Football's Magic Money Tree

[Tricky Trevor]

Same people this time on squad valuations - there are now 6 teams with squads valued at over Euro 1 billion

https://football-observatory.com/IMG/si ... /wp287/en/

we are 18th in the Premier league above Sheffield Utd and perhaps surprisingly Crystal Palace in 20th - Euro 2m covers the 3 of us

Strange to base it on 20 players when the PL squad is 25 but most squads go far deeper.

[TsarBomba]

I'd just like to begin by saying that I think we, UTC users, are very fortunate to have two gentlemen (Chester and Royboyclaret) on here who:

a) know about finance per se;

b) are "measured" and "serious"

They use their knowledge to help those of with far more limited financial understanding to get a sound overview of our own club's situation and the game in general.

And, my thanks goes to them.

Clearly, predicting the future for anybody is impossible because nobody knows how long this crisis will continue. Hence, the need for caution as well as"best case" and "worst case" scenarios (as is the case for all business sectors and all individual companies).

FWIW I tend to agree with Royboyclaret that every effort will be made to finish the season even in empty grounds. The total lack of atmosphere will impact viewing figures but people will still watch especially after several weeks without live football (IMHO).

I echo these sentiments.

A cracking thread that Chester P spends a lot of time keeping up to date. I also look forward to Royboy’s contributions.

Great work, it’s very much appreciated.

[claretblue]

Macclesfield Town: Six-point deduction reduced to four point penalty after appeal

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51935256

[Chester Perry]

Spurs announce their financial results for 2018/19 - without actually publishing them as seems to be the fashion

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2 ... june-2019/

the Chairman's message has the right perspective

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/news/2 ... s-message/

Spurs are now the financial champions of London overtaking Arsenal and Chelsea but behind the big 3 North West clubs

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 5469955074

[Chester Perry]

@RobHarris interviews UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin on the impact of Covid19 (includes video as well)

https://apnews.com/62207eae19ba571c141a989b25d04443

https://apnews.com/f670b35d61f16c4ca8394716a404a639

[claretandy]

Time for a bit of corona virus distraction - CIES Football Observatory with it's "Scientific" approach to transfer values

https://football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr53/en/

Some of the valuations for our players on there are laughable.

[Chester Perry]

The EFL announces a £50m relief package for clubs struggling during the current suspension

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... oronavirus

full statement https://www.efl.com/news/2020/march/efl ... ronavirus/

[Chester Perry]

Some distribution details on that EFL relief package

https://twitter.com/mjshrimper/status/1 ... 0281901058

[Chester Perry]

meanwhile in Scotland resources are much more limited as the authorities make £1.5m available to the countries clubs

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51950991

[Chester Perry]

Bournemouth's 2018/19 accounts have now been published - £32m loss after a £11m loss the previous year

club statement https://www.afcb.co.uk/news/club-news/a ... ding-2019/

full accounts https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/comp ... ng-history

@Kieran Maguire has a look https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 3318327296

EDIT - he adds more here https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 6169980929

seems he spending most of his life doing interviews at the moment

[Chester Perry]

Like many other football finance commentators Vysyble have been busy of late - starting with this blog piece entitle "When Saturday goes"

https://vysyble.com/blog

[Chester Perry]

Simon Chadwick points us in the direction of an important article about the impact of Covid19 on the future global economy and says - "A very good piece that sports watchers should read, whilst thinking about their team/club/event etc https://foreignaffairs.com/articles/202 ... we-know-it… Overseas tours, transnational fans, expansion in new territories, big broadcasting contracts - the sport we just had may not be the sport we get in future."

From the current issue of Foreign Affairs

Will the Coronavirus End Globalization as We Know It?
The Pandemic Is Exposing Market Vulnerabilities No One Knew Existed
By Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman March 16, 2020

he new coronavirus is shaping up to be an enormous stress test for globalization. As critical supply chains break down, and nations hoard medical supplies and rush to limit travel, the crisis is forcing a major reevaluation of the interconnected global economy. Not only has globalization allowed for the rapid spread of contagious disease but it has fostered deep interdependence between firms and nations that makes them more vulnerable to unexpected shocks. Now, firms and nations alike are discovering just how vulnerable they are.

But the lesson of the new coronavirus is not that globalization failed. The lesson is that globalization is fragile, despite or even because of its benefits. For decades, individual firms’ relentless efforts to eliminate redundancy generated unprecedented wealth. But these efforts also reduced the amount of unused resources—what economists refer to as “slack”—in the global economy as a whole. In normal times, firms often see slack as a measure of idle, or even squandered, productive capacity. But too little slack makes the broader system brittle in times of crisis, eliminating critical fail-safes.

Lack of fail-safe manufacturing alternatives can cause supply chains to break down, as they have in some medical and health-related sectors as a result of the new coronavirus. Producers of vital medical supplies have been overwhelmed by a surge in global demand, pitting countries against one another in a competition for resources. The outcome has been a shift in power dynamics among major world economies, with those that are well prepared to combat the new virus either hoarding resources for themselves or assisting those that are not—and expanding their influence on the global stage as a result.

FRAGILE EFFICIENCY
The conventional wisdom about globalization is that it created a thriving international marketplace, allowing manufacturers to build flexible supply chains by substituting one supplier or component for another as needed. Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations became the wealth of the world as businesses took advantage of a globalized division of labor. Specialization produced greater efficiency, which in turn led to growth.

