Football's Magic Money Tree

[Vegas Claret]

keep them coming CP

[Vegas Claret]

Fenerbahce have called on their supporters to help fund Mesut Ozil’s transfer from Arsenal due to the club being over £460million in debt.

Ozil is due to complete his free transfer to the Turkish club imminently, where he will reportedly earn the handsome sum of £13m over the duration of his contract.

But given their perilous financial situation, Fenerbahce are now seeking to raise extra cash to help pay for Ozil’s move.

Club president Ali Koc has now set up a text messaging scheme, named the ‘Mesutol campaign’, through which fans can donate.

“We have a request for our fans,” Koc said. “Please continue to support us, we are also dependent on your financial support.

[Chester Perry]

Fenerbahce have called on their supporters to help fund Mesut Ozil’s transfer from Arsenal due to the club being over £460million in debt.

Ozil is due to complete his free transfer to the Turkish club imminently, where he will reportedly earn the handsome sum of £13m over the duration of his contract.

But given their perilous financial situation, Fenerbahce are now seeking to raise extra cash to help pay for Ozil’s move.

Club president Ali Koc has now set up a text messaging scheme, named the ‘Mesutol campaign’, through which fans can donate.

“We have a request for our fans,” Koc said. “Please continue to support us, we are also dependent on your financial support.

I saw that, this is a club with over 400m Euro of Debt to start off with, not sure how that will affect their FFP from a UEFA perspective. That said I expect UEFA to move FFP to a 3 year assessment period (having moved it to a 2 year one last summer).

There are an awful lot of implications to be understood from the financial fall-out caused by the longer running of the pandemic. I am still not convinced that the start of next season will see a return to full stadiums, and a lockdown next season will be devastating for an awful lot of very big clubs

[Vegas Claret]

I sae that, this is a club with over 400m Euro of Debt to start off with, not sure how that will affect their FFP from a UEFA perspective. That said I expect UEFA to move FFP to a 3 year assessment period (having moved it to a 2 year one last summer).

There are an awful lot of implications to be understood from the financial fall-out caused by the longer running of the pandemic. I am still not convinced that the start of next season will see a return to full stadiums, and a lockdown next season will be devastating for an awful lot of very big clubs

it's insane a club with that much debt can sign players never mind Ozil, I know clubs like United carry immense debt but Fenerbache aren't on the same planet as them. Bonkers

[Chester Perry]

it's insane a club with that much debt can sign players never mind Ozil, I know clubs like United carry immense debt but Fenerbache aren't on the same planet as them. Bonkers

FFP doesn't measure debt though, just losses and it is possible that UEFA are going to have to change that, because at the highest levels clubs are just servicing the interest and ignoring the principal debt, which is what allowing them to conform to the regulations but storing problems for times like now as, running such hand to mouth levels of cash flow in normal times, means so many are having to go to the lenders again and not all will be able to benefit in the way Tottenham and Arsenal have with the BoE.

On the subject of those loans and similar across Europe it is interesting that neither UEFA or the EU has challenged the level of State aid that has flowed into the game - there is also the 200m Euro loan that the French government arranged last summer (when it cancelled the league), where it was guarantor - essentially meaning that if clubs did not repay the loans the government had too.

[Vegas Claret]

FFP doesn't measure debt though, just losses and it is possible that UEFA are going to have to change that, because at the highest levels clubs are just servicing the interest and ignoring the principal debt, which is what allowing them to conform to the regulations but storing problems for times like now as, running such hand to mouth levels of cash flow in normal times, means so many are having to go to the lenders again and not all will be able to benefit in the way Tottenham and Arsenal have with the BoE.

On the subject of those loans and similar across Europe it is interesting that neither UEFA or the EU has challenged the level of State aid that has flowed into the game - there is also the 200m Euro loan that the French government arranged last summer (when it cancelled the league), where it was guarantor - essentially meaning that if clubs did not repay the loans the government had too.

I would suggest UEFA are in bed with all of them and are particularly fond of the French......

[Chester Perry]

I am expecting the 24th edition of the Deloitte Football Money League report this coming week, it should make for an interesting, if not apocalyptic read as the the pandemic lockdowns continue to shakedown the fragile financial landscape in the game - I expect we may have climbed a bit and picture painted for Barcelona is not likely to be as rosy

this is last years report if you want a refresher

https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/s ... eague.html

This fit's in well with my current discussion with Vegas - Barca's revenues are huge (like Fenerbache relatively speaking in Turkey) but revenues do not indicate wealth - as the chaps of Vysyble (who are also referencing the Deloitte Money League report today). When you look at the Premier League a similar reference can be made

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1353391519168929792

[Chester Perry]

I would suggest UEFA are in bed with all of them and are particularly fond of the French......

as ever it is much more complicated than that, The single knocout games in Champions League and Europa League last season cost UEFA over 600m Euros in tv/sponsor rebates. Add the delayed European Championships (which are still under threat this summer) and UEFA is in a massive financial hole itself. It cannot pull down the clubs that are so vitally imperative to it's own wellbeing - though many of those same clubs are now looking for a greater share in the new cycle of UEFA club competitions, and UEFA wants them to take les so it can make the UEFA Conference (it;s 3rd competition) financially viable to those teams taking part in it - which was the reason they dropped the 3rd competition before.

[Vegas Claret]

as ever it is much more complicated than that, The single knocout games in Champions League and Europa League last season cost UEFA over 600m Euros in tv/sponsor rebates. Add the delayed European Championships (which are still under threat this summer) and UEFA is in a massive financial hole itself. It cannot pull down the clubs that are so vitally imperative to it's own wellbeing - though many of those same clubs are now looking for a greater share in the new cycle of UEFA club competitions, and UEFA wants them to take les so it can make the UEFA Conference (it;s 3rd competition) financially viable to those teams taking part in it - which was the reason they dropped the 3rd competition before.

what's your view on the current (non) state of FFP ?

[Chester Perry]

what's your view on the current (non) state of FFP ?

As I said when it was announced early last summer, I understand why it was done, I do not like it, Uefa have placed themselves into a tunnel and all alternative options are closed off if the pandemic's impact stretched into the new season.

Now that has occurred there is no backing out, particularly considering how many clubs gambled in last summers transfer market that fans would return last October (not just in England, but mainly in England). From a UEFA perspective they must extend the assessment period now. That means clubs in very difficult financial positions are eligible for European competition. If that route had not been chose, clubs like ours would be in Europe (others would be disqualified) and many more big clubs would be in even greater financial distress as they would not have access to the UEFA monies - I cannot imagine the broadcasters would be to happy if that ran into several seasons - A guaranteed Europa League group stage for us, would have seen us sign players last summer as forecast revenues would have allowed it in the break-even budget scenario.

[Vegas Claret]

As I said when it was announced early last summer, I understand why it was done, I do not like it, Uefa have placed themselves into a tunnel and all alternative options are closed off if the pandemic's impact stretched into the new season.

Now that has occurred there is no backing out, particularly considering how many clubs gambled in last summers transfer market that fans would return last October (not just in England, but mainly in England). From a UEFA perspective they must extend the assessment period now. That means clubs in very difficult financial positions are eligible for European competition. If that route had not been chose, clubs like ours would be in Europe (others would be disqualified) and many more big clubs would be in even greater financial distress as they would not have access to the UEFA monies - I cannot imagine the broadcasters would be to happy if that ran into several seasons - A guaranteed Europa League group stage for us, would have seen us sign players last summer as forecast revenues would have allowed it in the break-even budget scenario.

it astounds me, given the above and no real sign of things getting better that players values haven't plummeted. I get that clubs want the most for their players but the valuations were unsustainable pre-covid.......

[Chester Perry]

it astounds me, given the above and no real sign of things getting better that players values haven't plummeted. I get that clubs want the most for their players but the valuations were unsustainable pre-covid.......

Difficult to let players go when fees being offered are less than the book value - it just increases the losses at the selling club, even if it helps the cash flow. This is exacerbated if the selling club borrowed money to cover the transfer fee (think West Ham and Sebastian Haller), that has to be paid off immediately the player is sold and if that sale is not a cash up front deal it makes it virtually impossible for a club to accept the hit - it is noticeable that it took until the last 6 months of Ozil's contract for him to go. Once a club indicates it is willing to take such a loss, buying clubs become totally ruthless and refuse to nudge their valuations upwards.

[Chester Perry]

Barcelona Presidential candidate Joan Laporta has a trick up his sleeve to help ease Barcelona's cash flow issues according to ElConfidential.com/ Barcelona need to sell assets and reduce debt, to my way of thinking, not quite a slash and burn, but they really need to get those high wages off the bools and bring through more academy talent/

Laporta will crowdfund among Barca fans to get him out of the economic crisis
The candidate to preside over Barca will sell bonuses to fans of the blue club for about 200 million euros to obtain liquidity and be able to attend to the non-payment of the entity

By Augustine Marco
13/01/2021 - 12:00 Updated: 13/01/2021 - 12:26

Joan Laporta has designed her action plan to get Barca out of the biggest economic crisis that is remembered if he is elected president on January 24th. The candidate to lead the Club Azulgrana plans to make two bond issues with which to obtain about 200 million euros, fundamental to repay a loan that is due entirely in the medium term for 230 million. What is striking is that one of these placements will be aimed exclusively at fans of the team from all over the world, in a kind of crowdfunding, since the investment will have a peculiar return.

As financial sources have indicated, Joan Laporta's team is already talking to banks to carry out this rescue plan of FC Barcelona, whose net debt has soared above 550 million euros and whose continuity as a company is in serious danger from last season's losses and those that it will record in the current one. The one who was president until 2010 has detected that, from an economic point of view, the club has two very serious problems: one treasury, or liquidity to meet its payments, and another of own funds, which will lead the entity to a temporary creditor contest.

To do this, Laporta will implement a cost adjustment plan of about 250 million euros if the partners choose you at the polls next week. An expense cut that will apply urgently as quickly as we land at the headquarters of the sports institution. But, as lowering expenses will not be enough, the lawyer wants to ensure the continuity of Barca as a company by improving medium- and long-term income and, above all, securing short-term funding. To do this, the candidate who has obtained the most signatures during the pre-election campaign, more than twice as many as his great rival, Victor Font, will propose two bond issues.

The first will be conventional, aimed at institutional investors. An alternative that Josep María Bartomeu already used during his last term selling four bond issues for about 200 million to international insurers, at an average interest rate of 2%. The second is the great novelty because it will be exclusive for any private investor, follower of the club, in a kind of crowdfunding.

This broadcast will not have a traditional profitability, such as that for institutional ones, but an economic testimonial and, above all, based on Barca experiences for fans who subscribe to it. The required contribution to fans will be small, yet to be defined, so that anyone can participate in the initiative regardless of their economic capacity.

Cause of dissolution
With this means of financing, Laporta wants, on the one hand, to receive the cost to the club, which given its situation would have to pay a high interest to raise fresh money from banks or investment funds. And, on the other hand, facilitate the feeling of ownership and fidelity of the millions of followers that the Blaugrana entity has around the world, part of whom had lost affinity to colors for the political use of the club during the 'process' in Catalonia.

The highest candidate for the presidency of Barca wants, above all, to keep the current ownership of the club in the hands of the members and avoid turning FC Barcelona into a sports limited company, an SAD, like most LaLiga teams (with the exception of Real Madrid, Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna)and the rest of Europe.

But, as the entity is expected to enter into technical cause of dissolution on June 30, with only only 30 million assets – some 150 million additional losses expected – Laporta also wants to sell 49% of what has been referred to as Barca Corporate,a subsidiary mainly engaged in technology and audiovisual businesses, to achieve at least another 200 million with which to fill the piggy bank of its own resources.

[Chester Perry]

The "I" with a disturbing report on the lucrative nature of football's relationship with gambling

Time to worry as football becomes the gambling industry’s most lucrative sport
We are at a point where many younger fans see a punt as essential to enjoyment of a game

By Ian Burrell
January 24, 2021 11:05 am - Updated January 24, 2021 11:06 am

When I went to my first football match as a six-year-old, the dominant sensory experiences were the vivid but sponsor-free blue and red strips of the players, the intoxicating aroma of tobacco and the animated noise of an adult crowd, chorusing the “na-na-na, na” refrain of Hey Jude.

Aside from the fading paint of a few hoardings, commercial messaging was absent. Looking at that game’s programme, which along with the crackling tannoy provided the media dimension to the ‘match-day experience’, there were ads for a dry cleaner’s, a paint shop and the local funfair.

Gambling was limited to a Willy Wonka-like Golden Goal contest, which shared £130 prize money among tickets that showed times coinciding with the ball going in the net. Then there was the vague hope of riches from a pools coupon ritually filled out earlier that week with a series of Xs.

The modern young fan experiences the sport differently. Watching games on Sky, he/she sees Jeff Stelling endorsing Sky Bet, or is urged “Bet in play now!” On the BBC there’s no escape from shirts embossed with logos for Betway, BetVictor, LoveBet or ManBetX – a study by Goldsmith’s University last season found that betting logos, either on shirts or billboard ads, were on screen for between 71-89 per cent of the time on Match of the Day.

