apparent bias arising due to the March 2017 advice.

• Mr Beloff QC’s other appointments as an arbitrator in proceedings involving PLL’s solicitors would not lead a fair-minded and informed observer to conclude there was a real possibility of bias either due to the appointments or his failure to disclose them. None of those appointments had been by PLL, nor did they concern matters related to the current proceedings. The non-disclosure was consistent with the International Bar Association Guidelines on Conflicts of Interest in International Arbitration. There was no dispute that Mr Beloff QC was not financially dependent on work from PLL or its solicitors.

• With regard to disclosure of these matters, it was important that Mr Beloff QC had not been appointed by PLL but by the parties’ chosen arbitrators. This appointment was more than three years after the March 2017 advice, and there was no continuing relationship between Mr Beloff QC and PLL (with his last instruction by PLL being on an unrelated issue and completed in July 2018). In the circumstances of this case the non-disclosure did not give rise to an inference of that there was a real possibility of bias.

• The majority of the private email exchange between Mr Beloff QC and PLL’s solicitors was uncontroversial and concerned with permission for Mr Beloff QC to explain what was covered in the March 2017 advice. These did not need to be copied to Newcastle and doing so might have resulted in a breach of confidence. However, HHJ Pelling QC described the private email from Mr Beloff QC asking PLL’s solicitors about their client’s position on whether he should recuse himself as “an error of judgment [which] ought not have occurred”. He should not have been communicating with one party alone in relation to this issue and there was a risk it would appear as though Mr Beloff QC was willing to be guided on the recusal question by PLL. However, ultimately HHJ Pelling QC decided that, despite the error of judgment, the Porter v Magill test was not met because, bearing in mind Mr Beloff QC’s reputation (which was a relevant factor), there was no evidence of a real risk of bias.

Considering the cumulative effect, HHJ Pelling QC concluded that in this case “the weight of the whole does not exceed the sum of its parts” and even viewed cumulatively there would be no real risk of bias in the eyes of a fair minded and informed observer.

As a result, Newcastle’s s.24 application was dismissed.

Private hearing?

HHJ Pelling QC also considered whether the s.24 application should be heard in public or private. He held that although CPR r.62.10 confers a discretion to hear an arbitration claim in public, the default position is that such hearings will be in private. If necessary, the judgment can be published in an anonymised or redacted form (see his separate judgment on this at [2021] EWHC 450 (Comm)).

Conclusion

This judgment serves as a reminder of the legal principles that apply, and of the fact it can be a difficult task to show apparent bias on a s.24 application under the relevant Porter v Magill test.

[Chester Perry]

Manchester United will have a new shirt sponsor next season, replacing the £64m a year Chevrolet deal. Significantly the value of the deal is considerably less, as the post Covid economy begins to bite, however much they try and talk it up (I make it £47m a season on current exchange rates) - from the Guardian

Manchester United sign £235m shirt sponsorship deal with TeamViewer
Five-year contract starts next season
Club believe deal is sport’s most lucrative during pandemic

Jamie Jackson
Fri 19 Mar 2021 13.27 GMT

Manchester United have announced a five-year €275m (£235m) shirt sponsorship deal with TeamViewer, which starts from next season.

The club believe the contract is the most lucrative struck during the pandemic by any sports team and a sign of their commercial resilience.

TeamViewer, a software company, will replace Chevrolet on the front of United’s shirts but the club intend to introduce a separate automobile sponsor, which will bring a new line of finance.

Discussions are under way regarding a fresh deal for United’s training kit and Carrington base, with AON the current sponsor.

This is an interesting take on that new United shirt deal - particular the new market reach of the advertiser and the opening of an Automotive partner deal created by the exit of Chevrolet - as ever there is always much much more to consider than the face value of the like for like swap

https://twitter.com/DrRob_Wilson/status ... 7409165314

EDIT
Then we also have this from Simon Chadwick on some of the areas that Manchester United and TeamViewer may link up, no surprise about the China link, even though it is a German business. There are a fair few German fans not happy that this money is going to united rather than a German club, that in itself suggests the market place and planned tie-ups

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 6895393798

EDIT not everyone is convinced by Manchester United's new sponsor though, or that a new automotive partner will cover the the total lost revenue