But globalization also created a complex system of interdependence. Companies embraced global supply chains, giving rise to a tangled web of production networks that wove the world economy together. The components of a given product could now be made in dozens of countries. This drive toward specialization sometimes made substitution difficult, especially for unusual skills or products. And as production went global, countries also became more interdependent, because no country could possibly control all the goods and components its economy needed. National economies were subsumed into a vast global network of suppliers.

The pandemic of the disease caused by the new coronavirus, COVID-19, is exposing the fragility of this globalized system. Some economic sectors—particularly those with a high degree of redundancy and in which production is spread across multiple countries—could weather the crisis relatively well. Others could be pushed close to collapse if the pandemic prevents a single supplier in a single country from producing a critical and widely used component. For example, car manufacturers across western Europe worry about shortages of small electronics because a single manufacturer, MTA Advanced Automotive Solutions, has been forced to suspend production at one of its plants in Italy.

In an earlier age, manufacturers might have built up stockpiles of supplies to protect themselves in a moment like this. But in the age of globalization, many businesses subscribe to Apple CEO Tim Cook’s famous dictum that inventory is “fundamentally evil.” Instead of paying to warehouse the parts that they need to manufacture a given product, these companies rely on “just-in-time” supply chains that function as the name suggests. But in the midst of a global pandemic, just-in-time can easily become too late. Partly as a result of supply chain problems, global production of laptops fell by as much as 50 percent in February, and production of smartphones could fall by 12 percent this coming quarter. Both products are built with components produced by specialized Asian manufacturers.

CRITICAL SHORTAGES
Production bottlenecks like the ones in electronics manufacturing are also hampering the fight against the new coronavirus. Critical medical supplies such as reagents, a key component of the test kits that laboratories use to detect viral RNA, are either running low or out of stock in many countries. Two companies dominate the production of the necessary reagents: the Dutch company Qiagen (recently purchased by the U.S. giant Thermo Fisher Scientific) and Roche laboratories, which is based in Switzerland. Both have been unable to keep up with the extraordinary surge in demand for their products. The shortfall has delayed the production of test kits in the United States, which finds itself having to get in line behind other countries to buy the chemicals it needs.

As the new virus spreads, some governments are giving in to their worst instincts. Even before the COVID-19 outbreak began, Chinese manufacturers made half of the world’s medical masks. These manufacturers ramped up production as a result of the crisis, but the Chinese government effectively bought up the country’s entire supply of masks, while also importing large quantities of masks and respirators from abroad. China certainly needed them, but the result of its buying spree was a supply crunch that hobbled other countries’ response to the disease.

European countries didn’t behave much better. Russia and Turkey prohibited the export of medical masks and respirators. Germany did the same, even though it is a member of the European Union, which is supposed to have a “single market” with unrestricted free trade among its member states. The French government took the simpler step of seizing all available masks. EU officials complained that such actions undermined solidarity and prevented the EU from adopting a common approach to combating the new virus, but they were simply ignored.

These beggar-thy-neighbor dynamics threaten to escalate as the crisis deepens, choking off global supply chains for urgent medical supplies. The problem is dire for the United States, which has been late to adopt a coherent response to the pandemic and is short on many of the supplies it will need. The United States has a national stockpile of masks, but it hasn’t been replenished since 2009 and contains only a fraction of the number that could be required. Unsurprisingly, President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, Peter Navarro, has used this and other shortages to threaten allies and to justify a further withdrawal from global trade, arguing that the United States needs to “bring home its manufacturing capabilities and supply chains for essential medicines.” As a result, Germany is reportedly worried that the Trump administration will make the aggressive move of completely buying out a new vaccine under development by a German company in order to use it in the United States. Berlin is now considering whether to make a counterbid on the vaccine or ban the U.S. transaction.

VIRAL INFLUENCE
Whereas the Trump administration has used the pandemic to pull back on global integration, China is using the crisis to showcase its willingness to lead. As the first country hit by the new coronavirus, China suffered grievously over the last three months. But now it is beginning to recover, just as the rest of the world is succumbing to the disease. That poses a problem for Chinese manufacturers, many of which are now up and running again but facing weak demand from countries in crisis. But it also gives China an enormous short-term opportunity to influence the behavior of other states. Despite early mistakes that likely cost the lives of thousands of people, Beijing has learned how to fight the new virus, and it has stockpiles of equipment. These are valuable assets—and Beijing has deployed them with skill.

In early March, Italy called on other EU countries to provide emergency medical equipment as critical shortages forced its doctors to make heartbreaking decisions about which patients to try to save and which to let die. None of them responded. But China did, offering to sell ventilators, masks, protective suits, and swabs. As the China experts Rush Doshi and Julian Gewirtz have argued, Beijing seeks to portray itself as the leader of the global fight against the new coronavirus in order to promote goodwill and expand its influence.

This is awkward for the Trump administration, which has been slow to respond to the new virus (and which thinks banning travelers from Europe is the best defense against a disease that is already spreading rapidly on its soil). Far from serving as a global provider of public goods, the United States has few resources that it can offer to other states. To add insult to injury, the United States may soon find itself receiving Chinese charity: the billionaire cofounder of Alibaba, Jack Ma, has offered to donate 500,000 test kits and one million masks.