Lucrative market
When I was a kid, betting was associated with horses. Today, football is easily the gambling industry’s most lucrative sport. Football gambling has grown with the global popularity of the English game, and the evolution of the sports media serving it.

Younger fans are brimming with tactical insight gleaned from data-rich modern sports coverage. They’ve built encyclopaedic knowledge of players from video games such as FIFA and Football Manager. Betting companies know this and feed them increasingly complex products.

We are at a point where many younger fans see a punt as essential to enjoyment of a game. Take James Grimes, who was 16 when he raked in £90 from a £5 stake for an accumulator. “I remember going to collect the cash and having the feeling ‘I’m good at this!’” Grimes did have an exceptional ability to read the game – by 17 he was a coach at Sheffield United’s academy. But by then he was gambling online and on his way to debts of £100,000, which wrecked his career.


He blames the ads: “When someone is telling you the game ‘matters more if there’s money on it’, that sticks in your head.”

Grimes, 30, runs the Big Step campaign for Gambling With Lives, a charity created by bereaved families of gambling addicts. Had he been born earlier things might have been different. “Traditional forms of gambling like the pools didn’t have the same addiction. I wasn’t born an addict but there was 24-7 betting sold to me through my favourite sport. There are hundreds of thousands with a similar story.”

A Government review of betting in sport will finish in March. Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden says the gambling sector has “evolved at breakneck speed” and sports minister Nigel Huddleston says we need to “pull our legal framework into the digital age”. A House of Lords committee recommended in July that betting ads be banned “in or near” sports venues, “including sports programmes”.

A study of football shirt sponsorships last week found that the Premier League has a stronger relationship with gambling than any of the world’s top leagues; betting brand shirt sponsorship went from zero to 50 per cent of teams between 2000 and 2020. In Germany’s Bundesliga, it’s almost non-existent. Simon Chadwick, professor at Emlyon business school in France, anticipates a ban in the European Union but not in Britain. “Some fans see it as integral to the match day experience and gambling is a significant source of revenue for the exchequer. You might see some public health messaging around it but I don’t envisage a ban.”

Pressure to cut ties
Clubs will claim that they can’t withstand the financial losses. But the same was said of tobacco sponsorship, a sinister presence in my youth when it was omnipresent in Formula 1, snooker and cricket. Plenty of global brands want their names on Premier League shirts.

For a game that markets itself as a societal force for good, endorsing causes such as the anti-racist Kick It Out campaign and the Heads Together mental health charity, it’s extraordinary that football should be in hoc to betting companies.

“Sports teams, star players and even broadcasters have been following brand purpose strategies which signal their commitment to important social causes,” says Richard Gillis, founder of the sports business podcast Unofficial Partner. “But does it undermine their credibility if they do this while simultaneously promoting gambling and taking money from betting companies?”

[Chester Perry]

The increased shareholding in Leeds by the San Francisco 49ers seems to finally be coming to pass - from the Mail

Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani is on the verge of selling another 15% stake to the San Francisco 49ers as NFL franchise look to increase their shareholding... with the Premier League side now valued at £240m
The San Francisco 49ers bought a 10 per cent stake in Leeds two years ago
They are now closing in on a deal to increase their stake to 25 per cent
The deal with the NFL franchise will value Leeds at around £240million
Andrea Radrizzani only paid £45m to buy the Elland Road club back in 2014
PSG's owners, Qatar Sports Investment, failed in a bid to buy Leeds last year
By MATT HUGHES FOR THE DAILY MAIL

PUBLISHED: 22:30, 16 December 2020 | UPDATED: 23:52, 16 December 2020

Leeds United owner Andrea Radrizzani is close to selling another significant stake to the San Francisco 49ers in a deal that would value the club at around £240million.

Sportsmail has learned that negotiations are at an advanced stage, with the 49ers aiming to increase their shareholding at Elland Road to 25 per cent. They bought an initial stake of 10 per cent two years ago.

Radrizzani paid Massimo Cellino £45m in two instalments to take control at Leeds in 2014 and the club's value has rocketed under his stewardship.

After stabilising the financial situation, the Italian showed his ambition by hiring Marcelo Bielsa as manager two and a half years ago.

He persuaded him to stay at Leeds after a heartbreaking Championship play-off defeat at the end of his first season in charge — a show of faith that was rewarded with their return to the Premier League after a 16-year absence last summer.

The 49ers recognised Leeds' potential by buying into the club in 2018 having been courted by Radrizzani for three years. With Bielsa showing signs of establishing them in the Premier League, the NFL franchise are ready to increase their stake.

The 49ers president Paraag Marathe has joined the Leeds board and has spoken about the club's potential.

'The sky is the limit for Leeds,' he said. 'This is not a club where we made it to the Premier League and we are barely trying to hang on by the laces of our shoes. No. This is a club which can become a big contender.'

Radrizzani received a purchase approach last year from the owners of Paris Saint-Germain, Qatar Sports Investment, but wants to maintain his controlling interest.

Leeds have today confirmed what we have known has been coming since the summer - the San Francisco 49ers have upped their stake in the club to 37% - from the Telegraph

San Francisco 49ers increase stake in Leeds United
LUKE EDWARDS JANUARY 25, 2021

Leeds United have announced that NFL franchise San Francisco 49ers have increased their stake in the club following months of negotiations.

Telegraph Sport revealed the American groups plans to increase their stake back in October last year, with their share of the club increasing from 15 to 37 per cent.

Leeds owner, Andrea Radrizzani has been looking for fresh investment since the club were promoted back to the Premier League last summer and preferred to work with those he already has an excellent relationship with.

The move will see Paraag Marathe, 49ers Enterprises President and current LUFC Board Member, become the Vice Chairman of Leeds United.

Revealed: NFL-led plan to put Leeds United back among European football's elite
Marathe – supported by 49ers Enterprises Vice President Collin Meador and other key 49ers personnel – will be more involved in the decision-making process and day-to-day running of the club, both in football and business operations as he has done for the 49ers for the last 20 years

“We are delighted to welcome further investment into our club from 49ers Enterprises and I am confident that this latest partnership will help Leeds United continue to grow and develop into the team our supporters deserve,” said Radrizzani.

“I have always been open to bringing partners on this journey with me, as long as these actions can benefit the long-term strategy of the club. Paraag and the team at 49ers Enterprises are uniquely positioned to collaborate with myself, Angus Kinnear, Victor Orta and our management team to help us achieve our goals.”

The announcement builds on a strategic partnership and equity stake initiated in 2018 when 49ers Enterprises purchased 15 per cent of the club from Andrea Radrizzani, who remains the majority stakeholder of the Yorkshire club.

“Our 49ers Enterprises team has always shared Andrea’s vision for constructing a powerful and winning club in the most competitive football league in the world, and the experience of the last three seasons has been more exhilarating than we could have ever imagined,” said Marathe.

“The hard work and bold leadership demonstrated by Andrea and his talented team has restored Leeds United’s rightful place in the Premier League and we look forward to playing an even bigger role in supporting their efforts to climb the table this year and into the future.”

[Chester Perry]

There has been a lot of speculation about the state of Barcelona's finances lately - and I am as guilty of that as anyone, if not more so

Here @SwissRamble has a look at their 2019/20 financial accounts

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 9661067264

judging by his last post on that thread he shares the common view that they are overstretched and need to exercise some stringent fiscal planningl no doubt the members will be saying "it's Barcelona not Burnley"

as usual he has also done one of those lovely summary sheets too

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 8977432577

[Chester Perry]

Apparently Derby's players have finally be paid for December - the takeover has not completed yet though and there is no real confirmation on the wages either

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/ ... es-4925234

[Chester Perry]

The French Ligue has issued a new tender for the remainder of this season and the next 3 seasons and needs it settling in ultra quick time - this is the press release - you have to say to say , Good luck with that

LFP PRESS RELEASE
Published 19/01/2021 at 20:10 - LFP

The Professional Football League launched on Tuesday 19 January 2021 two market consultations on the audiovisual rights of the Ligue 1 Uber Eats championships on the one hand and Ligue 2 BKT on the other.

These consultations relate to the exploitation of the rights originally allocated to Mediapro for the remainder of the 2020/2021 season (as of February 5, 2021) as well as for the 2021/2022, 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 seasons.

The consultation on Ligue 1 Uber Eats includes 4 lots:

Lot A: 1 match per league day including 10 choice matches 1 (Top 10) and 28 choice matches 3 with the big Sunday magazine and the magazine review.

Lot B: 7 matches per league day including 38 choice matches 2, 38 choice matches 5, 36 choice matches 6 and 152 choice matches 7 to 10 with the presentation magazine of the day and the Sunday morning magazine.

Lot C: The 3 multiplexes of the 19th, 37th and 38th championship days, the 2 play-off matches and the Champions Trophy.

Lot D: weekday magazines.

The consultation on League 2 BKT includes 2 lots:

Lot A: 8 matches per championship day, the 2 multiplex days of the 37th and 38th championship days with the stadium tour magazine and the Sunday morning magazine.

Lot B: weekday magazines.

Depending on the terms of the consultation organised by the LFP, the consultation document can be sent electronically on request by e-mail before 21 January 2021 to the President of the LFP, Vincent Labrune at the following address: consultation@lfp.fr

Offers must be submitted on Monday, February 1, 2021 between 10 a.m. and noon in their own hands at the LFP headquarters located 6 rue Léo Delibes, 75116 Paris.

Excluding matches already played for the 2020/2021 season and those to come until February 5, 2021.

Are we to take it that the re-tender is not going too well as this tweet from @TariqPanja would seem to indicate - it can be an usual country (at least to our eyes) politically at times

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 6495833089
"French sports minister begging broadcasters to come to the rescue of Ligue 1 which is in a pickle thanks to own incompetence and hubris is next level stuff. Why should they? And, she also seems to suggest folks who are responsible for the mess should be absolved."

[Chester Perry]

SportsProMedia are doing another of their very good series of analysis and opinion - This time we have European Soccerweek - first up a questioning I j have been tracking for some time - there are charts you may want to look at

Part One: Who will fund the continental game’s future?
https://www.sportspromedia.com/from-the ... ial-report

Part one of SportsPro's European soccer series assesses the options for financing the game's post-Covid recovery.

By Tom BassamPosted: January 25 2027

European Soccer Week | Part one: Who will fund the continental game’s future?
While the European soccer landscape was on course for seismic change long before the catastrophic events of 2020, that divergent path is now markedly different than it was just 12 months ago. Across all levels of the game, the focus has shifted from growth to survival.

The European Club Association (ECA), the influential body that acts in the interests of the continent’s top clubs, said in its annual report that its members were facing €5 billion (US$6 billion) in combined revenue losses by the end of the 2020/21 season. Fifa, soccer’s global governing body, stated as part of its relief plan analysis that 90 per cent of the financial impact of the pandemic would be felt at the club level.

Though leagues and other rights holders mostly managed to stage their games, thereby avoiding complete financial ruin, significant rebates are being given to the broadcasters who have funded soccer’s previously unchecked growth. Clubs in the Premier League, soccer’s global leader in terms of rights revenue, are returning a combined UK£330 million (US$451 million) to the English top flight’s broadcasters over the next two seasons while Andrea Agnelli, the ECA and Juventus chairman, said he expects clubs in Uefa competitions to see a reduction of around €575 million (US$786 million) in TV income.

In France, Ligue 1 clubs are facing even bigger problems. The decision to prematurely cancel the 2019/20 season - the only one of Europe’s big five leagues to do so - saw the Professional Football League (LFP) miss out on €278 million (US$304 million) in rights fees. That decision was taken in the knowledge that the new campaign would also usher in a new domestic broadcast contract with Mediapro worth €814 million (US$996 million) a year, a 60 per cent uptick on the previous deal.

By 11th December, however, those promised riches had evaporated, with the Barcelona-based agency failing to pay its second and third instalments before seeing the contract torn up less than six months into the three-year deal. More than a month on from the cancellation of the Mediapro deal, there is still no permanent replacement domestic Ligue 1 or Ligue 2 broadcaster in place.

Apart from France, the pipeline of TV cash has, mercifully, remained open. However, commercial and matchday revenues, which made up around 41 per cent of the Premier League’s income in 2018/19 and significantly more in Europe’s other top four leagues, have been more significantly hit, with gate receipts virtually non-existent since last March.

“We operate pretty much at 100 per cent capacity for every home game,” says Paul Barber, chief executive of Premier League outfit Brighton & Hove Albion. “Every single time that we open these doors without fans coming through, we’re losing seven figures plus worth of revenue and everything else on top of it, in terms of rebates. So, from a financial point of view, this situation isn’t sustainable for a very long time.”

