Football's Magic Money Tree

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Tricky Trevor
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Tricky Trevor » Mon May 20, 2019 10:09 pm

Chester Perry wrote: it is entirely possibly that a lot of this summers biggest potential transfers might not happen because one agent has been given a 3 month ban - initially in Italy, then FIFA made it worldwide - He is allowed to return to his business activities the day after the PL transfer windows shut. This is going to be an interesting watch given the players under his charge and if effective may leave an awful lot of clubs unhappy as they can either not get rid of players they want to or sign the players they are targeting
Surely, in this instance the player would be within his rights to walk away from an agent who is unable to fulfill his duties. Pogba would not be happy staying at ManU until January.

Chester Perry
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 10:21 am

I don't know the answer to that Trevor, but it is telling that none of his players seem to be making any noise about finding another agent and a lot of them are expecting to move this summer and it is usually him that decides which club they go to

Chester Perry
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 10:21 am

A detailed and **WARNINING** very long article from Middle East Eye on the whole Man City thing with a lot of stuff not previously reported in there - It is well worth the read,


Manchester City, Abu Dhabi and the rise of English football's new order - Oscar Rickett

The club bought by Sheikh Mansour of the UAE has become the Premier League's dominant force and a potent PR vehicle

Walk east along the tram line from Manchester's Piccadilly station and you will pass an abandoned pub called the Bank of England, boarded-up old houses and a car wash with a couple of workers in overalls sitting outside waiting for their next job.

Pass the car wash and continue up the road, and after five minutes you reach a Mercedes dealership, which sits like a guard tower outside the Etihad Stadium, home to Manchester City Football Club. The name of the United Arab Emirates’ second-largest airline can be seen everywhere.
Behind the stadium, there's the Etihad campus, a vast sweep of land populated with training pitches, a school, offices, shops, the Manchester Institute of Health and Performance, a "woodland fitness trail" and much more besides.

In the club's shop, employees tell Middle East Eye that the biggest-selling shirts are the ones you'd expect: Sergio Aguero, Raheem Sterling, Kevin De Bruyne.

These are the footballers who have fired City to a second successive English Premier League title and their fourth since 2012, justifying the money spent on them by the club's owner, Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a prominent member of Abu Dhabi's ruling family.

After claiming the title last Sunday, the UAE's foreign minister, Anwar Gargash, tweeted in Arabic congratulating Mansour and paying tribute to his and City's "historic achievement" and "legendary success". It was, Gargash wrote, "among the most remarkable stories in the history of football".
He's not wrong. On Saturday, Manchester City face Watford in the FA Cup final, sponsored by Emirates, another airline from the UAE. If City win, they will become the first team in the history of English football to win a domestic treble of trophies - the league title, the FA Cup and the League Cup.

Over the past 10 years, Sheikh Mansour has put at least £1.3bn ($1.6bn) into the club. In return, the team's fans have unfurled banners thanking him, sung songs to him and worn homemade tea-towel keffiyehs honouring their oil-rich owners.

In more than a century of existence prior to Sheikh Mansour's arrival, City had won the English league title just twice, enjoying occasional periods of success but often bouncing between divisions and playing in the third tier of English football as recently as 1999.

"Never thought when watching City lose to Tranmere many years ago we'd be the best ever Premier League team and on the cusp of winning the domestic treble," City fan Tony told a BBC radio phone-in on Friday night.

"If you are a Manchester City supporter right now, you are living the absolute dream."

'Double-edged sword'
Premier League football "is one of the best entertainment products in the world," the UAE’s deputy prime minister wrote when he bought the club in 2008, and the City Football Group, under the ownership of Abu Dhabi United Group, is well on its way to becoming an Emirati-funded Amazon or Disney, running a string of football clubs from the US to Uruguay, Spain to China.

New York City Football Club, like Melbourne City and their parent club, Manchester City, play in sky blue, with "Etihad Airways" on the front of their shirts.

They aim to play in the style City's manager, Pep Guardiola, a Champions League winner with Barcelona as a player and a coach and whose possession and passing-based philosophy is synonymous with the Catalan club, exhorts his team to play.

As such, football, the most-watched sport in the world, has become a global advert for Abu Dhabi and a way of exercising the UAE's "Soft Power Strategy". But, as Nicholas McGeehan, the former UAE researcher for Human Rights Watch says, City's owners are "wise to the fact that it's a double-edged sword".

As the Australian Simon Pearce, a director of Manchester City and Abu Dhabi's head of strategic communications, put it in a leaked email written in 2013 regarding the club's move to New York: "AD/UAE vulnerabilities put in play: gay, wealth, women, Israel."

The success, then, of Manchester City has also brought some fresh attention to long-standing criticisms of the UAE. "This is one of the most abusive and dangerous governments out there," says McGeehan. "They are particularly sinister and dangerous."

Serious mistreatment of the migrant workers that make up 90% of the population, vast inequalities in wealth, environmental degradation, oppressive policies aimed at women and gay people, torturing prisoners and embarking on a war that has killed thousands of innocent people in Yemen: all these allegations against the UAE have been brought, however hazily, to the attention of some of the hundreds of millions of people that watch the English Premier League around the world.

This is particularly true for fans of City's rivals looking for a stick to beat their conqueror with, and particularly true in an ever more polarised football landscape, in which fan sites and podcasts have risen to prominence and supporters across the world vent at each other on Twitter.
In return, fans of the Manchester club have become what McGeehan calls an "unpaid PR army" for Abu Dhabi, defending the UAE on social media and pointing out that when it comes to supposedly dodgy owners of Premier League football clubs, City are very much not alone.