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 4869535744

[Chester Perry]

Episode 10 of the Bundle Pdcast from Unofficial Partner looking at sports media rights and in this episode that bumper new set of domestic deals for the NFL

https://www.unofficialpartner.com/podca ... -bundle-10

[Chester Perry]

It would seem that the Premier League is going to be subject to the block chain fan token nonsense again following an announcement from Manchester City today - The FSA are not quite rightly not happy

https://twitter.com/WeAreTheFSA/status/ ... 7088124929

[Chester Perry]

This is a pretty bleak if realistic outlook of football post Covid, particularly the warning that the new Europa Conference League is likely to be fertile ground for match-fixers - from WorldSoccer.com

Special Report: Life after COVID
March 19, 2021

- Steve Menary examines how European football’s financial landscape may look after the pandemic
- As European football looks to emerge from the worst of the coronavirus pandemic, a growing financial gap is accelerating the game’s financial powerhouse with worrying consequences.

At the top, big clubs are suffering but remain in relatively reasonable health. Revenues at the champions of Spain, Germany, England, France, Italy and Portugal have all shrunk. Porto’s revenue collapsed by 50 per cent according to the 2021 version of The European Champions Report by KPMG, but the fall was only eight per cent at Real Madrid.

Real brought in income of €681.2m in the 2019-20 season, and even made a profit after winning La Liga for a 34th time, as did Champions League winners Bayern Munich.

Supported by major television deals, the continent’s elite are relatively safe and attractive to investors – investors such as ALK Capital, who recently bought out English Premier League side Burnley – but take away that income and the consequences can be devastating.

When an unprecedented TV rights deal for Ligue 1 clubs in France worth more than €1.15bn per year collapsed at the end of last year, Rennes predicted annual losses of €40m as a consequence.

Outside of these main leagues, TV revenue is less valuable. What matters, and what is hurting clubs the most, is keeping fans outside of stadia. Matchday income comprised just 13 per cent of total Premier League revenue in 2018-19, but in neighbouring Scotland it was worth 47 per cent, according to research by Deloitte.

Even further down the European football ladder, the gap is almost incredible. In 2018, total TV revenue at the 400 clubs outside the top 20 leagues was less than a quarter of an average Premier League club according to UEFA. The value of TV rights for small clubs in small leagues is unlikely to have gone up.

Player trading has joined gate money and broadcast income as a vital source of income recently. Clubs that not so long ago challenged and won European titles are now part of a supply chain for mega-clubs with transnational followings like Real and Bayern.

Over the last five years, Benfica, Ajax, Porto, RB Salzburg and Sporting – winners of eight European Cups between them – made a profit of £1.4bn in developing and selling on major players such as Donny van de Beek and Hakim Ziyech, according to research by The Daily Mail.

In mid-sized European leagues, club-trained players are now three times more likely to make their debut, according to a study by the CIES Football Observatory. Players making their debut in Slovakia’s Super Liga, for example, are the youngest in Europe’s main leagues at an average age of 23.58 years.

MSK Zilina has more players in Slovak youth teams than any other Slovak club and after developing these players, sells them on – such as Robert Bozenik to Dutch side Feyenoord for €4.6m.

Dr. Raffaele Poli from the CIES Football Observatory sees the crisis posed by the pandemic as an opportunity for well-run smaller clubs but warns: “Some clubs will need to go part-time.”

Part-time clubs will be less able to develop players, and to sustain the player-trading model clubs need buyers. But spending on players is shrinking.

In the summer of 2020, the English Premier League was the biggest spender with £1.26bn spent on players such as Kai Havertz, a £72m signing for Chelsea, but this total was £350m lower than the previous year according to data from website transfermarkt.

Barcelona acquired Miralem Pjanic from Juventus for £54m, although pulled off some creative accounting by sending Arthur the other way, while rivals Real did not spend for the first time in 40 years. Even in the Belgian Jupiler League, spending was down around £100m on the summer of 2019 to £54.5m. That figure made Belgian clubs the ninth biggest spenders in Europe, while spending at the tenth-placed Turkish Super Lig shrank 56 per cent to just £29.2m.