TV money failing to prop up the industry
When it comes to the immediate issue of funding, it is apt to start with European soccer’s biggest backers: broadcasters. Since March, it has become clear that media companies are not the reliable source of growth for leagues that they were previously.

In Germany last June, the Bundesliga’s domestic tender for the next rights cycle brought in €246 million (US$323 million) less over its duration than the expiring contract, which was considered a good result. Overseas, the German Football League’s (DFL) TV deals will bring in 20 per cent less this season than last. Elsewhere, the aforementioned French top flight is in a perilous position; the Premier League lost its mammoth UK£523 million (US$715 million) Chinese rights deal with PPTV in September; Spain's La Liga agreed to pay a €100 million (US$122.5 million) rebate to its broadcasters for the late completion of the 2019/20 season; and Serie A has also had to accept reduced fees for the same reasons.

Due to the industry’s outlandish finances, leagues are generally not deemed eligible for state bailouts. The LFP did secure a €224.5 million (US$270 million) government loan in May and smaller clubs across Europe did make use of various state-backed furlough schemes to pay wages, but rights holders largely accept they must find ways of sustaining themselves through the pandemic.

In England, the UK government made it clear the public purse would not be used to bail out professional soccer. The Premier League, with its vast resources and TV money guarantees, is helping to plug a UK£250 million (US$337 million) hole in the finances of the 72 lower-tier clubs under the watch of the English Football League (EFL) via grants, loans and financing guarantees. The EFL has reportedly opened talks with the UK Treasury over a UK£200 million (US$269 million) government business loan to support second-tier Championship clubs get through the season where the return of any matchday revenues cannot come soon enough. Another loan from the private sector is also said to be on the cards.

The answer, for Serie A and potentially the DFL, has been to turn to private equity. In November, clubs in Italy’s top flight accepted a €1.7 billion (US$2.06 billion) offer from CVC Capital Partners, Advent International and FSI for a ten per cent stake in a new company that will manage and market Serie A’s media rights. At the time of writing, the deal had yet to close but its ratification is understood to be a formality, with Paolo Dal Pino, the league’s president, describing the investment as a turning point for the Italian soccer industry.

Elsewhere in December, news broke that the DFL had hired Japanese bank Nomura to field enquiries from private financiers who might be interested in acquiring a stake worth between €200 million (US$243 million) and €300 million (US$364 million) in a new company to manage the Bundesliga’s international media rights, data services and other commercial offerings. According to reports, more than 20 parties expressed an interest.

'This isn't charity'
Funds sourced from private financiers do come with a warning label. In the world of motorsport, where CVC has previously been a major player as an owner of Formula One and MotoGP, the private equity firm was seen as a vulture, with one team principal accusing CVC of “raping the sport” during its tenure. After its leveraged UK£1.4 billion acquisition in 2006, CVC held on to Formula One for more than ten years, making UK£3.5 billion (US$4.71 billion) on that investment as it pushed former supremo Bernie Ecclestone to ruthlessly pursue profits at the expense of the series’ long-term health.

Simon Thomas, who served until recently as Fifa’s chief commercial officer, is concerned that soccer bodies mistakenly see private financing as a handout to keep the business going.

“The reality is that many clubs and other organisations are in dire financial trouble, and private equity perhaps offers some options that they lacked, or didn't need, before,” he says. “I also think that private equity can bring a hard-nosed business approach to the management of these sports organisations that can improve performance in a number of areas. But the quid pro quo that I suspect many sports administrators do not grasp sufficiently is that [private equity] funds are not a charity; hundreds of millions in funding should not be taken for granted.

“At some point they're going to be wanting to be paid back, and the financial consequences - in terms of mortgaging your future earnings - needs to be properly considered. Also [there are] implications in terms of loss of control. One of the main ways [private equity] funds see they can get a return is to improve the governance - in reality, the performance - of the asset. It's not as simple as someone just writing you a big cheque. Bringing on a partner like that is fine as long as you're willing to see it through and give them control, and also help them get an appropriate share of future revenues."

During Thomas’ time at Fifa, the governing body looked at securing private backing to overhaul its Club World Cup competition. In December 2019, Fifa launched a tender process to sell the revamped tournament's commercial rights, with documents seen by the Financial Times suggesting that investors could make sweeping changes to the property after 2021 that covered frequency, format and team qualification. Fifa, it seems, understood the levels of control it would have to cede in order to bring in the US$1 billion of backing it was reportedly looking for.

In Spain, La Liga is taking a different route to bringing in venture capital. Having spent the past few years building up its in-house technology stack and developing white label products, league president Javier Tebas announced in December that La Liga was spinning off its R&D division to create LaLigaTech as a separate company and putting as much as 60 per cent of its stock on the market. Tebas insisted the move was not a reaction to the losses incurred by La Liga since the start of the pandemic, but with the new company valued at €450 million (US$547 million) a sale would provide a timely cash boost. American investment firm Bruin Sports Capital, which entered into a strategic partnership with CVC and the Jordan Company in early 2020, was one firm Tebas identified as a potential suitor.

Now, Tebas says he believes the soccer industry should welcome venture capital, partly because it is a sign of its maturity.

“Obviously, you need to have very good control regulations,” he adds, speaking to SportsPro prior to LaLigaTech’s unveiling. “But I think [private equity] is good because this industry is mature, it needs to grow, get more jobs, to be more stable. So you don’t have to worry and look at these issues as if you’re being scared by them.”

He continues: “Are [these] people here to stay? Will they stay? No. Capital comes to make money. Like a club wants to win at a sports level, these companies try and make money on a different level. But if they’re going be able to develop the industry and [ensure] that your product is going to do better, do well quicker, I think that’s good.”

La Liga is being proactive in seeking to maintain the status quo for its clubs by taking a more direct role in financial matters, providing assistance in the form of loans and spending controls. In November, the Spanish division confirmed the salary cap for its clubs would be cut by more than €700 million (US$830.3 million) for the 2020/21 season, meaning some of its biggest teams will be asked to drastically slash payrolls. Each club has a different salary cap that is calculated based on a series of factors such as revenue, costs and debts. For example Barcelona, who made an post-tax loss of €97 million (US$115 million) for 2019/20, can spend nearly €383 million (US$454 million) on salaries, compared to €671 million (US$795 million) last season.

The combined salary cap for La Liga’s 20 clubs has been reduced to €2.3 billion (US$2.7 billion), having been set at €2.9 billion (US$3.4 billion) prior to the pandemic-affected 2019/20 season. The cost controls also include player transfers and are agreed before the start of each transfer window, although breaches are not expected to be met with disciplinary action. According to Tebas, La Liga has also secured around €600 million (US$729 million) in credit from banks that will be used to offset its clubs’ losses in the short term, with the long-term aim of hastening the league’s recovery.

“So these two circumstances together, based on the fact that we were a very economically solvent league and most of the clubs had a very good, sound financial situation, has managed to solve the issues related to the pandemic without any great losses and problems at the different clubs,” he says.

In the Premier League, too, there is confidence of a quick recovery once crowds return and a level of normality is restored.

“The football business model will sustain,” insists Barber. “It may just have to accept that there’s going to be a slower return to normal than perhaps we’d all like or expect. And I suspect there’s going to be some changes as well that we can’t even yet foresee.

“The reality is we’re like any other part of the entertainment industry, rely on our fans’ goodwill and their desire to want to come out and watch a live sport, just as someone in the theatre industry wants people to watch live theatre or live music. We need them to be able to feel safe when they come here. We need them to be able to feel safe getting to and from here. Then we need to make sure that the balance still exists between those fans who want to come and watch live, and can watch live, and those that can’t, or don’t want to, and can watch therefore on live TV at home or listen on the radio.

“All the component parts of the live sports industry will still be there post pandemic. We’ve just got to make sure that we manage through, to ensure that as many of us as possible are still in business.”

Financiers baring teeth at club level
Prior to the pandemic, US-based Elliott Management wasted little time in ousting Li Yonghong when, in 2018, the Chinese businessman defaulted on the €300 million (US$364 million) loan provided by the firm, and now the hedge fund company appears to be doing its utmost to return AC Milan to European soccer’s elite tier in order to facilitate a profitable sale.

More recently in France, just days after the collapse of the Mediapro rights deal, Elliott pressurised Luxembourgish businessman Gérard Lopez into selling debt-laden Lille to Callisto Sporting. The subsidiary of Luxembourg-based investment fund Merlyn Partners is viewed as a far more reliable debtor for Elliott and JP Morgan as they seek to recoup the outstanding €123 million (US$150 million) of the loan Lopez took out to buy the club in 2017.

In France, a club’s financial stability is monitored by the National Management Control Directorate (DNCG). The regulatory body seeks to ensure teams are solvent at the end of the financial year and while it will accept owners providing proof of funds to maintain a club, it does not allow leveraging of future profits to do so, as Ligue 1 side Girondins Bordeaux are discovering to their detriment.

Joseph DaGrosa’s ill-fated year as Bordeaux owner ended in December 2019 when investment firm Kings Street Capital (KCP), which acquired 86 per cent of the club but handed the American veto rights as part of the consortium’s takeover deal, reportedly came to believe its partner had overstated the club's potential profitability and bought out his 14 per cent stake.

While Bordeaux are now struggling to avoid being wound up, DaGrosa and his Kapital Football Group (KFG) business partner Hugo Varela want back in to the ownership game and believe the pandemic offers the opportunity to build a City Football Group-style portfolio of clubs at a cut price.

DaGrosa expanded on his soccer investment plans in an interview with Forbes back in May. “From a macro point of view,” he said, “we believe football over the long term is a great investment. It’s a particularly opportune time, given what's happened due to the coronavirus and its effects on the global football industry.

“We think that clubs are going to be hard-pressed to survive in many cases and there'll be some opportune possibilities to acquire some really strong clubs in terms of on-field performance, but that are financially distressed.”

KFG is said to be in negotiations to acquire Premier League club Southampton from Chinese businessman Gao Jisheng. Under DaGrosa’s previously stated manifesto, it appears The Saints would serve as the ‘anchor club’ within KFG’s investment portfolio, with three to five satellite clubs and up to ten academies across Asia, Africa and South America being targeted to build out the group.

“Because of the situation there’ll be clubs in the second tier of the table that are more open to sell than before,” Varela added. “The idea would be to go to a mid-table club and grow from there.”

There is, however, scepticism among European soccer’s powerbrokers as to where this opportunistic approach leads. ECA chief executive Charlie Marshall, in particular, is wary of investors circling soccer clubs in desperate need of cash.

“I think we need to take a very balanced view of [private equity],” he tells SportsPro. “It’s not something that should just be welcomed with open arms because no industry, no company taking on investment, should try to do so from a position of weakness, or a position of need. Therein lies the lack of negotiation power and the lack of leverage and that’s not the kind of structures we want to create. But again, I think that, correctly constructed - with healthy governance and fully agreed-upon commercial models - these things can prove to be effective.

“I think we all need to make sure that whether we’re looking at structures that require investment, or could benefit from an investment, or structures that don’t require investment - because they are very self-sustaining - wherever you are, you make sure that your ultimate objective is stability. Stability between all of the different stakeholders involved in any sporting structure. Because it’s the lack of stability that creates the issue.”

Throughout this week, SportsPro will be unveiling a special series that delves into the structural elements that underpin European soccer in an attempt to highlight the forces shaping the game's future.

[Chester Perry]

Interesting move in the USA for long time Premier League partner NBC - the story is that is is going to close down NBCSN and move it's sports to more premium services such as Peacock - it is difficult to tell at this stage if it will improve the bidding for the next cycle of Premier League rights

https://twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/status/1 ... 8800579588

It has now been confirmed that NBCSN is to close before the end of the year from sportcal.com

NBC Sports Network shutting down this year
Business - 25 Jan 2021

NBC Sports Network, the dedicated cable sports channel of the Comcast-owned US broadcaster, is to close later this year.

NBCUniversal confirmed the move on Friday, with programming on the network, including NHL ice hockey, Nascar motor racing and English Premier League soccer, to switch to sister general entertainment channel USA Network and new streaming service Peacock.

The move will save costs in terms of production and pay-television distribution fees, and widen the reach of NBC sports content, with USA Network available in 86 million homes, compared with NBCSN’s 80 million. Peacock has already been streaming Premier League games in the 2020-21 season.

NBCSN, formerly known as Outdoor Life Network and Versus, took on its current guise in 2012, but has struggled to compete with ESPN, and, like the market’s dominant player, been affected by ‘cord-cutting’, subscribers switching from traditional TV platforms to cheaper and more flexible streaming services.

Other sports channels operated by the top US networks include CBS Sports Network and Fox Sports 1.

After the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, this is a big year for NBC, with the broadcaster to provide extensive coverage, across all platforms, of the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, on top of its regular coverage of top sport such as the NFL, college American football and basketball and golf.

NBC Sports Group chairman Pete Bevacqua said: “We’re absolutely committed more than ever to live sports as a company, and having such a huge platform like USA Network airing some of our key sports content is great for our partners, distributors, viewers and advertisers alike.”

