Football's Magic Money Tree

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Chester Perry
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 12:08 pm

@KieranMaguire with a first perusal of the West Ham Accounts - yet another Premier League club posting a loss in the final year of a TV rights cycle - this really cannot go on this way, it is getting as bad as the Championship for over spend just to keep on the money train in the apparent belief that they can get it back

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 6567836672

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:05 pm

If you think I am over egging it about the losses in the Premier League try this

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1222127483727859712

or about the end of the TV rights cycle

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1222138737204830209

This is just like what has been happened in the Championship - wages now over 71% of revenue (apparently at Bournemouth they are over 85%)

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1222135881764687874

And as for Economic Profit - a measure I like but not many do (apart from our board it would seem)

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1222130484555255808

if you need reminding what Economic Profit is https://vysyble.com/economic-profit

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 2:13 pm

Paul Hayward in the Telegraph on how clubs in Leagues 1 and 2 have effectively been turned into beggars

Self-interest of big clubs threatens to turn English football into Premier League 1 and 2

Sometimes you have to stop yourself. The drug of Premier League football leads you by stealth to think first about what Liverpool and Manchester City need, about the sacred right of Championship clubs to chase promotion.

In this world, where empathy for lower league clubs evaporates, FA Cup replays and the League Cup become problems, encumbrances. And while it feels absurd to set aside two games, home and away, to settle a Carabao Cup semi-final - or to play an FA Cup fourth-round tie twice - there is a deeper corrosion going on. The subtext is that elite football really cannot carry on burdening itself with all these stale commitments when it has vital business to conduct in the Premier League and Europe.

Some sympathy is due to Liverpool, who feel they were promised a February fixtures break (and agreed not to fill it with friendlies) only to have a replay with Shrewsbury plonked in the middle of it. Nobody could accuse the champions elect of blindness to romance or the fate of the proletariat.

But for Jurgen Klopp to vacate the dug-out for Neil Critchley, and to say that no first-team player will face the Shrews back at Anfield, is a further sign that even people who would normally care about small clubs are starting to cut them adrift. The cries from Leagues One and Two that FA Cup replays and League Cup ties help them put protein bars on the table are now no more than an irritation to corporations who have bigger fish to fry.

I would take seriously Klopp’s concerns about the workload of his senior players. The football calendar is a recipe for burnout. Nobody ever asks what fixture overload does to family life or mental health - though you can tell Klopp and Pep Guardiola think a lot about those dangers. Television’s mania for 24/7 action has turned players, coaches and club employees into workaholics at the mercy of scheduling gods. Liverpool have the small matter of a first English title for 30 years to think about, plus a Champions League title defence. Can they really be expected to give up their only chance of a break to suit the FA Cup’s need for ‘narratives’ and Shrewsbury’s financial health?

Again: sometimes you have to check yourself. First, Liverpool have only themselves to blame for not winning the tie first time-round. Had they fielded a stronger side they probably would be through now to face Chelsea. Premier League and Championship clubs are giving up on the Cups. They are treating them as intrusive, inconvenient, irrelevant, and there is a price to pay, in an industry where the economics are already skewed.

In Leagues One and Two some suspect a secret agenda to turn English football into a Premier League 1 and Premier League 2, with the rest abandoned to semi-professionalism.There is probably a confidential memo that shows how these ‘customers’ can be mopped up by bigger operations. Yesterday’s young Accrington or Rochdale fan is tomorrow’s Man Utd duvet cover buyer. Trickle down economics - the Football League receives 5p in TV money for every pound earned in the Premier League - can be discontinued.

No more guilt trips. No more midweek FA Cup road trips to Exeter. No more stroppy manager when he has to deliver a team talk to an U-23 side in a provincial dressing room that feels like a scout hut. No more football pyramid. An end to interdependence and giant killing and Cup draws on The One Show because everyone will have bowed to Mammon and let the devil take the hindmost. This is the way many small clubs feel it is going, so that Shrewsbury’s comeback and joyous pitch invasion feel like a novelty act, followed by a replay against Liverpool’s kids.