This threatens one of the few post-pandemic sources of hope for smaller clubs, who need money to invest in facilities and coaching. Benfica and Ajax spend up to £10m a year on academies, coaches and scouts and, for now, are easily recouping that investment.

Zilina’s rivals FC DAC 1904 spent €14m on a new training centre after getting €7.4m from Hungary’s government, which supports Hungarian speaking areas outside its national borders, such as Dunajska Streda. Other clubs are not so fortunate.

At the top end, more than 20 mainly American private equity firms expressed interest in a German Bundesliga plan to raise €300m to roll out an international online subscription service. Nine out of 20 clubs in France’s Ligue 2 are foreign-owned – with Nancy acquired by a US/Chinese group – but the wave of Asian investment has mostly abated, says Simon Chadwick, Professor & Director of Eurasian Sport at EMLyon.

“What I find more interesting is the resurgence of US interest in football investments, the acquisition of a stake in Italy’s Serie A, ALK’s purchase of Burnley and the formation of Red Ball’s SPAC being three notable examples,” says professor Chadwick. “This serves to demonstrate that there remains some considerable commercial potential in football, especially as it convergences with the worlds of digital and entertainment.”

Simon Hall, director of corporate finance at accountants BDO, who produces an annual survey of football finance, says: “US private equity in the European football space is huge. The way they generate fan engagement is streets ahead.”

US interest is mainly at the higher end where fan engagement can prove lucrative. Further down, multi-club ownership is growing, such as the recent acquisition of Bulgarian club Botev Plovdiv by Anton Zingarevich, the Russian owner of Danish club Fremad Amager.

In eastern Europe, a hangover from Soviet times means that local authorities or government departments still fund part or all of some clubs, but greater strains on public funds due to the pandemic will make using taxpayers’ money to fund professional football increasingly unsustainable.

With sources of money vanishing, UEFA remains the bulwark that smaller clubs will rely on. But with the next round of TV rights due to be decided this year, plans for a European Super League have again been revived, led by US bankers JPMorgan Chase & Co.

“Football’s reform cannot wait,” said Real Madrid president Florentino Perez at the end of 2020, but UEFA’s Champions League is virtually a closed competition already.

There are now only six Champions League places available each year to qualifiers. These are often the same clubs, who use UEFA’s prize money to cement their domestic domination.

Since changes in the 1994-95 season that heralded in the modern Champions League, just four Greek clubs have shared 52 places and only three Croatian clubs have appeared.

The smaller the European league, the greater the impact of UEFA money. In 16 of the 35 smaller national leagues, UEFA payments accounted for a third or more of all revenue and the combined domestic.

In San Marino, average club revenue in 2018 was €170,000, but champions Tre Penne earned €490,000 from losing their sole Champions League preliminary round qualifier to Andorran side FC Santa Coloma.

In San Marino, all money earned by sides from UEFA competition is pooled and shared between the country’s 15 clubs, but such solidarity is anathema elsewhere in Europe, where clubs are increasingly reliant on benefactors.

Buying success can be cheap for brave investors. In 2018, average revenue in the Latvian Higher League was €626,000. In 2019-20, Ventspils earned €780,000 in UEFA money after reaching the third qualifying round of the Europa League, while champions FC Riga pocketed just over €1.3m after reaching the competition’s play-off round.

This is a delicate balancing act and UEFA’s research shows that many smaller clubs spend at least €6 for every €5 they make. “There are a number of countries where profitability remains the exception, rather than the rule,” noted UEFA in its 2020 financial report, which covered the period before the pandemic. Since then, money available from benefactors is likely to have been affected.

This bleak scenario increases the pressure on UEFA ahead of a decision likely this summer on the structure of the Champions League from 2024 and solidarity payments to smaller clubs.

At the start of the 2019-20 season, UEFA estimated it would make €3.25bn from European competition including the Champions League, Europa League and Super Cup, with €2.73bn (84 per cent) going to participating clubs. Just €227.5m (seven per cent) would be distributed in solidarity payments, with the remaining balance kept for administration. For the smaller clubs that emerge from the pandemic, those ratios need to change.

UEFA is planning a third European competition for smaller clubs, but details are scarce. Dubbed the Europa Conference, the tournament is unlikely to attract much interest from broadcasters, which would mean UEFA funds prize money itself to head off a potential Super League.