NBC holds rights to the NHL in a 10-year, $2 billion deal running to the end of the current 2020-21 campaign, and has said it is keen to continue showing the league, while its Nascar contract runs to 2024.

The present six-year deal with the Premier League, worth around $1 billion, expires at the end of the 2021-22 season.

The closure of NBCSN is thought likely to prompt a review of the NBC sports portfolio, meaning there is uncertainty over continued coverage of events such as cycling’s Tour de France.

However, the decision does not impact on the broadcaster’s regional sports networks, which offer local live coverage of teams in MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS among various leagues.NBC Sports Network shutting down this year

NBC Sports Network, the dedicated cable sports channel of the Comcast-owned US broadcaster, is to close later this year.

NBCUniversal confirmed the move on Friday, with programming on the network, including NHL ice hockey, Nascar motor racing and English Premier League soccer, to switch to sister general entertainment channel USA Network and new streaming service Peacock.

The move will save costs in terms of production and pay-television distribution fees, and widen the reach of NBC sports content, with USA Network available in 86 million homes, compared with NBCSN’s 80 million. Peacock has already been streaming Premier League games in the 2020-21 season.

NBCSN, formerly known as Outdoor Life Network and Versus, took on its current guise in 2012, but has struggled to compete with ESPN, and, like the market’s dominant player, been affected by ‘cord-cutting’, subscribers switching from traditional TV platforms to cheaper and more flexible streaming services.

Other sports channels operated by the top US networks include CBS Sports Network and Fox Sports 1.

After the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, this is a big year for NBC, with the broadcaster to provide extensive coverage, across all platforms, of the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, on top of its regular coverage of top sport such as the NFL, college American football and basketball and golf.

NBC Sports Group chairman Pete Bevacqua said: “We’re absolutely committed more than ever to live sports as a company, and having such a huge platform like USA Network airing some of our key sports content is great for our partners, distributors, viewers and advertisers alike.”

NBC holds rights to the NHL in a 10-year, $2 billion deal running to the end of the current 2020-21 campaign, and has said it is keen to continue showing the league, while its Nascar contract runs to 2024.

The present six-year deal with the Premier League, worth around $1 billion, expires at the end of the 2021-22 season.

The closure of NBCSN is thought likely to prompt a review of the NBC sports portfolio, meaning there is uncertainty over continued coverage of events such as cycling’s Tour de France.

However, the decision does not impact on the broadcaster’s regional sports networks, which offer local live coverage of teams in MLB, NBA, NHL and MLS among various leagues.

[Chester Perry]

There has been a lot of speculation about the state of Barcelona's finances lately - and I am as guilty of that as anyone, if not more so

Here @SwissRamble has a look at their 2019/20 financial accounts

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 9661067264

judging by his last post on that thread he shares the common view that they are overstretched and need to exercise some stringent fiscal planningl no doubt the members will be saying "it's Barcelona not Burnley"

as usual he has also done one of those lovely summary sheets too

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 8977432577

The MAil has picked up on a particular facet of those Barcelona Accounts and run with it

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... -2018.html

The club's full economic report is here

https://www.fcbarcelona.com/fcbarcelona ... ressed.pdf

[Chester Perry]

This could prove very interesting and damaging for US Private Equity if it ever comes to pass - from Pitchbook.com - obviously thee is a surging mood of wanting to change in American politics as the Democrats power increases across the government - how that will reflect itself in actual action and law is likely to take both time and an awful lot of political will, the counter-pressure while powerful is likely to be largely invisible to most observers

https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/pri ... eth-warren

Private equity could face a reckoning as power shifts in Congress
By Adam Lewis
January 21, 2021

After years of operating with minimal government intervention, the US private equity industry could face new regulatory scrutiny in 2021 and beyond.

Democrats now control both chambers of Congress and the White House, giving progressive lawmakers who have long criticized the PE industry their best chance yet to enact significant change.

Chief among those lawmakers is Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the primary force behind the Stop Wall Street Looting Act, a comprehensive bill first introduced in 2019. The proposed legislation never left committee in a Senate controlled by Republicans. But Warren is now set to reintroduce her effort to regulate an industry she has derided for debt-heavy deals that can lead to layoffs, bankruptcies and other woes while exposing firms to few risks.

If passed, the bill would tax capital gains as regular income, ban dividends in the first two years a private equity firm owns a portfolio company, and hold firms responsible for debt and legal obligations incurred at portfolio companies under their ownership, among other outcomes.

"Senator Warren will continue her push to rein in the private equity industry this year," a Warren spokesperson told PitchBook. "And that includes holding these predatory companies accountable for lining the pockets of wealthy firms at the expense of struggling workers during the COVID-19 crisis, and wreaking havoc on low-income Americans at risk of losing their homes."

In terms of the pandemic's effect on private equity, the industry's top lobbying group takes the opposite view of Warren.

"Our nation is experiencing a serious economic downturn," said a spokesperson for the American Investment Council. "And now would be the worst time to pass legislation that will discourage investment in businesses and destroy jobs."

Indeed, any efforts to seriously reassess the role of private equity may have to wait. The newly blue Congress has several other high priorities, including efforts to pass another economic stimulus package and an infrastructure plan as well as holding a second impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump.

"I think the Biden administration has many catastrophes to contend with to move on PE in year one," said Eileen Appelbaum, a frequent private equity critic who has testified before Congress in support of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act. "Hopefully, there will be Congressional hearings to tee up financial reform in year two."

Not every member of Warren's party will be on board with her latest push. When the House held hearings in late 2019 to look at private equity's role in a string of retail bankruptcies, including Toys R Us, several Democrats voiced support for the industry's role in creating jobs in their districts.

One newly empowered lawmaker who could set his sights on private equity is Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who was recently named chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. Politico reported this week that Brown, a co-sponsor for Warren's bill, plans to hold public hearings to examine private equity's influence.

Appointees joining the Biden administration could also play a role in determining how private equity is regulated.

Last week, President Biden nominated Gary Gensler to lead the SEC. A former partner at Goldman Sachs and the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in the Obama administration, Gensler has since become known for clashes with big banks over their role in the global financial crisis. The expectation is Gensler, if confirmed, would be an aggressive advocate for Wall Street regulation.

Biden also tapped Rohit Chopra, a Warren disciple and commissioner of the FTC, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Last year, Chopra lobbied Congress to require private equity firms to notify the FTC of smaller add-on deals, describing such firms as "vulture investors" and expressing concern about potential monopolies in the healthcare industry.

One shift that could have more immediate impact would be increased congressional funding for the IRS, which was gutted under the Trump administration. A renewed push by the agency to investigate investment funds and monitor fees could increase transparency about whether those dividends were used to either enrich executives or actually pay their LPs.

"That would achieve one of the important ends of the Stop Wall Street Looting Act," Appelbaum said.

[Chester Perry]

Anyone not understanding how economic issues are affecting advertising revenues at Broadcasters, should note this Coca Cola and Pepsi have both decided not to take advertising slots in CBS's coverage of the Superbowl next month in a bid to save money - this is the biggest view event of the year. It is the combination of advertising revenue and and subscriptions that fun the tv rights of sports, such concerns will feed though to the deals for the next cycle that are currently out for tender for a huge number of sports and leagues at the moment

https://www.sportico.com/business/spons ... 234620521/

Budweiser joins Pepsi and Coca-Cola in deciding not to advertise during the Super Bowl - this is fast becoming a catastrophe for CBS and rights holders - remember broadcasters are currently putting together bids for the next 10 years of NFL and the NFL are looking for a massive uplift on the previous deal, if broadcasters cannot rely on regular advertisers and sponsorships how can they pass through those earnings to rights owners

https://www.sportico.com/business/media ... 234621025/

It will be interesting to see how this filters through to the UEFA rights that are doing the rounds of tender at the moment, part of the power of the Champions League is that it brings it's own key sponsors and advertisers to the broadcasters.

[Chester Perry]

given the amount of pressure that has been building this seemed inevitable, though there is still a feeling of jumping the gun before the manifesto pledged review has actuall taken place - from the Telegraph

ormer sports minister to introduce bill in Parliament for independent football regulator
JEREMY WILSON JANUARY 25, 2021

A former Conservative sports minister will on Tuesday propose legislation to create football’s first independent regulator after warning that the national game is facing a “crisis” of governance.

Helen Grant, who spent almost three years in David Cameron’s Government, will introduce her Football (Regulation) Bill after securing support from a cross-party grouping of MPs.

It is being introduced under the Ten Minute Rule Bill procedure, meaning Grant will have the opportunity to outline the merits of the proposals in front of MPs, even if its chances of eventually being passed as legislation will depend on whether it receives parliamentary time.

Grant is part of a grouping of former players and administrators, which also include Gary Neville, former FA chairman David Bernstein, Manchester mayor Andy Bernstein and former Bank of England governor Mervyn King, who have proposed a new ‘Manifesto for Change’ to overhaul football’s governance.

The main recommendation of their report is that an independent regulator should be formed, backed up by statutory powers, to reform the way England’s national game is governed. “The governance of English football is broken and our national game is in crisis,” said Grant. “Huge financial disparities, outdated governance and vested interests have created a spiral of unsustainability with some clubs already having gone out of business and the threat of more to follow. These issues are not new, but they have been laid bare by the Coronavirus pandemic. Football has again and again proved that it is unable to reform itself and so, if we are to protect and preserve the fabulous heritage of football in our country, the game’s governance needs emergency surgery.”

The FA signalled earlier this month that they are open to ministerial discussions about enhancing their role in governing the national game following what Bernstein described as the “shambles” of the past year.

In a hard-hitting letter to culture secretary Oliver Dowden, Bernstein has also called for urgent action. “The governance of our national sport remains a shambles,” he wrote. “You and the current Government have seen this for yourself in 2020. English football’s failure to speak with one voice over the past months of the Covid-19 crisis have only highlighted a dysfunctional and damaging structure. There is no overall leadership and therefore vested interests continue to prevail. The financial disparity between rich and poor has frankly become obscene.”

A Government spokesperson said that they were committed to a review of football governance, but no definite timescale has been outlined.

[Chester Perry]

Does this go someway to explaining Liverpool's tight hold of the fiscal reins as the media scream at them to sign a defender for the short term - probably not. The proposed Redball/FSG tie-up is off according to this report - from Axios.com - it is an American outlet which explains the Baseball focus of the story

Scoop: Red Sox strike out on deal to go public
Dan Primack

The parent company of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C. has ended talks to sell a minority ownership stake to RedBall Acquisition, a SPAC formed by longtime baseball executive Billy Beane and investor Gerry Cardinale, Axios has learned from multiple sources. An alternative investment, structured more like private equity, remains possible.

Why it matters: Red Sox fans won't be able to buy stock in the team any time soon.

Background: Deal talks first leaked last October, with RedBall seeking to acquire between a 20-25% stake of Fenway Sports Group at around an $8 billion valuation.

It would have been funded by $575 million that RedBall raised in its IPO, plus up to $950 million Redball sought to raise from Cardinale's private equity firm (RedBird Capital Partners) and outside investors.

Neither FSG nor RedBall ever confirmed their talks, nor would regulatory restrictions have allowed them to do so.

What happened: RedBall couldn't raise enough outside capital at the asking price.

Forbes last year estimated that the Red Sox were valued at $3.3 billion, compared to the $380 million that its ownership group paid back in 2002. That total does not include Liverpool or some of Fenway Sports Group's other assets, which include a NASCAR team and regional sports network that airs Red Sox and Boston Bruins games.

What happens now: Cardinale and FSG still may try to negotiate a private investment deal, but not one that would immediately result in a public stock listing.

RedBall will continue to seek out an acquisition target, possibly in pro soccer or gaming.

[Chester Perry]

The techies at FIFA have been busy during lockdown - today sees the launch of FIFA's Professional Football Landscape

press release
https://www.fifa.com/who-we-are/news/fi ... dscape-afc

The Database

https://landscape.fifa.com/

[Chester Perry]

I am expecting the 24th edition of the Deloitte Football Money League report this coming week, it should make for an interesting, if not apocalyptic read as the the pandemic lockdowns continue to shakedown the fragile financial landscape in the game - I expect we may have climbed a bit and picture painted for Barcelona is not likely to be as rosy

this is last years report if you want a refresher

https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/s ... eague.html

It is here the Deloitte Football Money League 2021 report - subtitled testing times

statement
https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/s ... eague.html

The report is downloadable from the link. disappointingly it only lists the top 20 clubs - of which 7 are from the Premier League - notably Liverpool rise above Chelsea and Manchester City to close in on Manchester United

EDIT It is important to note the caveats in reporting, particularly which revenues were able to be reported and why - this explains Liverpoo;'s position amongst others

Another 5 Premier League clubs are in the next 10, note the surprising placing of Crystal Palace just above West Ham and Sheffield United just above Wolves

• Pos. Club Revenue
  21. Valencia 172.1
  22. Leicester City 171.0
  23. Benfica 170.3
  24. Borussia VfL Mönchengladbach 167.9
  25. Crystal Palace 161.3
  26. West Ham United 158.0
  27. Ajax 155.5
  28. Sheffield United 152.0
  29. Wolverhampton Wanderers 151.2
  30. AC Milan 148.5

[Chester Perry]

The Financial Times's take on the Deloitte Money League 2021 report

World’s richest football teams set to miss out on €2bn revenue
SAMUEL AGINI JANUARY 26, 2021

The world’s 20 richest football clubs are on course to miss out on €2bn in revenue by the end of this season because of the pandemic, underlining a bleak outlook against which some teams are accelerating plans for a breakaway “super league”.