THE NEW GEOPOLITICS OF GLOBALIZATION
As policymakers around the world struggle to deal with the new coronavirus and its aftermath, they will have to confront the fact that the global economy doesn’t work as they thought it did. Globalization calls for an ever-increasing specialization of labor across countries, a model that creates extraordinary efficiencies but also extraordinary vulnerabilities. Shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic reveal these vulnerabilities. Single-source providers, or regions of the world that specialize in one particular product, can create unexpected fragility in moments of crisis, causing supply chains to break down. In the coming months, many more of these vulnerabilities will be exposed.

The result may be a shift in global politics. With the health and safety of their citizens at stake, countries may decide to block exports or seize critical supplies, even if doing so hurts their allies and neighbors. Such a retreat from globalization would make generosity an even more powerful tool of influence for states that can afford it. So far, the United States has not been a leader in the global response to the new coronavirus, and it has ceded at least some of that role to China. This pandemic is reshaping the geopolitics of globalization, but the United States isn’t adapting. Instead, it’s sick and hiding under the covers.

[Chester Perry]

Legal article looking at the issue of players being out of contract on June 30 with the league still remaining unresolved

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/summer-u ... 2Fnw%3D%3D

[Chester Perry]

Which interestingly was a key area of focus for FIFA's new working group looking at how to exit this hiatus when the pandemic ends

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 7469402114

[Chester Perry]

This might be of interest to some of you (especially if you are in lockdown - a free online seminar from Simon Chadwick looking Business, politics, entertainment and beyond – what City Football Group tells us about elite professional sport

It looks perfect material for this thread - as I said it is free but you have to register for it which you can do here https://register.gotowebinar.com/regist ... 7003942155

[Chester Perry]

How incredibly FIFA! - FIFA have appointed an accountant to take charge of the Trinidad and Tobago FA while it seeks to put a committee in place to correct the wrongs and investigation has found there - that accountant was himself a subject of the investigation

https://wired868.com/2020/03/18/fifa-pu ... estigaton/

[Chester Perry]

The Price of Football Podcast Scottish football special - an Interview with SPFL boss Neil Doncaster - I really like the way he presents himself offers hope for the future of football administration

https://podcasts.google.com/?feed=aHR0c ... ICxAG&ep=6

Note:
- it was recorded before the game stopped
- has a prescient discussion about cross border leagues, which Donaldson feels are definitely coming at some point probably triggered by a major crises
- Sottish football's approach to FFP is refreshing (though I would like to see something in there about debt rather than a reliance on benevolence)
- has an illuminating discussion on gambling and points out that the proportion of income from gambling in the game is much lower than it was 40 years ago even if it feels more prominent.

[Chester Perry]

@Marcotti with a thought provoking article on the financial hurdles facing UEFA whose income feeds though to clubs and national bodies the vast majority of whom are going to be desperate for it

https://www.espn.com/soccer/blog-marcot ... ubsnations

What you are seeing is the beginning of a difficult set of circumstances for some of the continents biggest clubs - they are perceived as being awash with cash (a few maybe but as we know many live close to the wire) so within their own countries there is call for benevolence even philanthropy from their pyramid, now we are seeing the same calls from countries outside the big 5 leagues. How can this happen?

Of course you may have the case where the much maligned State owned "sportswash" vehicles could help. Would they? It might help them diplomatically and would certainly give them a much warmer reception in the corridors and boardrooms of power in the game going forward. They do have their own problems though as does FIFA President Gianni Infantino

http://www.insideworldfootball.com/2020 ... d-designs/

As ever Simon Chadwick highlights the issues

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 9983230978

[Chester Perry]

Of course the biggest player in this type of operation is beginning to emerge from it's lockdown and tell the world how they to can do the same - From ForeignAffairs.com

The Coronavirus Could Reshape Global Order
China Is Maneuvering for International Leadership as the United States Falters
By Kurt M. Campbell and Rush Doshi March 18, 2020

ith hundreds of millions of people now isolating themselves around the world, the novel coronavirus pandemic has become a truly global event. And while its geopolitical implications should be considered secondary to matters of health and safety, those implications may, in the long term, prove just as consequential—especially when it comes to the United States’ global position. Global orders have a tendency to change gradually at first and then all at once. In 1956, a botched intervention in the Suez laid bare the decay in British power and marked the end of the United Kingdom’s reign as a global power. Today, U.S. policymakers should recognize that if the United States does not rise to meet the moment, the coronavirus pandemic could mark another “Suez moment.”

It is now clear to all but the most blinkered partisans that Washington has botched its initial response. Missteps by key institutions, from the White House and the Department of Homeland Security to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), have undermined confidence in the capacity and competence of U.S. governance. Public statements by President Donald Trump, whether Oval Office addresses or early-morning tweets, have largely served to sow confusion and spread uncertainty. Both public and private sectors have proved ill-prepared to produce and distribute the tools necessary for testing and response. And internationally, the pandemic has amplified Trump’s instincts to go it alone and exposed just how unprepared Washington is to lead a global response.

The status of the United States as a global leader over the past seven decades has been built not just on wealth and power but also, and just as important, on the legitimacy that flows from the United States’ domestic governance, provision of global public goods, and ability and willingness to muster and coordinate a global response to crises. The coronavirus pandemic is testing all three elements of U.S. leadership. So far, Washington is failing the test.