But something valuable happened when Shrewsbury’s fans poured on to the pitch, the maverick Jason Cummings celebrated his two goals and Gary Lineker held up the FA Cup from the TV studio to the fans below, while most of us at home wore silly grins.

The brainwashing ceased. The unchallengeable power of the big clubs and their billionaire owners was exposed as manipulation. The purpose of football as a national game with bonds from top to bottom glowed again on the screen. For a few reassuring moments, staying in, or ascending to, the Premier League felt like a vain obsession, as a 2-2 draw and a pitch invasion in Shropshire restored to the FA Cup a value we thought it had lost.
Then the arguments started. Replays. Winter breaks. Burnout. Fixture congestion. All valid, in their own way, but all in danger too of accelerating the demise of lower league football, the glue of communities in a way few things are.

In some eyes, Shrewsbury passed quickly from being a beacon tale to a sodding nuisance messing up Liverpool’s winter break. Thus the Shrews and all the clubs in their world were cast as refugees from a lost age: teams with no real role, except as opposition for Liverpool B, and then Liverpool C in the replay.

Ask yourself this. How did Shrewsbury and co become so dependent on Cup replays in the first place? Because inequality and self-interest turned them into beggars at the gate.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 3:57 pm

More evidence of the grim picture in the Premier League - 7 clubs have reported 2018/19 financial results (including 4 of the big six and the biggest of the 14) only 1 reported a profit (Technically Arsenal haven't reported yet (their parent company has though) - @KieranMaguirre gives a horrific summary between lectures

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 6566379520

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 4:05 pm

More on the proposed Arsenal breakaway club Dial Square FC, following document released by the prospective owners

https://twitter.com/uglygame/status/1222164810172792833

I am in total agreement with @uglygame here - too much of this reeks of a few people trying to make something for themselves

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 6:50 pm

It would appear the Venky's are dipping their hands in their pockets again for the club £5.3m this time - they have been very considerate considering their initial blunders and the bile and venom thrown at them

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 4518290432

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 6:52 pm

KPMG's Football Benchmark looks at what it believes are the reasons why someone would by a football club

https://www.footballbenchmark.com/libra ... ball_clubs

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 6:59 pm

Ajax are looking at ways to increase revenues from the Johan Cruyff Arena, which is currently owned by the municipality - the area is to see a slight increase in capacity partly to meet new UEFA standards for Wheelchair users - which will transform its appearance from concave to convex

https://www.footballbenchmark.com/libra ... ball_clubs

If you remember the fortunes/finances of Juventus have transformed since they owned their own stadium - so much so that the Rome and Milan clubs are keen to follow the same path

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 7:37 pm

This is a terrible idea - but just the sort of thing that gets content/entertainment executives excited - a superbowl play-off for the Premier League title

https://www.sportbusiness.com/2020/01/j ... -playoffs/

this "blue sky thinking" doesn't take into account:
- the conference nature of the NFL that the Premier League doesn't have,
- the 130+ years of history in the current model for footballs top flight,
- the fact that it would require the top clubs to play additional games when they are already challenging the final stages of European and domestic cups
- National tournaments are played at the end of the domestic season

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 7:40 pm

The Football Supporters Association say the government are ready to move quickly to reform the law on all-seater stadiums in the Premier League and Championship

https://thefsa.org.uk/news/government-t ... er-reform/

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 7:55 pm

Is this a case of the FA turning a blind eye until someone raised it with them - FA to investigate Betting shops showing Europeans games during the Saturday blackout

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/satu ... es-1377137

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:01 pm

following that Football Benchmark piece on why people buy football clubs, The Price of Football Blog examines the ways owners toss money at their clubs

http://priceoffootball.com/premier-leag ... -insanity/

If you think the selection of teams is strange - they are the only ones to have reported on the 2018/19 season so far - Only United posted a profit