Spain’s Barcelona was the highest-earning club even though its revenues fell 15 per cent to €715m in the 2019/20 season, according to Deloitte’s annual “money league” report, putting it narrowly ahead of its La Liga rival Real Madrid.

But the consultancy warned that the clubs would miss on €2bn over the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons because of lost matchday and broadcast revenue.

Driven by victory in the Uefa Champions League, Europe’s top club tournament, Germany’s Bayern Munich had revenues of €634.1m, allowing it to leapfrog England’s Manchester United’s €580m and finish in third place.

The Bundesliga’s quicker resumption of play in the 2019/20 season, which was suspended as a result of the pandemic, also played a part in Bayern’s ascent from fourth to third place. The swifter return of the Bundesliga enabled German clubs to recognise revenue, in particular domestic broadcast deals, sooner than those in rival leagues.

Despite winning the Premier League and, unlike Manchester United, participating in the Champions League that season, Liverpool could not finish higher than its English rival in the money league.

The €8.2bn in revenue generated by the top 20 clubs last season represented a 12 per cent decline against the one before. Deloitte warned that matchday revenue is likely to remain negligible because of repeated delays to the return of fans to stadiums.

Losses are increasing the stakes as Manchester United and Real Madrid are working on plans to restructure elite competition in European football, in a move that would radically alter the finances of the sport.

Founding clubs could be offered €350m each to join the so-called super league, which would guarantee spots for 15 members and a further five open to clubs able to qualify.

Fifa, world football’s governing body, took the proposals so seriously that it has warned that it will not recognise such a league. It also threatened to ban players who participate from taking part in the World Cup, the top level of international football.

Dan Jones, a partner at Deloitte, warned of the “disruption and the risk that comes with the super league” and said that he was “fundamentally quite positive . . . that top level sport will rebound well as we get some more normality”.

“It feels like people are trying to fix something that isn’t broken,” he added.

[Chester Perry]

Does this go someway to explaining Liverpool's tight hold of the fiscal reins as the media scream at them to sign a defender for the short term - probably not. The proposed Redball/FSG tie-up is off according to this report - from Axios.com - it is an American outlet which explains the Baseball focus of the story

Scoop: Red Sox strike out on deal to go public
Dan Primack

........................................

The Financial Times are carrying the story of the Redball/FSG deal collapse

Talks end on blank-cheque deal for Liverpool FC
SARA GERMANO JANUARY 26, 2021

Talks for a deal between the ownership group behind Liverpool FC and the Boston Red Sox and a blank-cheque company led by Moneyball executive Billy Beane have fallen apart, according to people briefed on the matter.

Instead, they said Fenway Sports Group, the ownership vehicle for both clubs controlled by billionaire John Henry, was in discussions to sell a minority stake to RedBird Capital, a private investment firm founded by former Goldman Sachs veteran Gerry Cardinale.

The private transaction would probably result in a lower valuation for Fenway than the $8bn floated for a potential acquisition by RedBall, a special purpose acquisition company directed by Mr Cardinale and Mr Beane, the people familiar with the discussions said.

The talks between Mr Cardinale and Mr Henry were described as continuing, and there was no guarantee they would reach a deal.

A transaction between the two companies would continue a recent trend involving private capital investment in major sport clubs and leagues around the world, particularly as the industry has been hampered by the pandemic. Private equity firms have been seeking deals from Italy’s Serie A to Germany’s Bundesliga and with New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team.

A private deal between RedBird and Fenway would mean Mr Beane and Mr Cardinale would seek a different target for their RedBall Spac, launched in July with the purpose of raising $575m to acquire a sports franchise.

Discussions about the potential for the private investment in Fenway were earlier reported by Axios.

Mr Beane is best known for his analytics expertise working in the front office of Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics, where he became the subject of the Michael Lewis best-selling book, Moneyball, which was later made into a film starring Brad Pitt.

Mr Cardinale is best known for launching the regional broadcast network of the New York Yankees, YES, and currently manages more than $4bn in assets at RedBird, which recently acquired French football club Toulouse.

Mr Henry, a commodities trading veteran who made billions crunching numbers, translated that success into owning two sports teams and stewarding them to championship seasons. Friends, baseball industry experts and former colleagues describe him as a champion of analytics in sports — like Mr Beane.

[Chester Perry]

Leeds have today confirmed what we have known has been coming since the summer - the San Francisco 49ers have upped their stake in the club to 37% - from the Telegraph

San Francisco 49ers increase stake in Leeds United
LUKE EDWARDS JANUARY 25, 2021

Leeds United have announced that NFL franchise San Francisco 49ers have increased their stake in the club following months of negotiations.

Telegraph Sport revealed the American groups plans to increase their stake back in October last year, with their share of the club increasing from 15 to 37 per cent.

Leeds owner, Andrea Radrizzani has been looking for fresh investment since the club were promoted back to the Premier League last summer and preferred to work with those he already has an excellent relationship with.

The move will see Paraag Marathe, 49ers Enterprises President and current LUFC Board Member, become the Vice Chairman of Leeds United.

Revealed: NFL-led plan to put Leeds United back among European football's elite
Marathe – supported by 49ers Enterprises Vice President Collin Meador and other key 49ers personnel – will be more involved in the decision-making process and day-to-day running of the club, both in football and business operations as he has done for the 49ers for the last 20 years

“We are delighted to welcome further investment into our club from 49ers Enterprises and I am confident that this latest partnership will help Leeds United continue to grow and develop into the team our supporters deserve,” said Radrizzani.

“I have always been open to bringing partners on this journey with me, as long as these actions can benefit the long-term strategy of the club. Paraag and the team at 49ers Enterprises are uniquely positioned to collaborate with myself, Angus Kinnear, Victor Orta and our management team to help us achieve our goals.”

The announcement builds on a strategic partnership and equity stake initiated in 2018 when 49ers Enterprises purchased 15 per cent of the club from Andrea Radrizzani, who remains the majority stakeholder of the Yorkshire club.

“Our 49ers Enterprises team has always shared Andrea’s vision for constructing a powerful and winning club in the most competitive football league in the world, and the experience of the last three seasons has been more exhilarating than we could have ever imagined,” said Marathe.

“The hard work and bold leadership demonstrated by Andrea and his talented team has restored Leeds United’s rightful place in the Premier League and we look forward to playing an even bigger role in supporting their efforts to climb the table this year and into the future.”

The Athletic with an informative piece on the Leeds deal with the San Francisco 49ers and why it was always more probable than a deal with Qatar's QSI. Leeds owner Andrea Radrizzani has done an impressive job with the club and he is obviously not finished yet, he also recognises that is club are far from safe in the Premier League this season. That is not to say that they cannot do much more in the next couple of years if they stay up, I do wonder how they will challenge the financial might of the likes of Aston Villa though who are on a similar path but are being finaced by share issues not loans.

Explained: What 49ers investment means for Leeds and Radrizzani

By Phil Hay 7h ago

For all the flirting between Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) and Andrea Radrizzani, people in the loop at Leeds United were confident in predicting that when fresh investment came to Elland Road it would come from the San Francisco 49ers.

There was endless smoke around Radrizzani and QSI — so much smoke that many thought there must be fire behind it — but 18 months of talk about money arriving from Paris Saint-Germain’s Qatari owner was never backed up by substance. At no stage has QSI performed due diligence on Leeds. At no stage has it agreed in principle the purchase of shares. Radrizzani and QSI’s chairman, Nasser Al-Khelaifi, are well-established friends but, in ownership terms, no more than that.

Even as the pair were spotted having dinner together, and even as reports in France talked of QSI creeping closer to buying into Leeds, the 49ers were already in the building and preparing their next move. The minority stake purchased for £10 million by the NFL franchise’s investment arm in 2018 jumped to almost 40 per cent yesterday, significantly altering the balance of power in the boardroom at Elland Road.

Neither Leeds nor 49ers Enterprises will talk precise numbers but Radrizzani is believed to value the Premier League club at £250 million, a figure which would set the price of the latest investment at £50 million. “It’s something more than that,” Radrizzani said after announcing the deal, “but the level of investment won’t change the life of Leeds United (overnight). We’re just happy to have a clear common goal together.”

Radrizzani, Leeds’s chairman since 2017, and 49ers Enterprises president Paraag Marathe began discussing another equity transfer after the club’s promotion from the Championship in July and The Athletic understands that the final terms of an agreement were put in place just before Christmas. Marathe, who said the purchase involved existing shares rather than a new issue, has been a board member at Leeds for the past two and a half years, ever since the 49ers first acquired a shareholding of just over 12 per cent, but is taking on the role of vice-chairman, increasing his seniority at executive level.

Leeds are in the final week of the January transfer window but sources at Elland Road say this second tranche of investment from the US will not alter their short-term recruitment policy. The club did not intend to make any significant signings this month and they are continuing to indicate that the window will close on Monday without any additions to their first-team squad. Head coach Marcelo Bielsa said yesterday morning that he was “happy with the squad we have and I feel we can finish the season with these players”. The 49ers’ input is likely to focus on improvements to infrastructure, with one of the main thrusts the redevelopment of Leeds’s stadium.

The club are in possession of a ground with a capacity of 35,000 but the maximum attendance and Elland Road’s commercial limits fall short of what they require to compete with the Premier League’s richer teams. Angus Kinnear, Leeds’s chief executive, pointed out after a recent 3-0 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur that Spurs’s newly-built stadium was capable of pulling in five times as much revenue from individual match days as Elland Road. Leeds want to rebuild their West Stand to match the height of their East Stand and deliberately left land behind it untouched when they organised the construction of a community sports hub on Fullerton Park adjacent to the stadium. Between work on the West Stand and potentially the North Stand too, the capacity of Elland Road could almost double to 60,000.

Under Radrizzani, expansion was dependent on both promotion from the Championship and underlying confidence in Leeds establishing a strong foothold in the Premier League. With their squad in 12th position at the midway stage of this season and waiting list for season tickets 20,000 names long, the prospect of a second year in the Premier League would be a first step in allowing their board to begin formalising redevelopment plans.

“We need to be permanently Premier League for the next two or three seasons,” Radrizzani said. “Then eventually we can start to think (about changing Elland Road). It’s a project that requires big investment and we need to be able to finance it and be stable enough. Certain conditions are needed before we kick it off. I give myself five to seven years to see the Leeds I dream of but there’s a lot of micro-achievement (required) to achieve that goal.”

The 49ers are one of the NFL’s wealthier franchises and the intention is for Marathe, as Leeds’s vice-chairman, to create more of an overlap in the teams’ administrative operations. Speaking to the media last night, Marathe said the 49ers would bring e-commerce ideas and hospitality strategies, part of an attempt to hit Radrizzani’s target of “doubling our revenue in three to five years.” But the American club also have recent experience of stadium construction having moved from Candlestick Park — their home near downtown San Francisco for more than 40 years — to the Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara to the north of San Jose in 2014.

The decision to shift 50 miles south was taken after an unsuccessful fight to gain planning permission for a revamped arena in the San Francisco area. The 49ers’ headquarters and training centre were based in Santa Clara and authorities there were more co-operative in allowing them to build but relocating so far away drew criticism from some who felt the 49ers gave up too easily on efforts to redevelop Candlestick Park. Journalists speak of their hierarchy becoming “exasperated” with local government resistance and ultimately deciding that targeting land in Santa Clara made sense (notwithstanding subsequent political battles between the NFL team and Santa Clara’s authorities).

Opinion is divided over the venue that materialised. The Levi’s Stadium is vast and was built at huge expense, with estimates putting the final cost at close to £1 billion. It houses almost 70,000 and the technology there was advanced, providing wi-fi throughout the ground and monetising it with a smartphone app which allowed food and merchandise to be delivered to fans in their seat. But to a section of supporters, it felt sanitised and corporate and was not always bursting with atmosphere. There is a view that Lumen Field, the home of their rivals the Seattle Seahawks, can be “worth a seven-point start to the Seahawks”, as one NFL writer put it, because of the impact of the crowd. The Levi’s Stadium, according to those who know it, does not have quite the same intensity.