"Dig deep enough and you'll find murky business in every club's financial dealings – where there's money, there's a lot of questionable characters and practices," says David Mooney, a life-long City fan and host of the Blue Moon podcast.

Fellow fan Howard Hockin, who runs the 93:20 podcast, makes a similar point. "The UK government is just as bad as the UAE government. There is a lot of Western arrogance surrounding this," he says.

In Manchester, the men of oil-rich Abu Dhabi get a lot more love than that UK government. From time to time, City fans in the Etihad break out a chant that pays homage to their owner. To the tune of spiritual classic Kum Ba Ya, they sing "Sheikh Mansour m'lord, Sheikh Mansour, oh lord, Sheikh Mansour".

Mansour has attended one Manchester City game during more than a decade of ownership.

A Gulf state whose territory was once controlled by the British, the UAE is now calling the shots, its rulers thanked and honoured by men and women at a football ground in the north of England.

But as it aims to make domestic football history, Manchester City face another kind of off-field headache, as Europe's footballing body, UEFA ,threatens to ban it from the Champions League for violating financial fair play regulations by funnelling Sheikh Mansour's money through inflated sponsorship deals. The giant of east Manchester is being forced to swat away assorted slings and arrows.

Labour Club to superclub
On match days, Mary D's, a bar that sits just across the road from one corner of the Etihad stadium, is only open to City fans. Hundreds regularly crowd inside the main bar, take to its dance floor and fill out its outside space at the back. Pictures of players past and present line the walls.
The large patio at the back has shirts hanging down from the roof covering and the dance floor is decorated with homemade tributes to the City players who drove the team to 100 points in the league last season. Aguero and Sterling are shown with Roman helmets on, the horsehair trim on the crest coloured City blue.

The Beamish Bar hasn't always been a temple dedicated to the gods of Manchester City. Beswick, the area of east Manchester the Etihad stadium sits in, traditionally belongs to Manchester's other, more famous, football team: Manchester United.

For years, Mary D's was also the Bradford Labour Club, a home for the working people of the area. Manchester, cradle of the industrial revolution, home to the football club that has spent more money than any other in the world over the last decade, is one of the most deprived local authorities in the UK.

In 1993, an Irishman called Mike Kehoe bought the bar and took over its management. In those days, Manchester City were still playing at Maine Road, which had been their ground from 1923. Maine Road is in Moss Side, south of Manchester's city centre and about five kilometres from what is now the Etihad Stadium. The club's traditional support is drawn from those areas, not from east Manchester.

From the 1980s onwards, as government cuts, the march of global capitalism and the closing down of industry devasted large areas of the United Kingdom, Manchester's city council became adept at bidding for one-off pots of money as a way of trying to make up for the straitened circumstances they found themselves in.

In 2002, Manchester hosted the Commonwealth Games. The City of Manchester stadium was built for the event, but it needed an afterlife. Manchester City, in turmoil but still commanding loyal crowds of over 30,000 people, was the obvious choice.

On a Monday afternoon, the regulars drinking in the main bar are all United fans, despite the City-themed decor.

Tommy, Steve and Colin are all in their early 50s. Tommy is a window fitter. He grew up in Beswick and has lived here all his life.

"What I love about this place is that I could get drunk tonight and walk back home through my estate completely naked, and no one would mind," he says.

He lives in a community. There isn't much money and there isn't much opportunity, but people know and look out for each other. And, apart from on match days, they’ve still got their local pub: Mary D's.

A shadow hangs over this. You can see it from outside the bar: the Etihad Stadium and all it represents. For years, the residents of Beswick have been waiting to find out what Manchester City Football Club and Manchester City Council want to do with them and the place they live in.

"The club wants to flatten the area, but the community doesn't know what's going on," Tommy says.

Will the oil wealth of Abu Dhabi pour out into Beswick, uprooting this working class community, flattening the council housing and replacing it with loft apartments and an as-yet imagined upwardly mobile demographic, working who knows where and doing who knows what?

At Mary D's, the punters don't know. They feel like they are in purgatory. They feel like some lines from an old song of Manchester City's: "We're not really here, we're not really here, just like the fans of the Invisible Man, we're not really here."

"We just want to know what's going on,” says Tommy, his words echoed by friends at the bar. He has two daughters and wonders for their future. He bought his council house for £14,000 ($17,800) and now it's worth £150,000 ($191,000).

Like most of his fellow residents, Tommy would most likely make a substantial profit if Manchester City bought him out, but like most of his fellow residents, he doesn't want to move to another part of the city. "It's your community, and you don't want to leave," he says.

The community shares a feeling of resignation. It's David versus Goliath, they say, it's just that in this telling of the story, Goliath wins.
"They're Arabs with billions of pounds, what can we do?" Tommy asks.

The club still advertises jobs at the club that pay below £9 an hour ($11.40), which is considered the living wage in the area. It still outsources recruitment to outside companies. This certainly doesn't make it unique in the Premier League.

Only four of 20 clubs in England's top division – West Ham, Chelsea, Liverpool and Everton – have signed up to the Living Wage Foundation's definition of what a living wage for workers is.