As Washington falters, Beijing is moving quickly and adeptly to take advantage of the opening created by U.S. mistakes, filling the vacuum to position itself as the global leader in pandemic response. It is working to tout its own system, provide material assistance to other countries, and even organize other governments. The sheer chutzpah of China’s move is hard to overstate. After all, it was Beijing’s own missteps—especially its efforts at first to cover up the severity and spread of the outbreak—that helped create the very crisis now afflicting much of the world. Yet Beijing understands that if it is seen as leading, and Washington is seen as unable or unwilling to do so, this perception could fundamentally alter the United States’ position in global politics and the contest for leadership in the twenty-first century.

MISTAKES WERE MADE
In the immediate aftermath of the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease now referred to as COVID-19, the missteps of Chinese leaders cast a pall on their country’s global standing. The virus was first detected in November 2019 in the city of Wuhan, but officials didn’t disclose it for months and even punished the doctors who first reported it, squandering precious time and delaying by at least five weeks measures that would educate the public, halt travel, and enable widespread testing. Even as the full scale of the crisis emerged, Beijing tightly controlled information, shunned assistance from the CDC, limited World Health Organization travel to Wuhan, likely undercounted infections and deaths, and repeatedly altered the criteria for registering new COVID-19 cases—perhaps in a deliberate effort to manipulate the official number of cases.

As the crisis worsened through January and February, some observers speculated that the coronavirus might even undermine the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. It was called China’s “Chernobyl”; Dr. Li Wenliang—the young whistleblower silenced by the government who later succumbed to complications from the COVID-19—was likened to the Tiananmen Square “tank man.”

Yet by early March, China was claiming victory. Mass quarantines, a halt to travel, and a complete shutdown of most daily life nationwide were credited with having stemmed the tide; official statistics, such as they are, reported that daily new cases had fallen into the single digits in mid-March from the hundreds in early February. In a surprise to most observers, Chinese leader Xi Jinping—who had been uncharacteristically quiet in the first weeks—began to put himself squarely at the center of the response. This month, he personally visited Wuhan.

Even though life in China has yet to return to normal (and despite continuing questions over the accuracy of China’s statistics), Beijing is working to turn these early signs of success into a larger narrative to broadcast to the rest of the world—one that makes China the essential player in a coming global recovery while airbrushing away its earlier mismanagement of the crisis.

A critical part of this narrative is Beijing’s supposed success in battling the virus. A steady stream of propaganda articles, tweets, and public messaging, in a wide variety of languages, touts China’s achievements and highlights the effectiveness of its model of domestic governance. “China’s signature strength, efficiency and speed in this fight has been widely acclaimed,” declared Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian. China, he added, set “a new standard for the global efforts against the epidemic.” Central authorities have instituted tight informational control and discipline at state organs to snuff out contradictory narratives.

These messages are helped by the implicit contrast with efforts to battle the virus in the West, particularly in the United States—Washington’s failure to produce adequate numbers of testing kits, which means the United States has tested relatively few people per capita, or the Trump administration’s ongoing disassembly of the U.S. government’s pandemic-response infrastructure. Beijing has seized the narrative opportunity provided by American disarray, its state media and diplomats regularly reminding a global audience of the superiority of Chinese efforts and criticizing the “irresponsibility and incompetence” of the “so-called political elite in Washington,” as the state-run Xinhua news agency put it in an editorial.

Chinese officials and state media have even insisted that the coronavirus did not in fact emerge from China—despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary—in order to reduce China’s blame for the global pandemic. This effort has elements of a full-blown Russian-style disinformation campaign, with China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman and over a dozen diplomats sharing poorly sourced articles accusing the U.S. military of spreading the coronavirus in Wuhan. These actions, combined with China’s unprecedented mass expulsion of journalists from three leading American papers, damage China’s pretensions to leadership.

CHINA MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES
Xi understands that providing global goods can burnish a rising power’s leadership credentials. He has spent the last several years pushing China’s foreign policy apparatus to think harder about leading reforms to “global governance,” and the coronavirus offers an opportunity to put that theory into action. Consider China’s increasingly well-publicized displays of material assistance—including masks, respirators, ventilators, and medicine. At the outset of the crisis, China purchased and produced (and received as aid) vast quantities of these goods. Now it is in a position to hand them out to others.

When no European state answered Italy’s urgent appeal for medical equipment and protective gear, China publicly committed to sending 1,000 ventilators, two million masks, 100,000 respirators, 20,000 protective suits, and 50,000 test kits. China has also dispatched medical teams and 250,000 masks to Iran and sent supplies to Serbia, whose president dismissed European solidarity as “a fairy tale” and proclaimed that “the only country that can help us is China.” Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma has promised to send large quantities of testing kits and masks to the United States, as well as 20,000 test kits and 100,000 masks to each of Africa’s 54 countries.

Beijing’s edge in material assistance is enhanced by the simple fact that much of what the world depends on to fight the coronavirus is made in China. It was already the major producer of surgical masks; now, through wartime-like industrial mobilization, it has boosted production of masks more than tenfold, giving it the capacity to provide them to the world. China also produces roughly half of the N95 respirators critical for protecting health workers (it has forced foreign factories in China to make them and then sell them directly to the government), giving it another foreign policy tool in the form of medical equipment. Meanwhile, antibiotics are critical for addressing emerging secondary infections from COVID-19, and China produces the vast majority of active pharmaceutical ingredients necessary to make them.