Leeds will need to strike a balance when they come to increase the size of Elland Road, treading a line between maximising revenue and protecting the stadium’s raw reputation. But no consideration has been given to relocating, as the 49ers did, and the construction of the Levi’s Stadium demonstrated the 49ers’ ability to deliver successfully on a large and expensive project. There was already regular interaction between Kinnear and Marathe and input from the States will grow after the 49ers’ purchase of more shares. “For us it’s about lending expertise wherever we can,” Marathe said. “We have experience because we’ve gone through some major transformations at the 49ers. I can’t tell you whether it’ll be X days per month (that Marathe will spend in Leeds) but we’ll be a much more regular presence.”

As for Radrizzani, it remains to be seen if relinquishing a further 22 per cent of shares in Leeds is a creep towards relinquishing his position as majority shareholder. He has a vision of buying other European clubs to create a stable alongside Leeds — a smaller and less global version of the City Group’s strategy — and certain advisers think Belgium and Portugal would be good markets for him to target, in part to work around new Brexit rules governing transfers to the UK. But for three and a half years the Italian has been covering losses at Elland Road with loans and equity exchanges. Shortly after Leeds’ promotion, he and the club moved to secure a forward financing deal worth more than £30 million, secured against future TV income.

Radrizzani estimates that the COVID-19 pandemic will come at a cost of at least £40 million to Leeds and as far back as the summer he was publicly urging the 49ers to “help us more (and) step up.” He confirmed that part of the new cash invested by the franchise would be used for day-to-day working capital. In October, Marathe conceded that the 49ers were “not flying the plane by any means. We want to drive more value on and off the pitch.” Part of the reason why Leeds were able to commit to £100 million of transfers in the last summer transfer window was because initial talks between Radrizzani and Marathe indicated that a new investment deal was likely to be reached.

Senior staff at Leeds expect Radrizzani to remain involved until they make good his aim of European qualification. He said as much himself and thinks that in three years’ time there is a strong chance of Leeds being in the mix for a Europa League place, two decades on from their last European fixture. Marathe would not be drawn on whether he sees the 49ers as future owners of Leeds, saying only that he “envisaged a day when we continue to grow as a club.” Radrizzani joked that “to make me tired, it takes a long time.” He is rapidly approaching season number five.

The most telling comment from Radrizzani was his admission that Leeds need to “grow a new skin”; to shed their Championship habits and their Championship structure, reorganise themselves in a manner which drives up revenue dramatically and provides the clout to cut the gap to the top six. That way, he said, Leeds can be “relevant in the world of football”. Commercial ideas are part of the conversation. So are infrastructure changes.

“The stadium, it’s in our plan,” Radrizzani said. “My dream is to play one of these European nights with Leeds United. Until I accomplish this dream, you will see me around.”

[Chester Perry]

A new sports business podcast - Sport Unlocked - fronted by Martyn Ziegler and Rob Harris - episode 1 has Tariq Panja as a guest - the discussion on the proposed European Super League is very goo, even though it covers much of the ground that is detailed within this thread, that is first up

The blurb
2021's big issues: Will a breakaway Super League be launched and will the Euros and Olympics go ahead?

Rob Harris and Martyn Ziegler are joined by Tariq Panja to talk through the big issues facing sports leaders in 2021 on this episode.

Plans are being made to reshape the Champions League from 2024 but will elite clubs manage to launch the breakaway Super League?

UEFA is also grappling with uncertainty surrounding the European Championship it has already had to postpone once. Will it go ahead this year and will all 12 venues in 12 countries still be used?

Can the rescheduled Tokyo Olympics still open in July and in what form as the pandemic persists?

Unlocking the sports news issues as sport grapples with so much of the world still being in lockdown.

The Podcast

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/2 ... 0506315852

[GodIsADeeJay81]

Leeds have a waiting list for season tickets of 20k?

They've soon crawled out of the woodwork considering they didn't regularly sell out Elland Road when in championship of lower.

[Chester Perry]

More analysis on those Barcelona 2019/20 accounts - this time from long time critic of their finances Sam Wallace in the Telegraph - he ,anages to have a go at Real Madrid too

Barcelona's £1bn black hole could signal a catastrophic collapse – and Lionel Messi's exit
SAM WALLACE JANUARY 26, 2021

The brutal reality of Barcelona’s finances were finally laid bare on Monday with the admission by the club that it has crippling total debts of €1.173 billion (£1.04bn) – suggesting the only way out could be a restructuring of its 122-year-old ownership set-up.

As for Lionel Messi, there is no prospect of a new €100 million-a-year contract (£89m) – the salary that the world’s most celebrated footballer is accustomed to earning at the Nou Camp. Unless the disgruntled Argentine star is prepared to take an enormous pay cut he will inevitably be leaving this summer when his current deal expires. The club’s financial results, long overdue, were a picture of the situation as of June 30 last year and the reality is that the situation has significantly deteriorated since then.

Telegraph Sport has long highlighted the reliance of the two Spanish powers, Barcelona and their rivals Real Madrid, on debt and long-term borrowing and a precarious financial approach to club-building has laid the ground for a catastrophic collapse in the Covid-19 era. Madrid’s debt, which includes the €575 million (£511m) bonds to rebuild the Bernabeu Stadium, is also over €1 billion (£890m) and may be much more. The two clubs’ days as predators circling the Premier League’s best players are over and the haste with which they have pursued European super league proposals, led by Real president Florentino Pérez, demonstrates the desperation to show creditors increased future revenue streams.

Barcelona’s situation is so grave that it looks impossible to resolve without some kind of capital injection from a third party. The club is owned by its 150,000 plus members – or socios – which would make this operation problematic. The assets of the club – the Nou Camp, the training ground, the player contracts – belong to the members and any takeover would require them to be bought out. The prevailing wisdom is that these clubs, cultural behemoths in Spain, are too important to be allowed to fail, but the conditions under Covid-19 are unprecedented.

The re-signing of Messi, already gravely disillusioned, would now be too great a burden for the club to bear even in spite of the 33-year-old’s achievements over the last 15 years. His friend and former team-mate Luis Suarez was released last summer simply to take pressure off the wage bill. The Liga salary cap, calculated according to future revenue shows that Barcelona’s wage paying capability has fallen from €671.4 million (£596.4m) to €382.7 million (£340m).

Currently Barcelona have a negative working capital – debts exceeding short term assets – of €600 million (£533m). They owe around €320 million (£284m) to other clubs in transfer fees; bank borrowing of €280 million (£249m); bonds of €200 million (£178m); unpaid wages of €200 million; suppliers are owed €84 million (£75m); and public administrators €55 million (£49m). Barca have a €146-million (£130m) state-backed credit line which seems to have been used to pay last summer’s wages – the club pay salaries twice yearly in six month tranches.

The club’s problems were severe before the pandemic, with four separate bond issues in 2018 and 2019 to raise funds – all of it borrowed against New York and Hong Kong subsidiary companies and their merchandising company set up to handle their Nike merchandise.

The sacking of manager Ernesto Valverde last season, which precipitated a significant public rift between the players, led by Messi, and the then president Josep Maria Bartomeu, cost the club €10 million (£9m) in compensation to their former coach. Barca have already dismissed his successor Quique Setién and are refusing to pay his compensation, effectively arguing in a tribunal that he was incapable of doing his job.

The club claim to have spent around €100 million (£89m) on the Espai Barca project, the rebuilding of the Nou Camp, although its long-term future looks in considerable doubt given the scope of their debts. There will be presidential elections in March to choose the successor to Bartomeu with former president Joan Laporta the favourite over the other key candidate, Victor Font. The winner will be faced with some testing decisions in order to save the club.

Barcelona and Real have always rejected the notion of a rich owner, and are one of only four clubs in Spain, with Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna, to be owned by their members. However, years of financial mismanagement have made them extremely vulnerable to the tumbling revenues of the Covid-19 crisis and there is no benefactor in a position to bail the clubs out. The boards of the four membership-based clubs have successfully lobbied Government to have the law that makes them personal liable for club losses to be struck out.

With Pérez at Real and a succession of Barcelona presidents, money has been spent and debt accumulated with a carelessness that would not have been the case had it been their own resources at risk. The Uefa Financial Fair Play regulations that were brought in to curb the billionaire owners of clubs in the Premier League and elsewhere have not, it seemed, been comprehensive enough to save the membership-owned clubs whose model was long held up as the best way of ensuring a stable future.

[Chester Perry]

Meanwhile the Mail has picked up on reports emanating from Spain that Barcelona have not paid a large proportion of the wages (the element that is paid every 6 months)

Barcelona 'FAIL to pay Lionel Messi and the rest of the squad their full wages for the second half of 2020' despite players agreeing salary cuts worth £109MILLION... as the cash-strapped Catalans battle rising debts amid the Covid-19 pandemic
-Barcelona have struggled to cope with the effects of the coronavirus pandemic
-The Spanish giants only agreed pay cuts with all of their players in November
- It also emerged this week how much Barca still have left to pay for old transfers
But news of missed salary payments last month is yet more cause for concern
By TOM FARMERY FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 13:19, 26 January 2021 | UPDATED: 14:16, 26 January 2021

Barcelona failed to pay any of their first-team players in December and fear further missed payments as the effects of coronavirus continue to bite, according to reports in Spain.

On Monday it emerged that the Spanish giants still owe 19 clubs £112million (€126m) in transfer fees.

But the overlook now appears much bleaker with Spanish media reporting that Barcelona's financial situation is 'extremely delicate'.

Radio station Cadena COPE also claim that all of Barcelona's players weren't paid their wages last month although the shortfall is expected to be made up in February.

It is reported that the squad usually gets their salary in two payments - one in June and another in December.

Barcelona have struggled to cope financially since the pandemic struck European football last March.

While other clubs agreed payment deferrals with players earlier in the year, Barcelona only managed to do so for all of their first team at the end of November.

It was estimated that such wage cuts would help save the club £109m although they had hoped for that figure to be closer to £170m.

Gerard Pique and Frenkie de Jong were among those to take pay cuts in Spring last year but star names such as Lionel Messi, whose salary is £500,000 a week (£26m a year) only agreed to reduced terms in November.

News of Barcelona failing to pay players for last month follows the release of the club's annual financial report, which shows a huge outstanding transfer debt.

The highest portion relates to the £25m the club owes Liverpool for Philippe Coutinho.

Despite the deal now being three years old, Barcelona still haven't covered the overall transfer cost of £142m.

The club's fragile financial state was also brought into focus last week when El Confidencial reported that Barcelona had asked a number of major banks to delay debt repayments to help the club's immediate cash flow.

It was claimed that Barcelona requested Goldman Sachs, Allianz, Barings, Amundi and Prudential give them more time to pay outstanding repayments.

In a further blow, it was also reported that the club have a negative working capital of £535m, which is mainly down to a huge decrease in revenues caused by playing behind closed doors for most of last year while continuing to pay high wages.

[Chester Perry]

SportProMedia.com's European Soccer week continues - again there are charts so you may choose the link instead

https://www.sportspromedia.com/from-the ... -interview
European Soccer Week | Part two: The evolution of club competition
As Europe's soccer clubs pick themselves up in the wake of the pandemic, the battle for who will shape the game's recovery is hotting up as the elite teams take on the traditional powerbrokers for control of competition structure.

By Tom BassamPosted: January 26 2021

Stable is not a word anyone would associate with 2020, yet it is against this backdrop that the future of European soccer’s club competitions is being debated. On one side, there are those who argue for the game’s existing structure to largely be retained, while on the other side of the fence are those who wish to lean into ever-growing interest in the big clubs.

There is no doubt that those clubs at the top feel their commercial success means they deserve a separate set of rules, in particular rules on how they qualify for the Uefa Champions League, Europe’s lucrative elite club competition.

The vessel for much of that discussion is the European Club Association (ECA), a successor to the more power-concentrated G14. As chief executive, Charlie Marshall oversees a 246-member body that, in his own words, “strives to secure more participation from our members in European competitions, because, for our members, European competitions represent a very important avenue for growth.”

Ultimately, the goal for the biggest clubs is to capture a greater share of revenue and they see the route to that as coming via more games against each other. Current reporting suggests that, unless there is a major restructuring of European competition, such as the much-touted breakaway ‘super league’, then the Champions League will be restructured to expand the number of group games.

With 2020 a lost year for discussions on the future of Europe’s competition structure, those negotiations will now have to be squeezed into 2021 before key rights tenders hit the market in 2022. Jostling for position as those talks loom, Marshall points to the fact that clubs, as the game’s frontline businesses, have borne the brunt of the pandemic. When it all shakes out, he estimates that the economic damage for European soccer will be between €7 billion (US$8.51 billion) and €8 billion (US$9.72 billion), the majority of which will fall on the ECA’s members. That, Marshall asserts, should give them greater control on the structure of soccer after the pandemic.

“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,” he says. “The decisions about competitions. The decisions about calendars. Decisions about how the balance of national team and club competition sits together.

“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.”