Knocking up some signs in the car park of Mary D's, Mike Kehoe, the bar's owner, understands how his punters feel, but he has a different take on the situation, partly because it's working out well for him financially and partly because, as a City fan, it's worked out well for him personally.
The building of the City of Manchester stadium and the arrival of Manchester City across the road from his bar was a dream come true for Kehoe. When the team he loved pitched up next door to his pub, he turned the place into a shrine for City fans and hasn't looked back since.
Kehoe is relatively upbeat when it comes to Abu Dhabi's ownership of the club. "In my opinion, it's got better," he says, pointing to the club's investment in a local gym and school. "They do a lot in the community, and as a fan it's been great."

The Irishman echoes a point made by the Guardian journalist David Conn in Richer Than God, his profound and personal investigation into Manchester City and modern football: these men representing Abu Dhabi are "world-class business people".

For Kehoe as a bar owner, the arrival of the club means fans pouring through the doors on match days and people from all over the world coming to soak up the atmosphere.

Still, he sees why his local customers – his friends – feel the way they do. In return, Tommy, Steve and Colin laugh about Mike's fondness for the club: "He would say that, he's making money." But just as the future is uncertain for those drinking in the bar, it's not entirely clear for Mike and Mary D's.

'Exemplary business partners'
Manchester City Council make no assurances about what will happen to Mary D's, Kehoe says. The council of a city proud of its radical past seems to have a somewhat cosy relationship with Abu Dhabi.

In 2016, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch wrote to Manchester leaders on the eve of the anniversary of the Peterloo Massacre, an 1819 incident in Manchester when cavalry fatally charged a more than stadium-sized crowd that had been demanding parliamentary reform amid grim post-war economic conditions. While fewer than 20 died, up to 700 were injured. The two modern-day organisations asked the council to "take some simple and principled steps that would support victims of serious human rights violations and ensure Manchester's commercial relationships with senior figures in the UAE government do not besmirch the city's reputation".

Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester City Council, responded, calling the rulers of Abu Dhabi "exemplary business partners" and saying that the "alleged" abuses detailed in the letter were beyond Manchester's control.

These exemplary partners had come to town at a time when Manchester City was once again in trouble, and not for the first time. The club had been through a number of false dawns, and David Conn, for one, had already lost faith in the spiritual purity of football, long before Sheikh Mansour arrived.

Investigating the economics of football as a reporter, Conn became profoundly disillusioned. The gap between the shared experience of playing and watching a game and the money-driven business of the Premier League, with its Murdoch-run television coverage and its billionaire owners, was simply too wide.

And he saw it all unfold at his beloved City. After Sheikh Mansour took over, Conn went to Abu Dhabi, where an American businessman told him that the Emiratis were "richer than god".

City were in dire straits when Sheikh Mansour arrived to save the day. Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister of Thailand, had bought the club in 2007. Briefly dubbed "Frank Sinatra" by City fans and branded a "human rights abuser of the worst kind" by Human Rights Watch, Shinawatra sold up after only a season in charge.

Garry Cook, the club's Shinawatra-appointed CEO, when asked about the human rights and corruption charges levelled at his boss, had declared that Thaksin was a "great guy to play golf with." Cook was now charged with finding a new owner.

The former Nike man, who was fond of mid-Atlantic brand speak and had once worked closely with Michael Jordan, was introduced to Amanda Staveley, ex-girlfriend of Prince Andrew, and Ali Jassim, an adviser to Sheikh Mansour.

Staveley regularly acts as an intermediary between the Gulf and the City of London, and she and Jassim were also helping Mansour buy a multi-billion pound stake in Barclays bank, at the height of the global financial crisis.

In August 2008, as detailed in Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg’s book The Club, Cook made a presentation to Staveley and Jassim at the City of Manchester stadium. He told them that whoever bought the club would be buying a piece of global legitimacy, a rolling PR campaign devoured by audiences all over the world.

"Nobody had ever heard of Roman Abramovich until he bought Chelsea Football Club," Cook said, referring to the Russian oligarch who had been at the forefront of the wave of foreign investment in Premier League football.

"If you're developing your nation and you're looking to be on a global stage, we are your proxy brand for the nation," Cook told Abu Dhabi's representatives.

The price was not important because you couldn't put a price on, in Robinson and Clegg's words, a "PR campaign that played fifty games a year to an audience of millions". For an image-conscious billionaire in the 21st century, a Premier League football team "was a must-have accessory".

"We all appreciate that Mansour didn't love City," says Howard Hockin, the fan and podcaster. "Abu Dhabi is an up-and-coming country, and it wanted to boost its profile. It's a PR thing, and we're fine with that."

On that day in Manchester, at the meeting with Mansour's representatives, Garry Cook was sending a message to the UAE: this football club is a blank canvas, paint whatever you want on it.

At the time, Manchester City's manager was Mark Hughes, who was nine years older than the UAE. A part of the world once known for pearl diving and piracy, and now known for vast oil wealth, Abu Dhabi was turning the tables on its former British protectors, buying up their long-standing institutions. The deal was done.

Abu Dhabi is the wealthiest and most powerful of the seven emirates that comprise the UAE. The man who controls Abu Dhabi and dictates its policy is Sheikh Mansour's brother, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, commonly known as MBZ.

Manchester City's chairman, the US-educated Khaldoon Al Mubarak, is a key lieutenant of MBZ's and is also the CEO of Mubadala, a corporation with upwards of $50bn in assets, investing vast sums of money in anything from real estate to pharmaceuticals.

Manchester City Football Club is just one of many, many investments, but it is also the investment that, Mubarak admits, has brought by far the most attention, both good and bad.