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:29 pm

It is now over a year since this tragedy occurred but the wrangling continues - Days after having his name as part of the squad in the matchday programme for the 4th round FA cup tie at Reading - Cardiff have begun legal proceedings against Nantes in France

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... liano-sala

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jan 28, 2020 8:49 pm

Needless to say that Nantes are somewhat taken aback by this from Cardiff

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-51289057

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jan 29, 2020 3:11 am

@KieranMaguire with a bit more on those 2018/19 financial results from West Ham

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 4790578179

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jan 29, 2020 12:33 pm

It is all looking a bit grim for Macclesfield

https://theathletic.co.uk/1564042/2020/ ... hi-crisis/

sorry not a subscriber - but even the bit you can see conveys the sad message

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jan 29, 2020 12:35 pm

Meanwhile Lincoln have posted their 2018/19 League 2 promotion winning seasons financial results - these would have looked healthy for a few in League 1

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 7525224449

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jan 29, 2020 12:39 pm

I do find it strange that bankers are courting the general media to say that they are involved in football transfers - nothing new to regular readers of the thread - just strange behaviour for bankers - why, just why would you do that?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51038488

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jan 29, 2020 12:57 pm

A dose of reality from Marina Hyde in the Guardian re the prospective Newcastle takeover

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... ike-ashley

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jan 29, 2020 7:35 pm

It has taken longer than some though it would but 3 Macclesfield players have applied to have their contracts terminated after continuing failures to be paid

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51297280

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jan 29, 2020 8:04 pm

There is some fascinating detail in this article by Sam Wallace of the Telegraph about the West Ham finances and the deal the owners struck with HMRC over a possible sale of the club - expect them to be sold in 2024

West Ham have contrived crisis from golden opportunity but owners are not the biggest losers
Sam Wallace - Chief Football Writer - 29 January 2020 • 6:26pm

Good news for the owners of West Ham United whose eye-catching losses and record levels of supporter discontent were offset this week by a top of the table finish that may come as a surprise to those still making the long trek out from Stratford via Westfield shopping centre.
The club were voted best for “matchday stadium experience” according to a survey conducted by that well-known expert in football culture, the budget hotel chain Premier Inn who considered “cost”, “team quality” and “food and drink quality” well ahead of “stadium history”. For those clubs unhappy with the results one can only advise devising their own league table ranking the nation’s Premier Inns along similar lines.

One also notes reports during the summer of 2018 that West Ham’s players spent some of pre-season recuperating from training sessions at the Romford branch of the same hotel chain which poses another question. Might they have amassed more Premier Inn loyalty points than those awarded for wins and draws in the Premier League?

So to those financial results released this week ahead of Wednesday’s Premier League/Inn clash with Liverpool, detailing the £28.2 million losses they announced for the previous financial year to maintain the club’s proud status as relegation-threatened struggler. The Manuel Pellegrini experiment undertaken by owners David Sullivan and David Gold in the summer of 2018, as well as signings such as Felipe Anderson and Jack Wilshere, put £30 million on a wage bill that now stands at £135.8 million.

The club’s accounts record a loan of £42 million from Rights and Media Funding which was repaid in total in July and was replaced with a £39 million loan from the same source repayable in July this year. The additional £45 million loan from Gold and Sullivan, accumulating an interest rate of 4.25 per cent per annum, has attracted criticism from fans’ groups who would rather the owners put equity into the club instead of debt.

Other highlights included what the club describe as a £238,000 bonus for Karren Brady, the vice-chairman, principally for an increase in turnover to £190.7 million that takes her latest annual earnings to £1.136 million. As ever, the club’s owners invite their critics to look back at the £110 million debt-saddled club they acquired in 2010 and be thankful for their intervention – although there is no question as to who the biggest beneficiaries have been.

That is Sullivan and Gold from whom the standard response on West Ham’s future is that the club is not for sale. Yet the losses in these results once again bring the focus back on the 99-year lease agreement struck between West Ham and the London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) for an annual Premier League season tenancy of £2.5 million.