While 2019’s ECA-led attempt to shift qualification of the Champions League away from domestic league places and towards past performance collapsed, Marshall says that structure’s merit, missed in much of the discussion, was based on as many as 44 spots being all-but guaranteed to the top performers in the previous season’s competitions across 128 group stage places in three competitions – the Champions League, the Europa League, and the new Europa Conference League.

“If you could give, let’s say, 40 or 44 European clubs, or spots, the ability to bank their future on staying into this competition, year on year - by the way, not the same 44, but 44 who would finish in the right places across the competition - then you could give a different kind of a future to a club like Benfica, Ajax or Celtic, or these clubs that are in the smaller markets.

“It was very much about our platform for clubs of different shapes and sizes - even though they’re the leading clubs, they’re still of different shapes and sizes - for them to be able to grow.”

Framed in that way, the notion seems more noble but the reality would be a largely closed-shop in those competitions and a further distancing of the haves and have-nots domestically.

In the Champions League, 134 different clubs have taken part since 1999, with 29 of those since 2010. Marshall argues that with roughly the same teams qualifying consistently for European competition, they deserve some stability.

However, the idea that dominant teams remain consistent is only as true as a system allows them to be. For example, had the drawbridge been pulled up at Europe’s top club tournament in 2000, then Napoli, Manchester City, Atletico Madrid, Tottenham Hotspur and, in all likelihood, Ajax would have been on the outside looking in. Two of those clubs have played in Champions League finals in the last ten years.

The English problem
It is an oddity of European soccer that a decision over the future of the Champions League has implications for English minnows such as – for the sake of argument – Burton Albion.

In February 2020, Premier League chief executive Richard Masters said that adding more games to the Champions League would “fundamentally alter” the League Cup’s “trajectory”. Yet the competition is of vital importance to England’s smaller clubs as it makes up to two-thirds of the EFL’s UK£119 million (US$155.2 million) annual broadcast deal with pay-TV network Sky Sports and offers money-spinning ties with top-flight clubs, such as those enjoyed by Burton on their run to the semi-finals in 2018/19.

Paul Barber, who as chief executive has successfully overseen Brighton’s rise out of the EFL, has “no doubt” the “complex puzzle” of the financial gap between the top flight and second-tier Championship will be debated going forward. Masters and Boston Consulting Group are leading on the official reform plans for the Premier League, which will inevitably involve the EFL and, as the national governing body, the Football Association (FA). Those talks could turn ugly if the self-interest on display during 2020’s EFL bailout discussions are anything to go by.

During those negotiations, as the chief executive of a Premier League club, Barber’s position was that clubs in the bottom two tiers needed to be protected, but that Championship clubs, which often teeter on the precipice of unsustainable budgets, could not be given a blank cheque.

“[That is] for two reasons,” he explains. “One, some of the clubs are owned by people that are richer than [Brighton] owner [Tony Bloom]. Secondly, those clubs are seeking to replace us in the Premier League. So it wouldn’t make much sense to anyone, at any level, in any business to weaken your own business, to strengthen somebody else’s that is looking to then replace you.”

Barber says he has to do what is best for his club, which is a common and understandable argument, but one that makes consensus on reform difficult to achieve.

Project Big Picture, the controversial plan formulated by the Premier League’s top clubs, proposed a new revenue distribution model but also a dramatic shift in voting rights towards those elite sides, as well as seeking to achieve consensus by offering generous cash incentives for the EFL. While the proposals were ultimately rejected, Marshall sat in the camp of those who believe the big clubs have the right to say how money they bring in is invested back into the system.

“The reality is that the vast majority of the football industry is unprofitable,” he says. “The economic reality is that it is a pyramid wherever you look, and below the top tier of that pyramid, it’s unprofitable. It’s unsustainable as a standalone economic engine.

“So therefore, there does need to be a system of solidarity or subsidy. I prefer the word investment. There needs to be a system of strategic investment by the value creators into the rest of the pyramid, in order that it is self-sustaining.

“I think that it’s not right to say that the value creators can’t make sensible decisions about what is the right structure and system of self-sustaining football. I thought, within Big Picture - which we weren’t involved in at all, but was fairly well publicised - there was not just a nod, but there was some serious strategic thinking in there about what that system needed to look like.”

For Barber, who has previously been on the other side of the fence as an executive director at Premier League ‘big six’ club Tottenham, the concentration of power was a red line issue that could not be overcome.

“I think, if you make the Premier League into a bit of a procession - because the big six clubs have so much power, so much additional wealth - those sort of games [where smaller clubs beat bigger ones] and that sort of excitement will become rarer and rarer and rarer. And that will actually diminish the value of the Premier League over time.”

La Liga president, JavierTebas, very much an advocate for the continued primacy of domestic competition, saw the Project Big Picture episode similarly. “It’s absurd that they want to change the governance from the Premier League when the ecosystem has always worked,” he says. “The Premier League itself should talk to the other, to regions of a federation, if they need to develop or change things but never because the six top clubs want to get more power and they want to change it. That’s very dangerous.”

One question that consistently flummoxes those on the outside looking at the big clubs as they try to accrue more power is: ‘What is the jeopardy they are trying to protect against?’ The common answer is that the influx of American money comes loaded with pressure to enshrine the guaranteed incomes enjoyed by franchises in major North American leagues.

That four of the Premier League’s big six clubs are US-owned - or, in the case of Bruce Buck at Chelsea, have Americans in prominent leadership positions - is surely no coincidence. However, the prevailing sentiment within the European soccer industry is one of defiance. Tebas, for one, believes the European tradition has provided enough economic stability that the industry is able to resist pressure to pursue an American-style closed-league structure.

“The Americans like their model because the value of their investments is obviously higher because clubs can’t be relegated, but this model isn’t one we’ve had for Europe,” he says. “I think [European soccer’s] broadcasting industry has the highest turnover in Europe and we have the same amount of inhabitants as the USA. We get more than the NBA and the other American leagues, just in football, and I mean I talk about everyone. So it’s a successful model. Why should we change it?”

Marshall says he “passionately believes” that the smartest American investors are learning what is different about European sport versus US sport. If so, then perhaps Project Big Picture might be one of the last throws of the dice from the English elite, rather than being, as is more commonly perceived, an opening salvo.

Indeed, Barney Francis, until recently the managing director of UK pay-TV giant Sky Sports and someone who knows more than a little about the value of soccer rights, believes that a key part of the Premier League’s appeal comes from the existing setup and the weekly intrigue that its highly competitive nature fosters.

“If you look at the ‘big six’, where are they in the league right now? We’re in an extraordinary place,” he says. “Don’t we want that to continue? Is that not, long term, the best thing to be selling overseas: the most competitive domestic football league?”

Throughout this week, SportsPro will be unveiling a special series that delves into the structural elements that underpin European soccer in an attempt to highlight the forces shaping the game's future.

[Chester Perry]

Are we to take it that the re-tender is not going too well as this tweet from @TariqPanja would seem to indicate - it can be an usual country (at least to our eyes) politically at times

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 6495833089
"French sports minister begging broadcasters to come to the rescue of Ligue 1 which is in a pickle thanks to own incompetence and hubris is next level stuff. Why should they? And, she also seems to suggest folks who are responsible for the mess should be absolved."

Oh dear - that re-tender by the French Ligue is not going well at all - there is now a legal challenge from Canal+ (backed up by Bein Media - from SportsBusiness.com

LFP’s rights tender disrupted by Canal Plus legal challenge
Martin Ross - January 26, 2021

Pay-television broadcaster Canal Plus has initiated its legal challenge to the domestic broadcast rights tender recently issued by France’s Professional Football League (LFP) in a move that threatens to disincentivize bidders in the auction.

The legal action, which had been expected, comes with the Vivendi-owned broadcaster having sent a summons to the LFP yesterday (Monday) afternoon, reports L’Équipe.

A hearing is to be heard at Paris’ commercial court on February 19.

The court date falls two and a half weeks after the first-round bid deadline in the LFP’s invitation to tender, raising the possibility that the results of the auction could be annulled by the court.

In going to market, the LFP has re-tendered the broadcast rights previously held by Mediapro, which is closing down its Téléfoot subscription service in France, but not those currently held by Canal Plus through its sublicensing agreement with subscription broadcaster beIN Sports.

The move by Canal Plus is, in any case, designed to dissuade potential new market entrants in France from bidding aggressively in the rights sales process.

Mediapro held exclusive rights to eight Ligue 1 fixtures per matchweek in a deal worth €780m ($946m) per season from 2020-21 to 2023-24. It also held rights to Ligue 2 in a contract worth €34m per year. Both deals were terminated in December on missed fee instalments.

Canal Plus holds exclusive rights to two top-pick Ligue 1 fixtures per matchweek from beIN. It is the latter that holds the original contract with the LFP in a deal worth €330m per season, from 2020-21 to 2023-24. Canal Plus has been vocal in its calls for the LFP to tender the full set of rights and warned that it will hand back its rights to the league on February 5, the date up to which it has paid beIN.

SportBusiness understands that beIN shares Canal Plus’ legal stance that the LFP can’t lawfully treat two portions of rights differently, believing that the action by the league is anti-competitive and discriminatory. The Qatar-backed broadcaster is also thought to be considering its legal options with regards to its own contract with the LFP.

The LFP is seeking to retain the value of the rights bought by beIN – and sold on to Canal – for a strategically high price and before the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

There have been some noises in France that Amazon is readying a bid for the rights, although the online retail giant has until now only targeted specific strategic rights packages in its football acquisitions made to date in the UK, Germany and Italy. An all-encompassing bid from Amazon that would leave beIN and Canal empty-handed is viewed as unlikely.

The legal move by Canal Plus also brings up the unusual potential scenario of the broadcaster bidding for and winning rights in the LFP’s tender and then withdrawing its claim.

Four Ligue 1 rights packages
There are four packages of rights available from the top-tier Ligue 1 and, as part of separate tender, two from the second-tier Ligue 2.

Matches up until February 5 have been excluded from the Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 rights on offer.

The four Ligue 1 rights packages on offer are:

Package A: One match per matchweek, including 10 first-pick matches per season, 28 third-pick matches, the Sunday-evening magazine programme and review magazine programme
Package B: Seven matches per matchweek, including 38 second-pick matches per season, 38 fifth-pick matches, 36 sixth-pick matches and 152 matches ranging from seventh to tenth pick. Two magazine programmes, including the Sunday morning programme
Package C: Simultaneous ‘multiplex’ coverage of all matches during the 19th, 37th and 38th rounds of the championship, plus the relegation playoffs and the Trophée des Champions match
Package D: Magazine programmes during the week
The main Ligue 2 package (‘Package A’) comprises eight matches per matchweek, the two ‘multiplex’ matchweeks during the 37th and 38th rounds, the ‘tour of the stadiums’ magazine programme and the Sunday morning magazine show. Package B comprises the magazine programmes during the week.

[Chester Perry]

Some of you may be interested in this - you have to register to downkload it but it is timely given what is going on at our club

CEO Playbook: A practical guide for leading and managing a sports business in a new era

https://www.sportspromedia.com/playbook ... 20Playbook

there is a podcast to help introduce it

https://www.sportspromedia.com/analysis ... 19-podcast

[aggi]

One thing I was pondering following the various stuff on Barcelona. It appears that a number of their creditors (Liverpool being one) have sold the debt on.

In terms of the UK, if a football club goes bankrupt but the clubs that they owe money to have sold the debt on, would it still be counted as a football creditor? Anyone any bright ideas?

[Vegas Claret]

looks like we should be shopping in France

[Chester Perry]

One thing I was pondering following the various stuff on Barcelona. It appears that a number of their creditors (Liverpool being one) have sold the debt on.

In terms of the UK, if a football club goes bankrupt but the clubs that they owe money to have sold the debt on, would it still be counted as a football creditor? Anyone any bright ideas?

I suspect that depends on whether FIFA/UEFA (it is an international transfer) have allowed a direct payment to the the new debt owner - which I cannot see them doing, particularly if the debt owner is not a registered financial institution (think direct payments from the Premier League when factoring).

My guess would be that the liability to the lender remains with Liverpool, the assurance was the football creditor rule, and Liverpool while benefitting from the advanced cashflow at the time, will have to dig into their current cashflow to service it.

It actually ties in nicely to some of my thoughts about how the assurance of the football creditor rule specifically in the area of staged transfer payments is a looming problem in this period of such restricted cash flow (first expressed last summer) One that only looks worse the longer the pandemic continues.

[Chester Perry]

looks like we should be shopping in France

haven't we just done that

[aggi]

I suspect that depends on whether FIFA/UEFA (it is an international transfer) have allowed a direct payment to the the new debt owner - which I cannot see them doing, particularly if the debt owner is not a registered financial institution (think direct payments from the Premier League when factoring).

My guess would be that the liability to the lender remains with Liverpool, the assurance was the football creditor rule, and Liverpool while benefitting from the advanced cashflow at the time, will have to dig into their current cashflow to service it.

It actually ties in nicely to some of my thoughts about how the assurance of the football creditor rule specifically in the area of staged transfer payments is a looming problem in this period of such restricted cash flow (first expressed last summer) One that only looks worse the longer the pandemic continues.