The financial fair play cloud hanging over City has its origins in a series of articles published by the German magazine Der Spiegel. The series was built around leaked internal communication that appeared to show the club using Abu Dhabi's money to pay for sponsorships, with Simon Pearce, Abu Dhabi's branding guru, writing that "we can do what we want".

As UEFA's investigation into the club is sent for its final judgement, Manchester City has hit out at what it calls a "unsatisfactory, curtailed and hostile process," describing the allegations against the club as "entirely false".

The footballing sidesteps Manchester City have been accused of taking are mirrored in the contrast between the brand Abu Dhabi projects and the actions it takes both at home and in the Middle East.

Nicholas McGeehan, now an independent human rights researcher, believes that the new level of infamy enjoyed by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman following the murder last October of journalist Jamal Khashoggi has somewhat obscured the ongoing machinations of Mohammed bin Zayed and the UAE.

MBZ, after all, is considered to have played the role of a mentor figure to the younger Saudi royal. In a nice twist of fate, rumours that Mohammed Bin Salman is looking to take over Manchester United - rumours he denies - will not go away.

"The UAE has been heavily involved in pushing this stable, authoritarian, anti-Islamist line – it's led the way," McGeehan tells MEE.

"They don't care about sport," McGeehan says. "And they don't care about football. They're interested in power and money, and that's why they are interested in football. It's incredibly sophisticated the way they use it."

'An ordinary man'
For British football fans, attention was drawn to this in May 2018, when Matthew Hedges, a British PhD student who was in the UAE on a research trip, was arrested at Dubai International Airport on suspicion of spying on behalf of the British government. Hedges was detained for seven months, handed a life sentence and then pardoned following an international outcry.

Speaking to Middle East Eye, Hedges' wife Daniela Tejada says it's important football fans realise that her husband is "an ordinary man and a football fan," just like them.

When asked about Guardiola, City's manager, who is paid $19m per year and has shown his support for Catalan prisoners of conscience but refuses to answer questions about his bosses in Abu Dhabi, Tejada's response is blunt: "I wish I was offended by someone I can't take seriously, but his mouth is in the pocket of the UAE."

Tejada doesn't have a problem with Manchester City fans. She doesn't even have a problem with Abu Dhabi owning the club. But, she says, "You can tell football fans to make certain demands of their club, and to say that they won't do certain things – like going to a match – if the owners act a particular way."

Boycotting matches, she believes, would "send a message to the world and to the funders of the club".

What Tejada tells MEE about her husband's detention gives an insight into what City's beautiful, trophy-winning football washes away. Hedges was kept in a soundproof, windowless office for six months. The light alternated between blinding white and complete darkness. He was allowed no form of distraction.

Tejada says her husband was forced onto a potent cocktail of medication that included anti-depressants, anti-anxiety pills, sleeping pills and antihistamines. He remains dependent on these drugs. "The dose has been reduced to nearly a tenth of what he was on in the UAE, but he still needs to take them to function," she says.

The British academic has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. He can wake up feeling full of energy and then, his wife says, "go swiftly downhill to be on his own with no form of distraction," thus replicating the conditions he was kept in while in detention.

"People's lives don't go back to normal just because they are released," Tejada says.

The British government has offered little support. "I bought into the story that Britain stood up for its citizens, and that it didn't put its financial interests first. I've been proven wrong," she says.

At the time of publication, Manchester City had not responded to Middle East Eye's repeated requests for comment regarding the concerns of the local community, human rights issues in the UAE, the Matthew Hedges case and Pep Guardiola's support for the Catalan independence movement.
'Racist' criticism

For the most part, Manchester City fans are happy to take the success they've been given. After all, most of them formed an attachment to the club long before Abu Dhabi came into town in its oil and gas-powered plane. Many go further, defending the club and even now calling criticism of the UAE "racist".

"The word 'Arab' is used in derogatory terms," says Howard Hockin.

"It's such bullshit," says McGeehan. "It's just bullshit that the criticism is racist. They've come up with this line recently. Suddenly the narrative is, 'Oh, you're racist for criticising the UAE'. It's ********."

The Matthew Hedges case spiked an interest in human rights abuses, but without a British or Western angle – notwithstanding the fact that Britain is a long-time ally and supplier of arms to the UAE - McGeehan believes that there is always a danger the attention being paid to the situation will drop away.

"When it comes to the war in Yemen, or Libya, or general torture in the Gulf, the number of people up in arms is limited," he says.

David Mooney, a City fan since the early 1990s, says that he really struggles with the question of Sheikh Mansour's ownership.

He says he's not up to speed on the allegations, but that he accepts this could be considered a cop out. He doesn't really like it when fellow fans try to take ownership for what Abu Dhabi is doing in the city of Manchester.

"What I suppose adds an extra layer to this is that I'm a gay City fan," Mooney tells MEE, "and so neither me nor my partner would be able to be ourselves in the UAE. A quick Google search will show what LGBT rights are like in the country."

And indeed it does, with all sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage a crime and a range of extreme punishment meted out to those who break this law.

Leaving the club as a legend in 2018, the midfielder Yaya Toure, who came to City from Barcelona in 2010, gave a speech on the pitch at the Etihad in which he thanked Mansour and al-Mubarak.

"I think those guys have been so magnificent for the fans, because City has been so long in the shadow of United, and I think those guys bring happiness to the fans," he said, before thanking the supporters.

Those fans, along with Guardiola, cheered and clapped for their Emirati benefactors. The club tweeted out the speech with a heart emoji.
After decades in the shadows of their city rivals, City had knocked United off their perch and the people to thank first and foremost were in Abu Dhabi. City played sensational football, and the people to thank were in Abu Dhabi.