In March 2013, the two parties signed an agreement on a percentage due back to the taxpayer in the event of Sullivan and Gold selling the club over the following ten years up to 2023. Under that agreement a sale this year, for example, of more than £300 million would yield 20 per cent of a consideration to the public purse. A sale of between £200 million and £300 million would yield 12.5 per cent. A sale after 2023 earns nothing for the taxpayer.

Under the agreement, the provision is that any debt would be covered in the sale price and the taxpayer percentage would come out of the remaining balance. In that respect there are few long-term disadvantages to Sullivan and Gold in the club taking on debt when it comes to West Ham’s sale now, or indeed after the elapse of the LLDC claw-back agreement. It is also worth noting that under the agreement’s terms, the club could be sold at any time before March 2023 to a member of the Sullivan or Gold families without any liability being owed to the taxpayer.

There were also agreements over the percentage of a naming rights deal due to LLDC although almost four years since the move to Stratford the honour of having one’s name over the door has proved eminently resistible to the world’s biggest brands.

By 2016 when West Ham moved into the London Stadium, the cost to the public purse of converting it to football had risen to £323 million of which just £15 million had been contributed by Sullivan and Gold in a one-off payment. West Ham were portrayed in some quarters as having pulled off the greatest deal of all, persuading successive governments eager for an Olympics legacy to build them a stadium, which would propel them to become one of English football’s super-clubs.

Midway through their fourth season there, Sullivan was obliged this week to warn of the “serious financial consequences” of relegation for that putative super-club, still somehow contriving to miss the golden opportunity once deemed impossible to squander. Yet for the owners of the club Sullivan (51.1 per cent) and Gold (35.1 per cent) there is no downside. Most recently valued at £473 million by Forbes, the clock is ticking on what, if anything there will be in any sale of West Ham for the taxpayer who built and all but converted the former Olympics Stadium.

As for the supporters, their independent groups have found it difficult to have their voice heard with Brady. She has established her own “Official Supporters Board” which sounds like the ultimate solution to supporter disquiet: in-house, on-message dissent. In the latest annual report there was no mention of the long-term future from Sullivan, 70, or Gold, 83. Should, for example, Sullivan decide that his share of West Ham passes to his son Jack, currently managing director of West Ham women, then that would be exempt from any agreement to return money to the public purse.

Between the auditing and publication of their financial results, Pellegrini, the manager described by Sullivan as having “the most successful track record in the club’s history” and on whose advice £143.7 million was spent in the transfer market, had been sacked. The ambition has once again been downgraded to Premier League survival and the only upside of failure for the ownership can once again be found in that 2013 dream deal with LLDC. A season’s tenancy at the London Stadium playing in the Championship comes at the reduced price of £1.25 million.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jan 29, 2020 8:20 pm

St Mirren's progression to being a wholly fan owned club, looks likely to be achieved years ahead of schedule

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51292642

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jan 30, 2020 12:15 pm

Today's Price of Football Podcast is out - looking at Derby, the league cup and why Ed Woodward is still in a job

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t ... 1482886394

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jan 30, 2020 6:23 pm

@KieranMaguire talks the detail of West Ham's financial results to fans TV KUMB

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gY9YqFTx_ko

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 12:59 am

Interesting article from the Times looking at the Wolves-Mendes relationship and how their current success is dangerously dependent on it

Wolverhampton Wanderers are flying high – but what happens if Jorge Mendes takes his clients elsewhere?
Matt Dickinson, Chief Sports Writer - Thursday January 30 2020, 5.00pm, The Times

In a Premier League awash with expensive underperformance, you only have to look at the table to conclude that Wolverhampton Wanderers must be getting more right than most; certainly more than Manchester United ahead of their meeting on Saturday given they sit on the same points but with vastly different resources, aspirations and expectations.

In two and a half years under the management of Nuno Espírito Santo, Wolves have won the Championship, reached an FA Cup semi-final and finished seventh in the Premier League, their best league position since 1980. Next month they will pursue glory in the Europa League while continuing to jostle with United and Tottenham Hotspur for fifth place.