Ambitious smaller clubs with benefactors still in place, like Luxembourg’s FC Dudelange, will however want to be in the Europa League, which the club achieved twice in a row from 2018, not a new version of UEFA’s little lamented summer tournament, the Intertoto Cup.

The Europa Conference’s main appeal will be to match fixers, who will relish the opportunity to manipulate UEFA matches that barely merit a mention in Europe but would attract plenty of interest on the amorphous Asian markets that are so keen on European football.

Despite the pandemic, 2020 saw a record number of alerts for suspicious betting in European football and last year huge and separate match-fixing schemes were uncovered in Armenia and Moldova.

Figures linked to match-fixing are already circling clubs in other smaller countries and as European football emerges from the pandemic, a new compact needs to be formed. If not,
the consequences could be dire for large swathes of European clubs.

Article by Steve Menary

[Chester Perry]

Manchester United Managing Director Richard Arnold claims that TeamViewer were not the highest bidder for the Shirt sponsorship rights but won the deal as a result of what they can bring to the table in regards to fan engagement - this is a really interesting snipet from a conversation with the Associated press, I just wish there was more to flesh out the point

Man U worries soothed by new sponsor, certainty in Solskjaer
By ROB HARRIS
yesterday

After grappling with the devastation and uncertainties caused by the pandemic, Manchester United is trying to look to the future with a new main sponsor and renewed certainty in Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s position as manager.

Chevrolet announced just before the coronavirus outbreak that it wouldn’t be renewing as United’s jersey sponsor after seven years, but the club’s new backer is a reflection of the remote working enforced by the pandemic — including by the club’s commercial team. The brand of remote-access computer software TeamViewer will be emblazoned on the shirts of the 20-time English champion from next season.

“It’s the biggest economic recession since economic records began,” United manager director Richard Arnold told The Associated Press on Friday. “It’s just an incredible year of challenge, uncertainty, and difficulty. ”

The five-year TeamViewer deal is expected to earn United more than $60 million a year. While the value is around a fifth less than the Chevrolet deal, Arnold said the club still had more than 10 potential sponsor options on the table.

“They weren’t the highest bidder,” Arnold said. “What they bring to us is way beyond money.”

He sees TeamViewer as helping to engage with fans who have been unable to attend matches over the last year while United briefly mounted its first credible title bid since last winning the Premier League in 2013.

A recent slump has allowed rival Manchester City to surge 14 points clear at the summit, but United is well placed to ensure securing Champions League qualification won’t go down to the final day like last season.

When United was eliminated in the group stage of the Champions League in December, it raised new doubts about Solskjaer’s future. But the Norwegian has eased those concerns by keeping United second in the Premier League — despite the worst home start in 48 years — and seeing off AC Milan on Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the Europa League.

The fourth permanent manager since Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 has the backing of the club’s leadership, more than two years after replacing Jose Mourinho.

“Ole is the ultimate exemplar of ... someone in Manchester United who has tremendous character, is incredibly well connected with the culture and history of the club,” Arnold said. “No one in the world is happier than me with the phenomenal success he is bringing.

“When you’re inside (the club) and you are seeing the work of the man and the character, it just makes you so happy. He deserves to succeed, and he is, and that makes me very happy.”

Not only is there still the prospect of Europa League glory, but United remains in the FA Cup with a quarterfinal against Leicester on Sunday.

United will also hope some fans can return to Old Trafford before the end of the season in May for the first time since March 2020. A full return of matchday revenue is expected from the start of next season in August thanks to the vaccine rollout in the U.K. going better and faster than expected.

The closure of stadiums to supporters contributed to United’s revenue dropping 7% year-on-year to 281.8 million pounds in the six months to Dec. 31.

But as bad as the financial difficulties are, they haven’t been as deep as the personal grief caused by the pandemic. The tragic consequences have hit Arnold closely.

“One of the uncles in our family who actually was a former Spurs player passed away from this disease,” Arnold said of Ian Fusedale, who died in April at the age of 75 after being diagnosed with the coronavirus. “It’s been a horrific, horrific time. So concentrating on the money side of things in the context of that is relatively minor.”