These triumphs, this success, the intoxicating feeling of victory and the aesthetic delight of Guardiola's teams: it is all a gift from the Gulf.
And in return, City fans pay homage to their owners, defending them on social media and championing their stewardship of the club because they know that it is the UAE that has given them this epoch of ascendency, in which they get to lord over not just their grand old neighbours but the rest of the country.

On the way back into central Manchester from the Etihad stadium, the beaten-up boozers and dilapidated council housing give way to building sites with slick corporate advertising hoardings displaying visions of sophisticated modern living.

Some of the developments belong to Manchester Life Development Company, which is owned by Manchester City Council and the Abu Dhabi United Group, a private investment and development company owned by Sheikh Mansour. Passers-by are afforded a glimpse at what they are told will be "five star luxury".

The cranes hang high and the towers rise up. Behind them, scenes of deprivation are still visible. At home, we sit on sofas and watch football, a game turned entertainment product, an intoxicating opium of the masses for this world we live in. We think about where all the money comes from. We try not to think about where all the money comes from.

"We're all hypocrites," says Howard Hockin. "Most fans attacking us don't care about human rights in the Middle East. I should care but I don't. I should care about where my shoes come from – if they've been made by slave labour – but I don't. I don't look to football for my moral code. I don't think I've sold my soul to support Man City."

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by aggi » Tue May 21, 2019 10:54 am

Royboyclaret wrote:Tend to agree that Manchester City's dominance of the game will ultimately result in it's ruination. Will it be the treble again next year and the year after. Is that what the game really wants?

As an aside, what was the disagreement today between Emirates and Etihad? Did one attempt to upstage the other?
I'm less convinced. This season for instance they won the Carabao Cup on penalties, the league by one point and they didn't even make the finals of the champions league. That's not really an all-conquering team.

These things tend to come in waves and there are enough well-funded english clubs that I can't see Man City's dominance being perpetual.

In my view it won't be the big teams scrapping with each other and their spells of dominance that will ruin the game, it will be the big clubs banding together and taking ever more of the TV money that will do for it. Once the playing field becomes too far tilted in the favour of the big clubs, that's when my interest will start to wane.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Royboyclaret » Tue May 21, 2019 11:51 am

aggi wrote:I'm less convinced. This season for instance they won the Carabao Cup on penalties, the league by one point and they didn't even make the finals of the champions league. That's not really an all-conquering team.

These things tend to come in waves and there are enough well-funded english clubs that I can't see Man City's dominance being perpetual.

In my view it won't be the big teams scrapping with each other and their spells of dominance that will ruin the game, it will be the big clubs banding together and taking ever more of the TV money that will do for it. Once the playing field becomes too far tilted in the favour of the big clubs, that's when my interest will start to wane.
No argument with any of that, in fact we're already seeing evidence with the redistribution of overseas TV merit money which will result in nearly a half of PL teams receiving less in total from broadcast Income in '19/'20 than they did in '18/'19.

But (and it's a big but) I'm certain that these world-class business people from Abu Dhabi and indeed the owners of the country will do whatever is required to ensure Man City stay top of the pile on a consistent basis. That, long-term, cannot be good for the health of the game.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 12:49 pm

I have not seen it announced anywhere, but the spare package in the domestic premier league rights has been picked up by BT. It is similar to the Amazon one - midweek games with all 10 games in each of the 2 rounds to be broadcast live - but the dates are not as attractive.

I found out from this article http://www.sbibarcelona.com/newsdetails/index/403" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; looking at the history of PL rights to the present day - it gives a sound history though is a little out of date when looking forward especial on the payment distribution of overseas rights from next season.

Also with the BT spend being £975m in that article we can deduce that they have paid £90m for that package or £4.5m a game (a bit of simple math from data given here https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... -tv-rights" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - that is the top-end of the estimate of what Amazon have paid see post #983

Incidentally there are rumours that the PL is having trouble selling rights in some overseas territories including South Korea where no one has created competition for them apparently (behind a paywall and I have no access unfortunately - but all in the title)

https://media.sportbusiness.com/2019/05 ... vaporates/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is the PL's own list of territories sold

https://www.premierleague.com/news/970151" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Have we reached peak market?
Are the efforts of La Liga and the Bundesliga impacting in specific overseas markets?
Is the Richard Scudamore shaped vacuum at the PL beginning to take effect?

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 1:04 pm

With bonuses being such an integral part of our wage strategy what are the chances that we employ a hedging strategy - this **sponsored** article in FC Business provides some detail as to how it may work for a club that is budget focussed (such as ourselves)

http://fcbusiness.co.uk/news/interview- ... -planning/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 1:24 pm

with reference to my questions in post #1156 - this from a Financial Times discussion forum on Football Business today

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status ... 4656169984" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Naturally the games authorities are miles away from being prepared

https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/11 ... 2883422208" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and those that are aware and not part of the winners circle can only hope they remain in existance

https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/11 ... 3157920769" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As I have previously suggested, there are a growing number within the game who suspect that it was the greed of the big six in breaking the equality of distribution was behind Richard Scudamore's decision to quit (he saw what was coming) and the difficulty in finding a replacement see posts ##446, #447, #781 and #994 amongst others

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 2:22 pm

If you want to follow that FT Football Business Summit - you can do here - https://twitter.com/hashtag/FTFootball" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; shame we cannot access real time or read any articles without paying there have been some interesting looking ones recently

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by aggi » Tue May 21, 2019 4:17 pm

Chester Perry wrote:If you want to follow that FT Football Business Summit - you can do here - https://twitter.com/hashtag/FTFootball" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; shame we cannot access real time or read any articles without paying there have been some interesting looking ones recently
I think one of my colleagues is there, will have to ask him about it when I see him.