Such progress means that we take for granted that the model is successful and, therefore, enviable. These days we just look at the impressive progress rather than consider how it has been achieved. We never glimpse under the bonnet.

And I do wonder whether that is dangerous when the project remains so heavily dependent — even more so after two more signings in this January window orchestrated by Jorge Mendes — on the relationship with one agent.

Enviable? To be frank, it is a model that a club like United, for all their woes, could not contemplate, jumping into bed with one hugely influential businessman. Haggling with Mino Raiola is trouble enough.

It is impossible to analyse Wolves without scrutinising the Mendes influence, especially when it grows rather than wanes. This runs so deep that the two signings of this January window — of Daniel Podence for £16.9 million from Olympiacos, and Leonardo Campana, a Ecuadorian striker — refresh the contingent he has brought in to at least ten plus, of course, Nuno, the manager, who was Mendes’ first client.

Perhaps they play Mendes’ players versus the rest in training though it would be one-sided with, among others, Rui Patrício, João Moutinho, Rúben Neves, Diogo Jota, Pedro Neto, Raúl Jiménez and Matt Doherty, who switched from his British agent to Mendes’ Gestifute agency as just another sign of the Portuguese’s spreading tentacles.

The hold on recruitment can be so tight that one club explained how dealing with Wolves involves putting in one call to Kevin Thelwell, the sporting director, to discuss business and another to Valdir Cardoso, the agent who is effectively Mendes’ eyes and ears at the club, constantly around, travelling to games, even in the dressing room after matches. Thelwell is a respected figure but he also knows better than to rock the boat.

Mendes is not just instrumental with bringing in many players but was even on the panel when interviews were held to appoint a senior executive at Molineux. So you can understand why rival clubs rolled their eyes when investigations by the EFL and Premier League concluded that Mendes had no formal role at Wolves and therefore no rules are being breached.

Perhaps it is envy when quality players are being delivered through the tight relationship between Mendes and Fosun, the club’s Chinese owners; hypocrisy too when many clubs have their own favoured middle-men — as do many managers — who act as gatekeepers.

At Loftus Road not so long ago, the joke even in the boardroom was that the club could be renamed Kia Park Rangers given the influence of Kia Joorabchian. There was a time when Pini Zahavi, the Israeli agent, seemed to have a hand in all Chelsea transfers. And so on.

Relationships — healthy or otherwise — are inevitable but Mendes and Wolves is an influence unparalleled, as was planned right from the start according to emails disclosed by Football Leaks.

After Fosun bought — via a subsidiary — 15 per cent of Start SGPS which owns the Gestifute, in September 2015, an executive at the Chinese company set out excitedly how “Mendes has surpassed the business influence of ordinary football agents. He has actually indirectly controlled many clubs in major European leagues . . .”

It went on: “This has made him able to place his coaches and players in these clubs, thus achieving full closed-loop control of the player’s career and strong long-term influence on the clubs by providing full service to the players.”

The FA’s rule on conflicts of interest states: “[An] entity with an interest in a club shall not have any interest in the business or affairs of an intermediary or an intermediary’s organisation.” How this all squares up at Wolves is something the authorities looked at and seemingly endorsed
So Jeff Shi, the executive chairman, continues with his reliance on Mendes while the man himself plus Cardoso have free rein of the directors’ lounge, their own executive box and much more besides. “You always know the reason for the investment of Wolves is mainly because of our bet and trust on Jorge,” as Shi once wrote.

There were teething problems with Walter Zenga as coach but the arrival of Nuno has seemingly brought a unique harmony that works for all, not least the adoring Wolves fans, perhaps because of his long alliance with Mendes.

For now, they go to Old Trafford — potentially to face Bruno Fernandes, fresh from his £67.7 million transfer to United negotiated by, well, guess who — with the hope of leaping into fifth. There are discussions about how to expand Molineux given a waiting list for season tickets.