The United States, by contrast, lacks the supply and capacity to meet many of its own demands, let alone to provide aid in crisis zones elsewhere. The picture is grim. The U.S. Strategic National Stockpile, the nation’s reserve of critical medical supplies, is believed to have only one percent of the masks and respirators and perhaps ten percent of the ventilators needed to deal with the pandemic. The rest will have to be made up with imports from China or rapidly increased domestic manufacturing. Similarly, China’s share of the U.S. antibiotics market is more than 95 percent, and most of the ingredients cannot be manufactured domestically. Although Washington offered assistance to China and others at the outset of the crisis, it is less able to do so now, as its own needs grow; Beijing, in contrast, is offering aid precisely when the global need is greatest.

Crisis response, however, is not only about material goods. During the 2014–15 Ebola crisis, the United States assembled and led a coalition of dozens of countries to counter the spread of the disease. The Trump administration has so far shunned a similar leadership effort to respond to the coronavirus. Even coordination with allies has been lacking. Washington appears, for example, not to have given its European allies any prior notice before instituting a ban on travel from Europe.

China, by contrast, has undertaken a robust diplomatic campaign to convene dozens of countries and hundreds of officials, generally by videoconference, to share information about the pandemic and lessons from China’s own experience battling the disease. Like much of China’s diplomacy, these convening efforts are largely conducted at the regional level or through regional bodies. They include calls with central and eastern European states through the “17 + 1” mechanism, with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s secretariat, with ten Pacific Island states, and with other groupings across Africa, Europe, and Asia. And China is working hard to publicize such initiatives. Virtually every story on the front page of its foreign-facing propaganda organs advertises China’s efforts to help different countries with goods and information while underscoring the superiority of Beijing’s approach.

HOW TO LEAD
China’s chief asset in its pursuit of global leadership—in the face of the coronavirus and more broadly—is the perceived inadequacy and inward focus of U.S. policy. The ultimate success of China’s pursuit, therefore, will depend as much on what happens in Washington as on what happens in Beijing. In the current crisis, Washington can still turn the tide if it proves capable of doing what is expected of a leader: managing the problem at home, supplying global public goods, and coordinating a global response.

The first of those tasks—stopping the spread of the disease and protecting vulnerable populations in the United States—is most urgent and largely a question of domestic governance rather than geopolitics. But how Washington goes about it will have geopolitical implications, and not just insofar as it does or does not reestablish confidence in the U.S. response. For example, if the federal government immediately supports and subsidizes expansion of domestic production of masks, respirators, and ventilators—a response befitting the wartime urgency of this pandemic—it would both save American lives and help others around the world by reducing the scarcity of global supplies.

While the United States isn’t currently able to meet the urgent material demands of the pandemic, its continuing global edge in the life sciences and biotechnology can be instrumental in finding a real solution to the crisis: a vaccine. The U.S. government can help by providing incentives to U.S. labs and companies to undertake a medical “Manhattan Project” to devise, rapidly test in clinical trials, and mass-produce a vaccine. Because these efforts are costly and require dauntingly high upfront investments, generous government financing and bonuses for successful vaccine production could make a difference. And it is worth noting that despite Washington’s mismanagement, state and local governments, nonprofit and religious organizations, universities, and companies are not waiting for the federal government to get its act together before taking action. U.S.-funded companies and researchers are already making progress toward a vaccine—though even in the best-case scenario, it will be some time before one is ready for widespread use.

Yet even as it focuses on efforts at home, Washington cannot simply ignore the need for a coordinated global response. Only strong leadership can solve global coordination problems related to travel restrictions, information sharing, and the flow of critical goods. The United States has successfully provided such leadership for decades, and it must do so again.

That leadership will also require effectively cooperating with China, rather than getting consumed by a war of narratives about who responded better. Little is gained by repeatedly emphasizing the origins of the coronavirus—which are already widely known despite China’s propaganda—or engaging in petty tit-for-tat rhetorical exchanges with Beijing. As Chinese officials accuse the U.S. military of spreading the virus and lambaste U.S. efforts, Washington should respond when necessary but generally resist the temptation to put China at the center of its coronavirus messaging. Most countries coping with the challenge would rather see a public message that stresses the seriousness of a shared global challenge and possible paths forward (including successful examples of coronavirus response in democratic societies such as Taiwan and South Korea). And there is much Washington and Beijing could do together for the world’s benefit: coordinating vaccine research and clinical trials as well as fiscal stimulus; sharing information; cooperating on industrial mobilization (on machines for producing critical respirator components or ventilator parts, for instance); and offering joint assistance to others.