Very conveniently, being a Spurs fan, he's also at a conference in Madrid the day before the Champions League final ...

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by aggi » Tue May 21, 2019 4:25 pm

Chester Perry wrote: Have we reached peak market?
I think the next big step is new media.

The Premier League are currently still selling pretty traditional packages whereas the next step is going to be VOD, team subscriptions, very specific highlights, etc. and how to do that without excessively cannibalising other deals.

On top of that, once those kind of deals start being struck then it's going to be even more difficult to keep up with the collective bargaining for TV deals rather than Man Utd, etc wanting to negotiate their own supporter deals.

I'm expecting Amazon, Apple and Facebook to get involved at some point (and possibly Google/Youtube and Disney). Amazon are already feeling it out with a cheap deal and generally where one goes the others follow.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 4:40 pm

aggi wrote:I think the next big step is new media.

The Premier League are currently still selling pretty traditional packages whereas the next step is going to be VOD, team subscriptions, very specific highlights, etc. and how to do that without excessively cannibalising other deals.

On top of that, once those kind of deals start being struck then it's going to be even more difficult to keep up with the collective bargaining for TV deals rather than Man Utd, etc wanting to negotiate their own supporter deals.

I'm expecting Amazon, Apple and Facebook to get involved at some point (and possibly Google/Youtube and Disney). Amazon are already feeling it out with a cheap deal and generally where one goes the others follow.
And with that comes the end of collective bargaining and sharing as it will be clearer than ever who is attracting the audiences (the star players) and they will be demanding their share

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 5:47 pm

The Chair of La Liga got a bit tasty at the FT Football Business conference today, as he is wont

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... -president" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

he also said he would rather have Infantinio's huge Club World Cup than the ECA proposals

https://twitter.com/RobHarris/status/11 ... 2572105729" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and had a go at FFP and the way UEFA implement them

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 7873315842" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

interesting to see just how far down the pecking order Arsenal have fallen given the comments in that article - it is amazing how quickly opinions change as a result of self interest

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 7:16 pm

Of course not everyone takes what Javier Tebas says at face value

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 9568507904" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 7:47 pm

There has been quite a bit of comment across the media in the past couple of days as to the suitability of FFP one in particular asking the question as to what should FFP be looking at

https://twitter.com/david_conn/status/1 ... 8110985216" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Fitch Ratings have their own views as to it's suitability and likely enforcement given the shared interests

https://www.fitchratings.com/site/pr/10076182" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It is a shame I cannot access the full report

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 8:04 pm

Following discussion of radical shirt design on the New home kit thread this tweaked my interest,

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 3461763072" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What is noticeable is the number of long term partnerships and deals that are materialising at the top of game and their is plenty of innovation going on as that Aston Villa deal linked in the thread testifies.

Fanatics who are the manufacturer and retailer (but not designer) of the Villa kit were part of the previous deal

http://www.sportspromedia.com/analysis/ ... -kit-deals" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It was a surprise (probably shouldn't have been) to find that Fanatics are under the umbrella of our friends Softbank

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 8:24 pm

That FT Football Business summit is certainly providing a platform to stoke a few fires following Javier Tebas and Man City/PSG/UEFA/ECA we have Leeds Chairman Andrea Radrizzani (also owner of Eleven sports) has taken the opportunity to have another dig at Derby and particularly Mel Morris

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/sport/leed ... y-16307911" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 21, 2019 8:42 pm

Final announcement at the FT Football Business summit today is the full value of the PL overseas rights announced by PL Interim Chief Exec Richard Masters - £4.2bn

https://twitter.com/JonathanPDyson/stat ... 5756821504" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

that gives us the long suspected total of around £9bn or £3bn a season

Edit: almost right - £9.2bn (suspect that includes radio and internet clips)

https://twitter.com/Lu_Class_/status/11 ... 5897080832" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Royboyclaret » Tue May 21, 2019 10:26 pm

Chester Perry wrote:Final announcement at the FT Football Business summit today is the full value of the PL overseas rights announced by PL Interim Chief Exec Richard Masters - £4.2bn

https://twitter.com/JonathanPDyson/stat ... 5756821504" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

that gives us the long suspected total of around £9bn or £3bn a season

Edit: almost right - £9.2bn (suspect that includes radio and internet clips)

https://twitter.com/Lu_Class_/status/11 ... 5897080832" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
So, if I'm reading this correctly, an annual increase in overseas rights from £815m to £1.4bn.

On the old system that would equate to £70m per club from £40m previously, but we now know an element of that will be merit related. Is that figure 35% merit related, Chester? ......with the rest split equally?

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Royboyclaret » Tue May 21, 2019 11:47 pm

Struggling to find any confirmation of this 35%/65% split, merit payment/equal split.

Based on those figures, and assuming we finished in 15th again next season, there would still be a significant increase from the season just ended.

65% of £1.4bn split equally over 20 clubs........£45m.

35% of £1.4bn based on merit payments and using the same formula of £1.9m per place as per the current domestic rights.......£11m.