I don't know why but I have a feeling it was sold to Barclays. I'm almost certain it was a financial institution.

It wasn't specifically the Barcelona-Liverpool one I was wondering about, just pondering how it will work if it comes up in the future.

[Chester Perry]

I don't know why but I have a feeling it was sold to Barclays. I'm almost certain it was a financial institution.

It wasn't specifically the Barcelona-Liverpool one I was wondering about, just pondering how it will work if it comes up in the future.

As an exercise it is actually relatively common, and has been around for most of the last decade.

[aggi]

As an exercise it is actually relatively common, and has been around for most of the last decade.

Yes, I guess the reason it hasn't come up in insolvencies is no-one wants to buy those debts from shaky looking clubs.

[Vegas Claret]

haven't we just done that

that's stretching what I meant Not sure he's first team ready ?

[Chester Perry]

Brighton have published their 2019/20 financial results - headline losses of £67m - they have not adjusted their accounting period to cover the end of season so this doesn't include final tv income - they say lost £25m to covid

https://resources.brightonandhovealbion ... imited.pdf

@KieranMaguire has had a look

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 3642417156

what is evident from all this is that if we were to add back the Covid losses and, forgetting the lost China TV revenues, the remaining £26m of tv money they are yet to report then Brighton would have had in excess of £180m turnover last season - ours would have been in excess of £150m - that is a significant uplift on the previous year largely as a result of the new TV deal

[Chester Perry]

This is not what English Football wants to hear right now, from the Telegraph - That would be our £7.25m a year sponsor gone - They can be replaced, just not for as much in all likelihood, it is an opportunity for our new board to find a much more suitable type of sponsor I would suggest

Shirt ban on gambling firms 'likely'
TOM MORGAN JANUARY 26, 2021

Boris Johnson is increasingly likely to ban gambling firm sponsors on football shirts by the autumn amid rising unease in Government over betting addiction.

With a call for evidence in the most extensive review of the sector since 2005 set to expire in March, sources close to talks with Downing Street say there is determination at the top of Government to press ahead with reform.

Senior Whitehall figures involved in the review say they are conscious of "the worst possible timing" to remove finance streams for sport post-Covid-19.

But two-thirds of the British public support a ban on football shirt sponsorship, campaigners say, despite the £110million-a-year dent it would cause in the Premier League and Championship alone, and Government's decision will be guided ‘by the evidence’ over the betting industry's influence on addiction within the sport.

Carolyn Harris, the Labour MP and leading figure in the all-party parliamentary group on gambling harm, said she was confident the PM was inching closer to announcing a significant shake-up. "For me, it's about common sense prevailing over greed, because these football clubs have alternative ways to be funded," she added.

Ministers insist they will follow the evidence, but Matt Zarb-Cousin, director of Clean Up Gambling, was also among a host of figures to claim yesterday that ending betting sponsors on football shirts "looks increasingly likely" in the months ahead.

Analysis of betting habits show gambling fell less than expected while sport was wiped out during the first lockdown. Gamblers unable to wager on football or racing instead contributed to a surge in interest in online slots, which have a higher rate of addiction and no stake limits. A total of "17.3 per cent of male sports bettors and 16.6 per cent of female sports bettors started to bet on new activities during this period," according to a study led by Professor Kate Hunt of the University of Stirling.

Research by GambleAware had already estimated up to 2.7 per cent of adults in Britain - 1.4 million people - were problem gamblers, yet sponsorship is more prevalent than ever. Half of Premier League teams and 16 out of the 24 Championship sides had betting partners last season.

Last night the Clean Up Gambling said public appetite is now overwhelmingly in favour of a ban on shirt sponsorship, even as clubs face unprecedented financial chaos. Two-thirds of a sample size of more than 1,000 people told Survation this month that football should not be profiting from the industry.

The government published its call for evidence last month, having promised to review the industry in its pre-election manifesto. A White Paper of recommendations is set to follow by late summer or autumn, and ministers are promising to follow the evidence.

One anti-gambling lobbyist said last night: "Number 10 is very keen on the wider gambling reform agenda, particularly to gambling advertising, and even more so on football shirts. We think it’s highly likely that there will be progress in this area."

One further option discussed informally has been a levy that is paid by the betting industry to sports governing bodies for the right to take bets on the sport. Curbs on advertising will prompt stiff opposition in the gambling industry, as well as among broadcasters and professional sports.

"The government should go much further and end all gambling advertising, promotion and sponsorship," said Zarb-Cousin of Clean Up Gambling. "But given many of the gambling firms that sponsor football teams are based offshore and avoid paying UK corporation tax, it’s really a no brainer."

The betting industry, which spends billions on football and horse racing alone, will fight to prove the current status quo is not damaging society. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is leading the initial review, but the Prime Minister is expected to play a key role.

[Vegas Claret]

good, it has no place.

[Chester Perry]

good, it has no place.

indeed

[Chester Perry]

Part 3 of SportsProMedia's excellent European Football series - as ever there are charts you may wish to view at the link

https://www.sportspromedia.com/from-the ... -tv-rights

European Soccer Week | Part three: The commercial outlook
With budgets tightening in every industry, brands and broadcasters will look to be more efficient with their spending. What does this mean for Europe's soccer leagues and their clubs?

By Tom Bassam Posted: January 26 2021

In January, a telling deal was struck between Juventus and their current principal partner, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles’ (FCA). The agreement will see the carmaker keep its Jeep brand on the front of the team’s playing shirts until the end of the 2023/24 campaign.

The pair last reworked their contract in 2019, when FCA agreed to pay the Serie A giants an additional €25 million (US$30.4 million) until the end of the current season. Under that agreement, Juve received a minimum annual fee of €42 million (US$51.2 million). Yet, despite Juventus and Fiat both being controlled by the Exor group of companies owned by the Agnelli family, the club only saw an uptick of €3 million (US$3.64 million) a year on the base fee.

Now, the new partnership is one of the most lucrative shirt sponsorship deals in European soccer and the most valuable in Italy’s top flight, but it is also an increase of less than five per cent in that basic fee.

In the Premier League, Chelsea’s decision to swap tyre maker Yokohama for telecommunications brand Three last summer saw them secure no increase on their UK£40 million fee (US$53.8 million). None of this should be a surprise amid the financial crisis brought on by the pandemic, but it does illustrate the state of the commercial market in European soccer.

New partnerships have kept coming. In the Premier League, both Liverpool and Tottenham have agreed new sleeve deals this season but the upwards curve in the value of that inventory is not what it was.

Phil Carling, head of soccer at the Octagon agency, and his colleagues, have been working on make-goods and untangling cancellation clauses since Covid-19 shut down sport. Specific pandemic-related wording is now being written into all new deals.

"So virtually, every contract had some sort of force majeure in it. Some were quite prescient and did call out pandemics. Others didn’t. So you know, sort of drilling into the details of that, and then deciding with the rights owner what was suitable compensation," he says.

"It’s quite interesting building contingencies into the contracts to deal with pandemics and things that people might not have considered previously. Things that have actually now become quite prevalent, I would say."

Liverpool and Tottenham might be outliers in terms of agreeing major new deals, although Carling thinks the commercial appeal of the big clubs will endure. As for the smaller clubs, Carling says, centralised rights revenue is likely to be the most reliable source of commercial income for at least the next three years as brands focus their money on the reliable big names.

Brighton & Hove Albion chief executive, Paul Barber, and his commercial team have had to redraw contracts in an effort to keep partners on board. Deliverables that have proved impossible because of Covid restrictions have to be made up but, beyond finding new digital activations or agreeing free extensions, clubs need to continue to appear commercially attractive when much of that window dressing is not available.

“Our team have had to be creative,” says Barber. “They’ve had to be fleet of foot. They’ve had to be clever. They’ve had to be persuasive. They’ve had to, you know frankly, at times, sell the whole idea of being involved in the football world again because it’s a different kind of football that we’re involved in at the moment.”

Another hit is the tightening regulatory squeeze on the gambling industry's involvement in sponsorship. France and Germany have historically had very tight laws around the betting sector, while Spain has now followed Italy in moving to outlaw gambling brands from sports sponsorship. That move, according to La Liga president Javier Tebas, will cost Spanish clubs a combined €90 million (US$105 million). In the UK the government has indicated it will follow suit, further reducing the pool of potential partners for clubs and leagues.

Half of the 20 teams in the Premier League, English soccer’s top tier, have gambling brands as a main or sleeve sponsor for the 2020/21 season. During the 2019/20 season, Premier League clubs earned UK£69.6 million (US$89 million) from shirt deals with betting firms, with most clubs also holding smaller partnerships with companies from the sector.

In the second-tier Championship, 15 of the 24 teams rely on betting companies for shirt sponsorship and the English Football League (EFL), which oversees the three professional tiers below the top flight, could be hardest hit by any law changes. The league body says between its title sponsorship with Sky Bet and clubs' deals with betting brands a ban would wipe out UK£40 million (US$54.9 million) of commercial income.

On the broadcast side, indications are that Ligue 1 clubs will not be getting the same levels of rights fee as was agreed in the now-abandoned Mediapro deal. Serie A is aiming to raise at least €1.15 billion (US$1.4 billion) per season over the next three years from the sale of its domestic rights. That would represent a 15 per cent uplift on its current deal, but a cut of that would go to its new private investors. In Spain, Tebas says La Liga’s days of double-digit fee increases are likely over as the league prepares for its next rights auction this year.

Given its status as a market leader, all eyes will be on the Premier League to see where the market stands and whether it can secure a favourable deal. The pandemic has delayed the tender as Masters and his executive team assess how to package the league’s domestic rights. As part of that process, decisions need to be made on whether to go back to the blackout for Saturday 3pm fixtures, what the data from last year’s pay-per-view (PPV) experiment reveals, and how many games to sell.

Former Sky Sports managing director, Barney Francis, who is not directly involved in a domestic Premier League rights bidding process for the first time since 2009, agrees with the projection of Claire Enders, founder of consumer research company Enders Analysis, in that the Premier League will see the value of its games drop by between five and ten per cent from the current UK£1.67 billion (US$2.26 billion) a year fee. He also has a few suspicions about how the league’s strategy to deal with that drop will shake out.

“They’ll get declarations of interest from the usual suspects that you would imagine,” he says. “There are always declarations of interest from private equity firms and all those sorts of things because owning the Premier League is a glamorous thing - particularly for financial investment vehicles - but they always seem to have fallen away in the final throes of the bidding process

“Which way do I see it going? I see them looking to sell more inventory in a bid to achieve similar numbers to last time. I think that if they were to go back to market selling 200 games, I can’t see there being an increase in the value.”

Carling also fails to see any growth for the Premier League, with international broadcasters struggling too.

“I fully expect [a plateau] to happen with the Premier League this time around, “ he says. “What you’re also seeing is that the pay operators, even in the growth markets like Asia, are similarly suffering because of three challenges, really. One is media fragmentation, so more competition. Second is the fact that the consumer now is probably not committed to watching as much television as they were previously, and the third issue is piracy. And so all of those things, they’re conspiring to attack the pay television model.”

Phil Carling's four generations of soccer broadcast rights (and a bold prediction)
Pre-1992 Advertiser-driven and public-service broadcasters determine rights values due to limited competition, with obligations to serve a broad audience reducing demand for live soccer.

1992-2007 Pay-TV cable and satellite services, such as Sky, arrive as a disruptive development. With round-the-clock schedules to fill, broadcast rights values explode as rights holders are paid to sacrifice reach. Leagues can now extend beyond their own borders to become global properties by segmenting rights into multiple different territories.

2007-2018 The model remains primarily pay-TV, but telecommunications companies such as BT and Orange arrive with ‘quad play’ offerings incorporating TV packages, phone lines, and broadband and wireless services. Revenues are not entirely driven by subscriptions or advertising, with live soccer acting as a loss leader for other services in the bundle. Greater competition ensures rights values continue to rise.

2018-present The entrance of the digital giant. Amazon’s investments are a precursor, but this will develop into a mixed model where those digital operators play alongside traditional linear subscription-based services. However, with consumers under the age of 35 not prepared to pay for subscriptions anymore, piracy, fragmentation and competition sees rights values plateau.

Generation five? As delivery via digital platforms stabilises, rights holders are forced to drastically alter the model by which they sell their rights, with the key change being eliminating segmentation by territory. So, for example, digital giants could buy all 380 Premier League games and stream them globally or separate them only for large regions with very different media markets, such as China, to end up with three different territories rather than the current 180 to 200. The third component for rights holders is that, in addition to the upfront fees, there could be an advertising revenue share model as the threat of piracy grows and consumer adversity to paywalls sees the digital provider offer content for free. Ultimately, in order to fully realise the value of their investment, the media platform owns all of the advertising within the content - not only the advertising breaks and pre-roll, but what is going on inside it: shirt branding, sleeve branding, and all of the signage.