[Chester Perry]

Meanwhile Roman Abramovich has given a very rare interview to Forbes.com about his time at the club and his future hopes for the club, there are no challenges about Russia or VISA issues for the UK they just make it nice and easy for him

Mar 19, 2021,01:27pm EST|12,672 views
Chelsea Owner And Billionaire Roman Abramovich On The Past, Present And Future Of The Club
Lee Igel

In early 2002, Roman Abramovich noticed that his new interest kept leading to the same thought.

Whenever work meetings took him to cities across Europe, the Russian-Israeli businessman found himself attending football matches. It didn't take more than a few games to realize what was running through his mind. “There was so much emotion, so much excitement. I remember thinking, 'I want to be a part of this,'” Abramovich says.

Something else about the sport was also grabbing the billionaire entrepreneur's attention. “The fact that there is no set formula for winning football matches. A coach and his or her squad have to consider many factors when approaching each match. It’s like every few days is a new exam and the work you have put in gets evaluated. I enjoyed, and still enjoy, the unpredictability and seeing how each game plays out.”

Abramovich was soon sharing his excitement during conversations with business associates. That quickly grew into the idea of owning a football club.

On the first day of July 2003, news out of London reported Abramovich as the new owner of Chelsea Football Club. It was a surprising development for three reasons. First, Chelsea was a historic English club that didn't change ownership hands often. Second, the purchase price of £140-million, including £75-million of debt, was more than anyone had ever paid for a club in the English Premier League. And, third, the buyer was bringing major foreign investment to the British game.

“In hindsight, especially with the public profile it would bring me, maybe I would have thought differently about owning a club,” Abramovich says with a gentle smile and chuckle. “But, at the time, I just saw this incredible game and that I wanted to be a part of that in one way or another.”

The road leading Abramovich to become owner of Chelsea was the starting point for this conversation, which took place via Zoom. Examples and concepts of the work being done by the club have appeared in my teaching and writing about decision-making in sports business. An interest in gaining further insights led to the opportunity to talk with Abramovich about his involvement with the club.

The substantial sum of money invested in growing the club since the beginning of his ownership has followed two ambitions: “to create world-class teams on the pitch; and to ensure the club plays a positive role in all of its communities.”

Abramovich says those were not just polished words then and aren't now. The reason why “first of all, is when you say something, you have to always follow through. And, I guess, that is especially if you're a person who doesn't say much. So, what you do say is very important,” he says. “Second, football is society. Football is part of society and society is part of football. So, it's the natural state of things for football to be in be involved, to support the community, and to be present in the community.”

“The ambitions,” he continues, “are as true now as they were when I first became owner and I hope that can be seen through the work we have been doing on and off the pitch over the last 17 years.”

Those ambitions are ingrained in a strategy that has enabled Chelsea to recruit some of the world's top talent on, around, and off the pitch. It men's, women's, and academy teams have collected to a total of 36 major trophies from competitions in England and around the world. “I think the trophies speak for themselves and show what we as a club have been able to achieve over these years,” Abramovich says, “and it’s my goal for us to keep winning trophies going forward and build for the future.”

“Chelsea has a very rich history, and I feel extremely fortunate to a play a part in that,” he adds. “The club was here before me, and will be here after me, but my job is to ensure we are as successful as we can be today, as well as build for the future. That’s why the success of our academy at Cobham [the club's 140-acre training facility] is so important to me.”

Today, hundreds of millions of fans, more than 500 official supporters clubs, and more than 100-million followers across major social media platforms cheer on Chelsea from locations around the globe. The club is presently valued at more than £2-billion. But, to Abramovich, “football is not just a business opportunity. Football is a community sport. Chelsea is a community. We need to embrace all of that community in the work that we do, the investments that we do, and the work that we focus on.”

It is here that the full effect of why Abramovich bought Chelsea comes into sharper view.

“Chelsea is not just the men's first team. Chelsea is a community. It's the women's team, it's the youth teams, it's the academy, it's support to former players of the club. It's something that we started to do since day one. The reason is that we approached Chelsea as a community. And people within the community—there are children, there are women, there are men, there are former players, there are current players, there are future players—all of them need to be welcomed and part of how we conduct the business.”