Ultimately, the coronavirus might even serve as a wake-up call, spurring progress on other global challenges requiring U.S.-Chinese cooperation, such as climate change. Such a step should not be seen—and would not be seen by the rest of the world—as a concession to Chinese power. Rather, it would go some way toward restoring faith in the future of U.S. leadership. In the current crisis, as in geopolitics today more generally, the United States can do well by doing good.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Which contributed to this bit of speculation from Simon Chadwick

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 8348980230

[Chester Perry]

suspension of football through to 30th of April at least

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51962751

I suspect it will be much longer

[Chester Perry]

Back to my point earlier about perceived rich clubs not necessarily being able to fund the great football bail out - this is the current economic position of what is perceived as the world's richest league

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1240575731207417857

breakdown by club
https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1240 ... 21/photo/1

EDIT there is also the not so small issue of the liabilities those clubs carry - like outstanding transfer payments - which recipients certainly will not be wanting any delay on - WARNING these are based on last publish accounts (which for some, including Burnley, goes back to June 2018), we can assume that figures have only gone upwards for them since

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 02/photo/1

[Chester Perry]

In England we are proud the we have the "92" (91 this season) the greatest depth of professional football in the world, but professional football goes further down the pyramid than that in the 5th tier national league only Woking are part time, though I suspect that no team makes a profit. Consequently that league too is seeking financial assistance

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51962292

as the article hints there will be other clubs further down the pyramid that are now in peril. This is the dichotomy we repeatedly visit on here and was covered in that excellent Price of Football Podcast this morning, there Neil Doncaster advocated the benevolent dictator model.

I suspect most would expect/demand that a benevolent dictator should pick up the cost of the risk he ran not be subsidised to the same extent as those that continually live within their means.

[Chester Perry]

The story of the last time an English football season carried on until mid June

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... une-finish

[Royboyclaret]

The story of the last time an English football season carried on until mid June

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... une-finish

That was the only season Burnley have ever played a competitive game in the month of June. We played Charlton in the FA Cup Final on 26th April 1947 after which we played a further 7 league games, the last one being at home to Millwall on 7th June.

[Royboyclaret]

Bournemouth's 2018/19 accounts have now been published - £32m loss after a £11m loss the previous year

club statement https://www.afcb.co.uk/news/club-news/a ... ding-2019/

full accounts https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/comp ... ng-history

@Kieran Maguire has a look https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 3318327296

EDIT - he adds more here https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 6169980929

seems he spending most of his life doing interviews at the moment

Yet another Prem club reporting a Net Loss financial year ended Jun.'19, this time Bournemouth and a significant Loss of £32m. Always interesting to compare these latest results to the accounts anticipated from Burnley in three weeks or so. Bournemouth's matchday receipts are almost identical to ours and yet their average home attendance is half that of Burnley. Further evidence, if we needed it, of the excellent value Burnley supporters enjoy from their season ticket prices and turnstile admission.

Also a remarkable Wage bill of £110.9m for a club the size of Bournemouth and will be some £35m more than Burnley will report for the same financial period. Not difficult to understand, therefore, Bournemouth are able to attract a good standard of player. How long this will last, however, with their impending relegation, is a completely different question.

[Chester Perry]

Yet another Prem club reporting a Net Loss financial year ended Jun.'19, this time Bournemouth and a significant Loss of £32m. Always interesting to compare these latest results to the accounts anticipated from Burnley in three weeks or so. Bournemouth's matchday receipts are almost identical to ours and yet their average home attendance is half that of Burnley. Further evidence, if we needed it, of the excellent value Burnley supporters enjoy from their season ticket prices and turnstile admission.

Also a remarkable Wage bill of £110.9m for a club the size of Bournemouth and will be some £35m more than Burnley will report for the same financial period. Not difficult to understand, therefore, Bournemouth are able to attract a good standard of player. How long this will last, however, with their impending relegation, is a completely different question.

Roy I would be more concerned about their debts and outstanding transfer commitments £109m and £81m respectively - there is a lot about their model that shouts "unsustainable" and you would think they are in real trouble if they go down

though I do note that their matchday revenue has fallen repeatedly (if marginally) in the Premier League from it's initial high

[Royboyclaret]

Roy I would be more concerned about their debts and outstanding transfer commitments £109m and £81m respectively - there is a lot about their model that shouts "unsustainable" and you would think they are in real trouble if they go down

though I do note that their matchday revenue has fallen repeatedly (if marginally) in the Premier League from it's initial high

I take your point. There are so many elements of those accounts that scream out the message that relegation could lead to total collapse of the Club. The reason I highlighted the Wage bill was to emphasise the Wages/Turnover ratio being the second highest in the Prem, a frightening figure as is the £1.8m remuneration they are paying to one director. The suspicion is that they never considered relegation to be a realistic proposition and if that is the eventual outcome they could be in serious trouble.

[Chester Perry]

KPMG's Football Benchmark looks at the potential financial costs if Europe's big 5 leagues do not complete their season

https://footballbenchmark.com/library/w ... n_the_game

This is the first article I have seen that has mentioned the potential issues for clubs who have "factored" their TV income with lenders - it is no wonder they appear so determined to finish the season (In the Premier League I believe only Burnley and Man United don't do this). Burnley are definitely the only club in the Premier League without any current credit facility - they closed their last one in January this year after it had been unused for the last 2 or 3 years. Incidentally Man United's credit facility was created to facilitate the spending under Jose (and quickly leapt to over £250m which is why they paid cash for Maguire and Wan Bissaka - lenders said enough)

[Chester Perry]

That factoring issue is likely to also be behind the Premier Leagues promised resistance to the rights holders seeking refunds or contractual "fines"

https://www.soccerex.com/insight/articl ... sky-and-bt

[Chester Perry]