So a total of £56m for '19/'20, which represents an increase of some £15m on the '18/'19 figure.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 22, 2019 12:05 am

Roy everything over the £40m is merit related - that is the base level going forward - merit rewards are calculated on the same basis as the domestic merit rewards http://priceoffootball.com/new-tv-distr ... -a-winner/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So if £585m / 210 = £2.785m then

1st = £55.714m
2nd = £52.928m
3rd = £50.142m
4th = £47.357m
………….

17th = £11.142
18th = £8.357m
19th = £5.571m
20th = £2.785m

you get the picture - remembering that the domestic deal has dropped considerably so effectively the bottom 6 at least are expected to be worse off in comparison, as will those relegated and those receiving solidarity payments as these are calculated on the last place earnings

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 22, 2019 12:22 am

Chelsea appear to have lost their battle with Antonio Conte (see post #616) over his dismissal and will have to pay him £9m outstanding in his contract

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... Conte.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I expect him to take a role in Italy very soon, with this now settled

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 22, 2019 8:41 am

@KieranMaguirre in his regular column for offthepitch.com tries to figure out just who is the most profitable PL club - these are usually behind a paywall so enjoy

https://offthepitch.com/a/which-most-pr ... t-sweating" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 22, 2019 10:08 am

@AndyhHolt with part3 of his "what is wrong with fit and proper"

https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/11 ... 9333404672" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Royboyclaret » Wed May 22, 2019 10:36 am

Chester Perry wrote:@KieranMaguirre in his regular column for offthepitch.com tries to figure out just who is the most profitable PL club - these are usually behind a paywall so enjoy

https://offthepitch.com/a/which-most-pr ... t-sweating" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The graph of the most profitable PL clubs at the link makes for incredible reading for us on lots of levels, not least the direct comparison with Man United the club we are constantly told is arguably the biggest club side in the world.

So United had a pre-tax operating profit of £44m while Burnley's was £45m with our figure representing a far greater percentage of Income. The Glazers took out £22m in dividends and £24m in interest on loans compared to zero numbers at Burnley on both fronts.

Which club would you most prefer to be associated with?

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 22, 2019 11:26 am

What happens when a country keen to raise it's profile and produce a different story about who and what it is, then gives it's authority to so few in a diverse range of roles - the Chief Exec of Bein Media is charged with corruption during the bidding process for the 2019 world athletics championships that are to be held in Qatar in September. His Chairman at Bein Media is also President of PSG, No 2 at the ECA and on the exec committee at UEFA among other things. Is this Sportswashing writ large.

https://apnews.com/c8b65f267a474850b148d29692a37c27" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 22, 2019 11:37 am

The club appears in strategic disarray even the share price has dropped $400m as analyst wake up to the fact that there is no Champs League next year (approx. £50m lost revenue even with a Europa League win) and a huge rebuild that may include paying off the likes of Sanchez (3 years left on his contract) and selling Pogba (their biggest asset in Eastern markets). Yet the matchday fans appear happy with Ole as they sell out their season tickets in record time

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... paign.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

that share price thing

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 0811255810" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 22, 2019 1:59 pm

He wasn't always liked when in charge at the FA, but what Mark Palios is doing at Tranmere gives hope that people in charge at the various football authorities will understand the pain within the game

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 23846.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 22, 2019 2:19 pm

Scrutiny of the Adjudicatory panel presiding of the Man City case at UEFA has begun and immediately picked out one potential conflict of interest

http://www.espn.co.uk/football/manchest ... f-interest" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

As we have learned. this is the way business is done in the East and they will not understand the cause for concern (see post #697) - it is a tangled web that has been allowed to grow unabated and probably too late to stop
This user liked this post: catheasthammurphy

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 5:34 pm

Following the previous post about the lieutenant the boss has now been charged with the same offences - this could get very complicated

https://apnews.com/09f2a1ddafa149b29cbb00fd6920e6a5" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 5:36 pm

And following on in the corruption vein - The only African member of FIFA to publicly support Gianni Infantino when he came to power at FIFA has now been banned from the game for 10years by FIFA - now that is gratitude for you

https://apnews.com/02a7e56925f0429dbc4a51ab9c067c5e" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 5:38 pm

An excellent article from Miguel Delaney in the Independent on the State of the EFL pyramid - It could have been written by @AndyhHolt and he is not mentioned once

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 26126.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


a bit more data behind those EFL losses mentioned in the article on a club by club basis


https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 2788077568" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


and the view from The Times -behind a paywall so transcribed


Football League clubs lost £388m last season as cash crisis is revealed - Martyn Ziegler, Chief Sports Reporter

The growing gap between the Premier League and lower-league clubs has been starkly illustrated by figures that show nearly three quarters of English Football League sides are losing money.

Premier League teams had record revenues of £8.4 bill!

on and 12 of the 20 top-flight clubs made a net profit in 2017-18. By contrast, 52 of the 72 clubs in the Sky Bet Championship, League One and League Two ended the season in the red.

Taking into account all profits and losses, the 20 Premier League clubs made a surplus of £304 million while the 72 EFL teams had a collective net deficit of £388 million.

The financial struggles of lower-league clubs have been brought sharply into focus in the past season. This month Bolton Wanderers became the first English league club since 2013 to go into administration and the situation has resulted in unpaid staff being provided with a food bank. Bury are also in a financial crisis, with players saying they have not been paid for 12 weeks, and the club facing a winding-up petition next month over unpaid taxes.

The biggest losses have occurred in the Championship, with several teams enduring tens of millions of pounds in losses as they chased a place in the lucrative top flight, where income of at least £100 million a season is guaranteed. The four biggest loss- making teams in England were all in the Championship — Birmingham City and Queens Park Rangers, along with Fulham and Wolverhampton Wanderers, who were both promoted to the Premier League.