That gamble on big investment in Portuguese talent to escape the Championship has transformed a club which spent only four seasons in the top flight from 1984 to 2018 but now has a club shop in Shanghai and a fashion range in China.

Without Mendes, none of this would have happened so no doubt he will feel he has amply justified the lucrative slice that have come out of all the deals (and wouldn’t Wolves fans like to know what that all adds up to?)

But I come back to one line written by Shi and, to me, its seeming naivety. “Jorge can take Wolves as the most reliable partner and agency revenue source for a long long time,” he noted.

My reaction was to wonder how many agents are in it for the long haul; and to wonder what might happen if, say, Nuno was to suddenly be tempted by a bigger, better job and the best beard in football was to take off from the Black Country; whether the next manager is a Mendes man and if he will be able to make this all work in sync in the same way; and to consider the wider implications if this one key relationship were to start unravelling.

It made me think, too, that if you work for Wolves, your absolute priority has to be that club at the expense of all others. Does Mendes think that way when he sets about his business every morning?

Wolves are in a brilliant position, upwardly mobile and their bet on Mendes has kept paying dividends. But I cannot help wondering if it is all more fragile than it looks.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 2:10 am

This article from a couple of days ago in the Independent clearly outlines the reasons that the big six want out of our domestic cup competitions - not enough money for it to be worth the effort for them

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 05241.html

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 2:20 pm

@SwissRamble's European tour stops off in Milan where he looks at the 2018/19 financial results of Internazionale - who this season have become an old folks home for the Premier League, while challenging the hegemony of Juventus

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 2725227522

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 2:23 pm

In slightly more humble surroundings @KieranMaguire looks at the 2018/19 financial results of Walsall whose income is about a quarter of the Interest Inter paid on their debt

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 2725227522

great to see that the Owner is determined to reunite the club and ownership of the ground after the previous incumbent split them

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 2:47 pm

The owners shenanigans and clubs financial woes continue to follow a depressing pattern at Oldham - they are now threatened with eviction from Boundary Park and face the prospect of Administration

http://oldham-chronicle.co.uk/news-feat ... nistration

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:12 pm

Daniel Story calls out Pep for calling out City fans for non attendance of the FA Cup 4th round (should have come to our place)

https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/man- ... gy-1380956

Chester Perry
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:15 pm

Athletico Madrid join the football farming industry by buying an expansion franchise in the Canadian league

https://www.soccerex.com/insight/articl ... nsion-team

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:37 pm

This is how Brexit from a football perspective is being reported abroad today - some phrasing is lost in translation

France - who increasingly rely on the Premier League for transfer income
https://translate.google.co.uk/translat ... 8NVBwPSKfA

Germany
https://translate.google.co.uk/translat ... e3e3f.html

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jan 31, 2020 11:50 pm

An intriguing article on the finances at Barcelona - and no it is not from the Telegraph suprisingly

https://www.highpresssoccer.com/is-all- ... as-riches/

and yet they have been involved in a transfer - though that has provoked yet more questions over how a few appearances in the Portuguese league with modest returns can trigger a large transfer fee - the common link is an agent by the name of Mendes

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 8771475457

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat Feb 01, 2020 12:07 am

Interesting podcast from the Football_Collective (they are academics focussing on Football) featuring @DrRob_Wilson

https://soundcloud.com/thefootballcolle ... rob-wilson

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat Feb 01, 2020 12:12 am

Tony Adams (who knows a thing or to about addiction) says football has to cut it's ties with gambling

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/51335122
Last edited by Chester Perry on Sun Feb 02, 2020 2:39 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:25 am

When the President of FIFA tells you that he is seeking to improve the fortunes of you country and continent - do you believe him? (don't think I could)

https://apnews.com/a2e9978490dd56e2c1a9ab7dd97fccd2

Here he is proposing changes that he says will help African football develop - if you actually consider the implications of what he is talking about it looks more like he is:

- protecting his enlarged club world cup by scheduling the African cup of nations away from it
- giving European scouts an opportunity to spot African players at younger age groups and chart their progress before they become eligible for international transfer (at 18) per FIFA regulations

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun Feb 02, 2020 1:31 am

PSG announce Qatar Airways as it's new premium sponsor

https://en.psg.fr/teams/first-team/cont ... nt-germain

this follows the forced end to a record deal with the Qatar Tourism authority - as @TariqPanja says

"As if by magic. Having had to end controversial QTA sponsorship - probably the highest sports sponsorship contract in history - Qatar Airways signs on with PSG. When one FFP door closes …"

wakey wakey UEFA

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun Feb 02, 2020 2:06 am

Simon Chadwick notes that the Qatar Airways sponsorship of PSG is for all it's teams - which will make an UEFA investigation breakdown more challenging but not impossible

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 6229319685

- if it is a very high priced deal - could PSG be charged on multiple accounts for the different teams - that would be pretty extraordinary

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun Feb 02, 2020 2:11 am

Why does Gazprom invest so much in football sponsorship when we consumers cannot buy directly from them

https://www.vox.com/videos/2020/1/31/21 ... er-sponsor

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun Feb 02, 2020 2:31 am

This surprised me (particularly our net spend this season) - from a respected source (though they do protect themselves with the caveat)
EDIT I think they have missed the Heaton Transfer

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1223 ... 12/photo/1

the collective net spend figure shows a trend reversal

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1223 ... 13/photo/1

also this on the proportion of income spent on transfers in the Premier league is interesting (would be really interested to see this on a club by club basis though

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1223 ... 98/photo/1
Last edited by Chester Perry on Sun Feb 02, 2020 4:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun Feb 02, 2020 2:35 am

I have been posting quite a bit about Premier League profitability or rather the increasing lack of it - here @Vysyble look at the annual profitability of the 4 non big six clubs that have been in the Premier league through the last 2 tv cycles and how by the end of the cycle profits become losses
- Everton, Palace, West Ham and Southampton

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1223 ... 80/photo/1

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun Feb 02, 2020 2:45 am

The depressing trend on Premier League financial results laid bare - fits in with the TV cycle

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1222472950080843776

should caveat this with the likely huge Profits from some clubs (Liverpool, Spurs) - suspect Liverpool may surpass their own world record profits - £250m+, of TV money will do that for you

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Mon Feb 03, 2020 12:07 am

FIFA says that their intervention in the The Confederation of African Football is complete - it is not but CAF has voted not to extend FIFA's role - the reason it all started has still not been resolved

https://apnews.com/d19e0eb0247de7a7b30ed16c086e9b65

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Mon Feb 03, 2020 4:06 pm

@SwissRamble with his perspective on the 2019/19 financial results of West Ham - he publishes his analysis later than everyone else and it is better for it

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 8370248705

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:56 am

The inside story on the Battle for Sheffield United - the two factions talk to David Conn on the Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... ter-battle

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Feb 04, 2020 1:43 am

Still trying to get over the shock of this fawning apology by Sunday Supplement to the owners of West Ham- perhaps it was a spoof by Sky - such level as to make it obvious they were not in agreement

https://twitter.com/SundaySupp/status/1 ... 8126997504

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:19 pm

And as if by magic - the press are now beginning to investigate the detail in Sky's lengthy apology

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... ology.html

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:36 pm

Yet another major European League develops it's own streaming platform to help it grow against the might of the Premier League - this time it is the French

https://www.soccerex.com/insight/articl ... tal-revamp

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:41 pm

UEFA and it's South American equivalent CONMEBOL keep having these talks - they are the 2 most successful federations - with the latter hugely dependent on the former for transfer fees - perhaps they just don't feel that FIFA serves them well enough

https://www.soccerex.com/insight/articl ... tal-revamp

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:46 pm

The Irish Government's rescue of the FAI has come with some strings attached - they have had to terminate their betting partnership with SportPesa - no bad thing imho

https://www.sportbusiness.com/news/fai- ... scue-deal/

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