Of course some rights holders will take matters into their own hands - such as NENT (who you may remember have just signed a massive £2bn six year extension with the Premier League from 2022) by stopping their payments to sports properties that are not currently active

https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/nent ... roperties/

I should say that the current deal with NENT is around £180m a season so they would be looking for around £45m - £50m in compensation at most - The problem for the Premier League is that this could be the foot in the door that other rights holders use to push through

[Chester Perry]

Liverpool's much vaunted and litigated new kit deal with Nike is supposed to begin in July - the premise of the deal is that they will earn a significantly greater revenue share of sales - Nike's base line liability is much less than say the United/adidas deal or Man City/Puma

https://www.sportbusiness.com/2020/01/d ... es-growth/

will we see Liverpool presented with the Premier League trophy in Nike Kit - either way it may take some time for those big revenues to push through as the world emerges from Covid-19 in the midst of a global recession of enormous proportions

[Chester Perry]

Another Legal advisory article on the growing concern re players contracts - this one is from Brabners

https://www.brabners.com/blogs/coronavi ... -contracts

[Chester Perry]

Women's football is beginning to see the same kind of investment patterns as the men's game at the highest level - the most dominant team in Europe takes ownership of Reign FC in the US NWSL with the stated aim of having the 2 best teams in the world

https://www.sportbusiness.com/2020/01/o ... -reign-fc/

[Chester Perry]

@FootballLaw talks to the engaging people podcast about the impact of Covid-19 on football

http://engagingpeoplepod.libsyn.com/epi ... aniel-geey

All these people talking about changing the seasons perhaps need to remember that the sporting calendar (as paid for by rights holders is carefully structured to keep content full and engaging all around the year (so subscribers are retained for the whole year and advertising opportunities are maximised - Rights holders will be extremely reluctant to condense the sum of their offerings into a shorter period (where it is impossible for viewers to watch it all anyway and advertisers will want to pay less for smaller audiences for much of the content) and lose those additional revenue streams

[Chester Perry]

This story first appeared in the Telegraph but is behind a paywall - Championship clubs are planning a cap on player wages - it is a drastic cut but would make them sustainable - Leagues 1 and 2 are monitoring it's likely progress with a view to doing something similar

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sport ... mpact.html

[Chester Perry]

@KieranMaguire has put copies of his master spreadsheets that he uses for all his analysis up on google doc for all to view

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 8903013376

the link to the spreadsheets
https://drive.google.com/file/d/18bQwSL ... G5N7O/view

[Chester Perry]

Fulham's 2018/19 accounts show a loss (surprising no one) - just a quiet release at companies house, no official statement

full accounts https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/comp ... ng-history

@KieranMaguire takes a quick peak
https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 1210676224

[Chester Perry]

@vysyble have cause a stir with input to an article initially published in France (and behind a paywall, which is why I couldn't transcribe) it explains some of the cash problems that Premier League are going to face and are summarised in this tweet

"No football until at least 30th April.

#PremierLeague staff costs 2017-18= £2.83bn

2018-19 staff costs up on av. 14.4% on prev. yr

Total= £3.23bn ie £62.11m p/wk.

Say 10% inc. for 2019-20= total £3.56bn ie £68.46m p/wk.

7-wk shutdown= approx. £479m in staff costs."

and this one breaks it down further

"This means #PremierLeague clubs' combined current staff costs are circa. £9.8m per day.

But our 10% suggested incr. for 2019-20 might be on low side. Prev. overall incr: 11.15% (2015-16), 11.88% (2016-17), 13.37% (2017-18).

It is big £ for no activity."

FourFourTwo were one outlet that picked up on the story https://www.fourfourtwo.com/news/corona ... ustainable

[Chester Perry]

Many may have thought that the EFL's £50m package would see them through the crises - in truth it doesn't cover 4 weeks staff costs in the Championship - the current break will last a minimum of 7 weeks

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1240779620787634182

- may explain that story of a £6k pw pay cap

If all this does not persuade the game to get it's house in order then it is likely gone

[Chester Perry]

Interesting move by the EFL - dropped all charges against individuals at Sheffield Wednesday, but the ones against the club remain

https://www.swfc.co.uk/news/2020/march/ ... t-2032020/

allows them to still remain as Directors no matter what the punishment is one interpretation

[Chester Perry]

Last night's SkySports "The Debate" was about how EFL could cope during the current hiatus

summary
https://www.skysports.com/football/news ... s-pandemic

Podcast
https://www.skysports.com/podcasts/3657 ... the-debate

[Chester Perry]

@SwissRamble dissects Bournemouth's 2018/19 financial results

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 2554953729

[Chester Perry]

Reports emerging that UEFA has relaxed it's FFP rules for the current season

https://theathletic.com/1690193/2020/03 ... ed-article

No mention of it on the UEFA website or Twitter accounts

[Royboyclaret]

KPMG's Football Benchmark looks at the potential financial costs if Europe's big 5 leagues do not complete their season

https://footballbenchmark.com/library/w ... n_the_game

This is the first article I have seen that has mentioned the potential issues for clubs who have "factored" their TV income with lenders - it is no wonder they appear so determined to finish the season (In the Premier League I believe only Burnley and Man United don't do this). Burnley are definitely the only club in the Premier League without any current credit facility - they closed their last one in January this year after it had been unused for the last 2 or 3 years. Incidentally Man United's credit facility was created to facilitate the spending under Jose (and quickly leapt to over £250m which is why they paid cash for Maguire and Wan Bissaka - lenders said enough)

A classy and insightful report from KPMG. All hypothetical figures of course, but assuming this current season was not completed, then the table which shows the loss of various revenues is quite a startling one. Matchday (£170m to £180m), Broadcast (£700m to £800m) and Commercial (£250m to £300m). Remarkably Burnley would probably emerge from all that better than the rest with our loss of revenue being say Matchday (£1.5m), Broadcasting (£30m) and Commercial (£3m). Still significant enough figures to seriously affect the bottom line of the P/L account but nevertheless far less than all other PL clubs.