For example, Abramovich recalls,“when we bought the club, it was clear that former players were not really involved. They were not even invited to see games. So, that was something else—support for former players, people who had helped the club along the way, and to give them an opportunity to continue being a part of the club and the story going forward.”

Another example is the women's team, which has been a part of the club since the second year of Abramovich's ownership. Leadership's support for the squad—a base at Cobham, a dedicated stadium, and travel to international friendlies—has been ahead of the curve of most clubs. But Abramovich isn't much interested in such a competitive comparison, mostly because it misses the larger point.

The women’s team, Abramovich says, is “a critical part of Chelsea and shapes who we are as a club. I see no reason why clubs wouldn’t want to support women’s football and provide the best possible opportunity for them to succeed. For me, this is both about the principle, but, also, women’s football has huge potential. If women’s football received the same level as support as men’s football, the sport would obviously be equally successful on the business side.”

“And I think investment pays off,” he adds. “I think their success demonstrates what can be achieved when you dedicate resources and the right leadership. [Manager] Emma Hayes has been remarkable in her work with the team.” In the past year alone, the team was crowned champion of the Women's Super League, broke the longest unbeaten streak in WSL history (32 games), and won a Continental Cup for the second consecutive season.

Doing things off the pitch is an important part of teamwork at Chelsea, particularly in community activities that flow through the Chelsea Foundation. Each year, more than 1-million participants in 20 countries are engaged through 500 programs that use football and sport to improve a range of social, humanitarian, educational, and professional issues. “With sport at this level also comes opportunity and we are proud that the club’s foundation is the largest in UK football,” Abramovich says. “I hope that our fans and the wider community can see the same level of commitment in our support for them as we have for the team.”

That commitment was sustained when outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic sent London into lockdown and English football to shutdown. Chelsea responded by continuing to pay all employees as if matches were being played, offering hotel accommodations and meals to National Health Service staff, and running a campaign to raise awareness and funds for the domestic violence charity Refuge. The Chelsea Foundation provided online sport, education, and social programs for youth to the elderly.

At such a turbulent and uncertain time, Abramovich says, “it was quite clear from the start that we wanted to help. … Chelsea is a part of the community and should of course play a role in contributing and helping, in the ways we can. I hope the projects we supported as a club played a role in helping and I am grateful to all the fans who also lent their support to the various club-led initiatives during the pandemic.”

At the same time resources were being directed to pandemic response, Chelsea was also maintaining its social responsibility programs. High up on that list are initiatives aimed at combatting antisemitism, racism, and other forms of hatred cropping up in society, including on and around football pitches.

“Racism, antisemitism, this is all the same type of evil and should have no place on our world at this day and age,” Abramovich says. “Every time I get sent examples of racist abuse that our players face, I am shocked. It’s disgraceful that this is the reality for not just our players, but for anyone targeted by this sort of abuse. If we as a club can make a difference in this area, in fighting antisemitism, racism and promoting tolerance, I am determined to stand behind it and contribute in whatever way I can.”

Tackling intolerance is an issue that Abramovich also feels personally responsible to do something about. Although some 15 years have passed since he has given a media interview or press conference, his own words have not been entirely absent from the public sphere. On a handful of occasions, he has communicated his thoughts through personally-written messages—each time about something having to do with social responsibility.

Abramovich has penned letters for matchday programs around Chelsea's Say No To Antisemitism campaign. His words appeared in a club press release about making a change to the men's first team manager position this season. And a personal letter that he had delivered to each player after men's first team member Reece James was racially abused online earlier this year showed up in media reports.

“Statements with regard to the Say No To Antisemitism campaign or Frank Lampard or Reece James,” Abramovich says, “these are very, very big themes and they are very, very important. Things at that level require me to personally show that I am behind it and that I am accountable.” Even then, he channels the attention to work being done by the club, its people, and its community.

Abramovich's comfort zone is in infusing values and inspiring standards throughout Chelsea, rather than generating personal celebrity. “It has never been my ambition to have a public profile,” he says. His instinct is that the performance of the team, manger, board, and club “should speak for itself. It is not helpful to provide additional running commentary.”