On your wider point of the lack of need for a credit facility, it's a far cry from just a few seasons ago when not only were we reliant on external loans but also loans from every member of our Board of Directors, all of which involved a substantial rate of interest. Thankfully those days are behind us, for now at least.

[Chester Perry]

This may become a useful resource if it continues to be made available to all

@DrRob-Wilson with an Insport Education Weekly Webinar - the first one looks at "COVID-19 and lower league football"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkCJXfOtWnU

I do not always agree with him but that is perhaps more of a reason to listen to his perspective - he has also started doing pieces for the Mail recently which is interesting given his politics are polar opposites to theirs

[Chester Perry]

On your wider point of the lack of need for a credit facility, it's a far cry from just a few seasons ago when not only were we reliant on external loans but also loans from every member of our Board of Directors, all of which involved a substantial rate of interest. Thankfully those days are behind us, for now at least.

as you quite rightly say Roy - "For now at least"

- if this goes on for 18months or so (https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavi ... 9337092b56) it could be a very different picture.

Far too many are trying to push a view that it will be over in a few months - the ramifications are huge as I have been showing and the need for a fundamental rethink is abundantly clear - we are potentially heading for the biggest recession in living memory. The only bright note is that when the game does return there is likely to be the same groundswell in attendances (and audiences) that followed the war as the joy of the experience returns (I will caution that this may not include the younger generation who will have deepened their love for e-sports during the shutdown).

[Chester Perry]

the calls for Premier League to provide financial assistance to the pyramid continue

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51979788

- while sounding plausible on the surface I am yet to be convinced the Premier League and it's member clubs have the money to spare without significant cuts
- is it reasonable to assist clubs who have gone out of their way to knowingly commit significantly monies more than they would reasonably generate in a season
- should assistance be constrained to that reasonable revenue expectation marker, with owners funding the difference as they would normally (and what if that owner has seen their own income stream/funds dry up in the pandemic)

compare and contrast with this stance taken by a sensibly managed club, that have learned from previous regimes- Nairn County FC

CLUB STATEMENT
Bill Shankly once said that football is not a matter of life and death, it is more important than that. Mr Shankly was wrong. It is a trying time for the Club, the town and the Country as a whole. In this regard we are aware we have not just football but also wider responsibilities.

Firstly to football. There will be no games or training at any level operated by the club until we are advised to recommence by both the Scottish Government and League officials. There is no indication at present that this season will be resumed any time soon.

In the past few days the Committee has discussed how we wish to take things forward for the club during this time. Since forming our Committee several years ago we have been conscious that whilst enjoying good days, we must always be aware that bad days may still come again. So to that regard we have budgeted over these years to make allowance for tougher times, placing at the sage guidance of our Treasurer, some monies from transfers, sponsors and other income away to safeguard our future. The Rainy Days have come and we are ready for them. We can confirm today that wages will continue to be paid in full to all our players and staff and that we will continue to meet our due bills and costs.

Now to our wider responsibilities. When we were in financial trouble several years ago, we asked the community for help and the community responded. We remember this and now it is our turn to repay this debt. In the coming days we will be in touch with local businesses to pay forward what we can for the coming season so that businesses will have that cash now when it is most needed, instead of next season. Further, we have no football to report, so we will devote our Social Media channels to advertising our local business sponsors and encouraging people to shop local and to consider making future bookings and buying vouchers now for local Hotels, hostelries, pubs and restaurants and all others to get some much needed cashflow into local business.

With regards to our fans and the community as a whole. Well we are not playing football for the foreseeable future, so if we can help on a Saturday with anyone in self isolation, be it picking up your shopping, getting your prescription to you or even just walking the dog, drop us a message or give us a call and we will sort something out for you.

Nobody knows how long this virus will be with us, it could be a long haul, but we want you to know that your Club is with you. You have supported us, now its our turn to do the same for you.

Ian Finlayson
Secretary
Nairn County FC

[Chester Perry]

5Live did a special looking at the financial impact of the Pandemic on the EFL this afternoon - if you missed it is here from 1:05 in (lasts about 55 minutes)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000gkmt

EDIT Rick Parry speaks extremely well in this, much like Neil Doncaster of the SPFL earlier this week in the Price of Football Podcast - it certainly gives grains of hope for the future of football administration

[Chester Perry]

Barcelona start making staff redundant and are considering reducing players salaries to help them deal with their financial issues that are being exacerbated by the pandemic - it comes as little surprise but is harsh on those being made redundant

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sport ... staff.html

[Chester Perry]

Even Mel Morris has joined the call for the Premier League to provide assistance to the League - I find the sheer front of this amazing given the way Morris has been pushing the overspend in the Championship - during his tenure Derby have become the most creative organisation in the country for finding ways around FFP

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/ ... sh-3968799