One area of performance that many fans and media might want more commentary about settles on the turnover rate of men's first team managers—15 managers in less than 18 years. On the surface, the numbers suggest short-term thinking and impulsive decision-making about strategy. Yet, as Abramovich describes, it has to do with culture feeding strategy more than strategy as a standalone. He says that while Chelsea's culture is “definitely focused on performance, it is at the same time supportive, inclusive and diverse. Both elements are critical to our success and one does not work without the other.”

“I think we are pragmatic in our choices,” he continues. “And we are comfortable making the right changes at the right time to ensure we can achieve our long-term ambitions. I hope it also says something about the clarity of the long-term ambition of the club. Those who join understand the objectives both on the pitch, as well as the wider positive role the club plays in the community.”

Twenty years ago, Abramovich was one of tens-of-thousands of fans sitting in a stadium somewhere in Europe, realizing how great it felt to simply be watching a football match. Two years later, in London, he was becoming owner of Chelsea because of the opportunity it provided for fusing that “love” of “following the successes and the ups and downs” of football with his guideposts of innovation and investment. That contribution had an immediate impact on the club, its sport, its business, and its communities. Abramovich has kept it up—and is committed to keep it going.

[Chester Perry]

As it is reporting season in football, FIFA have released their own financial updates

The 2020 FIFA Financial Report can be viewed here https://publications.fifa.com/en/annual-report-2020/

- revenues remain steady, reserves are down but everything is ok because Gianni Infantino managed to earn his $1m bonus to keep his earnings at $3m - from the Associated Press

Revenue on track, reserves down in FIFA virus-era accounts
By GRAHAM DUNBAR
yesterday

GENEVA (AP) — FIFA expects to hit its four-year revenue target of $6.44 billion up to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Total spending of $1.04 billion in 2020 included $270 million in grants to soccer bodies worldwide as part of a COVID-19 relief plan, FIFA’s annual financial report said on Friday.

It also included a $10 million donation to the World Health Organization.

FIFA again awarded its president Gianni Infantino a $1 million annual bonus to raise his overall pre-tax pay above $3 million in 2020, matching his 2019 income.

The pandemic relief payments helped reduce FIFA’s reserves by $705 million in 2020. They stood at almost $1.9 billion by the end of the year.

FIFA gets most of its money from the four-yearly men’s World Cup, and said on Friday it already sealed 92% of its income target from broadcasting rights.

Contracted income from all sources to the end of 2020 was more than $5.1 billion, or 80% of revenue budgeted for the 2019-2022 financial period, according to the FIFA document.

Fewer sponsor slots for the 2022 World Cup have been sold compared to the same stage before previous editions of the tournament.

After a near-total shutdown of soccer worldwide last year, FIFA advanced money due to its 211 national member federations and the six continental governing bodies.

Hundreds of millions of dollars more was made available in grants and loans for specific projects.

FIFA made savings by the forced cancellations of youth tournaments, its annual congress scheduled in Ethiopia, and the annual awards ceremony in Milan.

“Travel was reduced to the bare minimum, and a large-scale switch to online meetings and training produced significant cost savings,” the FIFA financial report said.

Administration and governance spending of $169 million was $42 million less than the planned budget for 2020.

The FIFA document showed Infantino got a base salary of 1.95 million Swiss francs, ($2.1 million) plus a bonus of just over 1 million Swiss francs ($1.08 million).

The package totaled 3 million Swiss francs ($3.2 million) — the same as in 2019 — when some allowances were added.

FIFA secretary general Fatma Samoura got a 50,000 Swiss francs ($54,000) raise in her bonus from 2019 for a pre-tax package of more than 1.6 million Swiss francs ($1.72 million).

The six continental presidents who sit on FIFA’s ruling council each received a net income of $300,000, plus some expenses. Other council members each got $250,000 after tax.

The highest paid committee members were audit and compliance chairman Tomaž Vesel and chief ethics investigator Maria Claudia Rojas, who each got $246,000. Vesel also chairs the compensation panel which oversees pay for senior management.

FIFA is one of the most transparent international sports bodies in publishing what it pays senior officials.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

That Abramovich interview is a good read.

Worth noting how he sees something worthwhile in woman's football and has done from very early on, yet our own fans don't want anything to do with it and got the arse on when Burnley decided to bring the woman's team in house....

[Chester Perry]

That Abramovich interview is a good read.

Worth noting how he sees something worthwhile in woman's football and has done from very early on, yet our own fans don't want anything to do with it and got the arse on when Burnley decided to bring the woman's team in house....

No doubt he has done a lot of good things with the club, plenty on equality, anti-racism and anti-fascism/anti-semitism which given the previous reputation of a section of the club's support is excellent work - they are usually the first to make a public response to anything a reasonable person would want to call out or give assistance with - on that point his reign has been quite remarkable

[Vegas Claret]

It is interesting to see what West Ham Managed to secure their £120m loan from MSD Holdings on

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 1587267585

full details here dated 17th March 2021

West Ham United Football Club Limited
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

WH Holding Limited
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

West Ham Sportswear Limited
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

West Ham United Limited
https://find-and-update.company-informa ... ng-history

Hey CP

Are you still concerned about our dealings with MSD ?

[Chester Perry]

Hey CP

Are you still concerned about our dealings with MSD ?

The primary issue with the loan is that the money is not being used to grow the club's revenues, it has been specifically taken out to line the pockets of a few individuals, same as the inter-company loan from the clubs cash holding (all legitimate and common business practice). As I have previously stated, the monies used to pay interest on the principal of the loan (circa £6m per annum) could have been used to pay for the kind of intellectual capital that the new owners bring to the club to drive it forward without the attendant liability of the principal sum. With the cash holding used to fund the new strategies that the new talent has developed. Currently we have the (as yet unproven) talent, all the liability of the loan and it's interest and no funds to invest in the new strategies to me that is a point of genuine concern. More significantly the loans also restrict the borrowing capability of the club to invest in it's growth.

Of course, the new owners may bring in additional funding, it appears that they are trying to flip a portion of their shareholding for a profit, which is fine if that profit goes into the club to fund it's development.

For now the club is reliant on growing revenue to fund it's development, but this is not just the revenues to take us beyond the £150m + we were on target for last season pre-pandemic, it is also the revenue required to take us back to that £150m + loan servicing level in a time of rebates/failed tv deals and crumbling sponsorship revenue. That means that the new owners are going to have to find around £30m + of revenue every season for the next 3 years or so just to get back to where we were last March, and even then the investment in the team is unlikely to be all that significant without sales.

So my concern is not with MSD specifically, they are reputable, I despair at the interest rate, which reflects the footing the club has been placed on by the purpose of the loan (extraction not growth) not where it was in the previous ownership who could have borrowed such a sum for significantly less if it was to invest in revenue growth. The new owners have a lot to prove and not much time to do that if the stories about further payment schedules and ownership risk if not met are true.

[Chester Perry]

Derby County are back before an Independent Disciplinary Commission today re the long running saga about how they treat the amortisation of players

https://twitter.com/JPercyTelegraph/sta ... 6899030020

@KieranMaguire suspects that they will be using this discussion paper about players being classed as inventory so they would be no amortisation and sales would still be classed as revenue - it comes from a credible source, the International Financial Reporting Standards Interpretation Committee - to support their case. I suspect the EFL will lose (purely on their track record in these cases) and this will put UEFA in a dilemma as it would transform the financial reporting of clubs and their fiscal strength. That would inevitably lead to a new form of FFP. The true test would be how the markets react to those clubs that are listed if they were to report in this way.

https://cdn.ifrs.org/-/media/feature/me ... yments.pdf

[GodIsADeeJay81]

If a player is classed as inventory instead of an employee wouldn't that also effect their rights/contracts etc?

Or am I missing something?

[Chester Perry]

If a player is classed as inventory instead of an employee wouldn't that also effect their rights/contracts etc?

Or am I missing something?

It is part of the argument in the discussion paper - there is no way that would be allowed in any modern court because that is essentially slavery to my mind.

I am still plodding my way through the paper and I an not an accountant and do not understand the references (though with time it would be possible to look them up too).

I think there are two issues:
Can Derby use the practice they have employed - I suspect yes because they haven't been pulled up by the relevant Accounting authorities

Should football dictate the standards required going forward in the industry- again yes, though this first has to be agreed with the international courts if things like Bosman are anything to go by