Derby County have balanced the books by selling their stadium to Mel Morris, the club’s owner, for £80 million, creating an on-paper profit.

Kieran Maguire, a lecturer in football finance at the University of Liverpool, said: “The gap is now so big between the Premier League and the rest that the Championship clubs are prepared to gamble on getting to the Promised Land.

“If you look at it as a three out of 24 chance of winning the lottery then many people might think it’s good odds and so raise the stakes. Club owners who might be sensible in other areas seem to lose their business sanity when it comes to football.”

Maguire said that the financial gap between the Championship and Leagues One and Two was also growing.

An insolvency expert said that most clubs outside the Premier League are technically insolvent and believes that more will go into administration before the end of next season.

“The expenses in terms of player wages are too high and there is not enough income coming in,” the expert said. “It’s unsustainable.”

The situation at Bolton has led to calls for the EFL to toughen its owners’ and directors’ test. Ken Anderson, who bought the club three years ago and paid himself £525,000 in consultancy fees in the first year, had previously been banned as a company director.

He attempted to sell the club to the former Watford owner, Laurence Bassini, who had a three-year ban from any football involvement imposed in March 2013, but was still given the go-ahead by the EFL. The takeover collapsed for other reasons.

Anderson will not end up out of pocket from his time in charge. He is one of several secured creditors who will be paid in full any money owing.

Paul Appleton, the joint administrator of David Rubin and Partners, said that he was hopeful of finding a buyer by the end of June. Interested parties have until 4pm on June 7 to make a declaration of interest and pay a non-refundable £25,000 fee, which will give them access to all the financial information about the club. Four or five potential buyers are expected to pay the fee but they must also provide proof of funds of at least £25 million and have confirmation from the EFL that those involved have passed the owners’ and directors’ test.

Bolton’s players have not been paid since March but have agreed their wages will be deferred until a new owner takes over. “We have had talks with the players via the manager Phil Parkinson,” Appleton said. “They understand the situation and the difficulties we are facing.”

The 92 League clubs ranked in order of profitability

Accounts for last season reveal a gulf in wealth in the English game, with 52 of the 72 EFL clubs losing money.

2017-18 Net profit and loss
1 Tottenham £113m
2 Liverpool £106m
3 Chelsea £62m
4 Arsenal £57m
5 Burnley £37m
6 Southampton £29m
7 Newcastle £19m
8 Hull £19m
9 West Ham £17m
10 Norwich £15m
11 Barnsley £13m
12 Huddersfield £11m
13 Brighton £11m
14 Manchester City £10m
15 Exeter £2.4m
16 Leicester £1m
17 Preston £1m
18 Port Vale £1m
19 Stevenage £0.8m
20 Luton £0.6m
21 Peterborough £0.5m
22 Forest Green £0.4
23 Accrington £0.4m
24 Fleetwood £0.4m
25 Burton £0.3m
26 Shrewsbury £0.3m
27 Gillingham £0.1m
28 Plymouth £0.1m
29 Newport £0.1m
30 Yeovil £0.1m
31 Walsall no profit/loss
32 Barnet no profit/loss
33 Grimsby -£0.04m
34 Cheltenham -£0.1m
35 Carlisle -£0.1m
36 Mansfield -£0.1m
37 Bradford -£0.3m
38 Rochdale -£0.3m
39 Crawley -£0.3m
40 Morecambe -£0.4m
41 Oldham -£0.5m
42 Rotherham -£0.5m
43 Wimbledon -£0.5m
44 Wycombe -£0.7m
45 Crewe -£0.8m
46 Cambridge -£0.8m
47 Chesterfield -£1.1m
48 Lincoln -£1.1m
49 Derby -£1.1m
50 Portsmouth -£1.4m
51 Notts County -£1.5m
52 Swindon -£1.8m
53 Sheffield Utd -£1.9m
54 Northampton -£2m
55 Oxford -£2m
56 Blackpool -£2.1m
57 Coventry -£2.5m
58 Doncaster -£2.8m
59 Bury -£2.8m
60 Swansea -£3m
61 Southend -£3.1m
62 Colchester -£3m
63 Bristol Rovers -£3m
64 Scunthorpe -£3.6m
65 Brentford -£3.9m
66 Leeds -£4.3m
67 MK Dons -£4.6m
68 Millwall -£4.6m
69 Ipswich -£5.2m
70 Bolton -£5.4m
71 Nottingham Forest -£5.6m
72 West Brom -£6m
73 Middlesbrough -£6.6m
74 Wigan -£7.7m
75 Sunderland -£10.2m
76 Charlton -£10.4m
77 Bournemouth -£11m
78 Everton -£13m
79 Blackburn -£16.8m
80 Reading -£21m
81 Sheffield Wed -£21m
82 Bristol City -£25m
83 Watford -£31m
84 Stoke -£32m
85 Aston Villa -£35m
86 Cardiff -£36m
87 Crystal Palace -£36m
88 Manchester Utd -£37m
89 Birmingham -£37m
90 QPR -£38m
91 Fulham -£45m
92 Wolves -£57m

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 6:11 pm

Meanwhile the Premier League's revenues climb and climb

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... Bundesliga" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

@SwissRamble gives his breakdown - This season's TV payments https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 0102292481" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

to understand how far the PL has come here were the payments after the first PL season in 1992/93

https://twitter.com/sportingintel/statu ... 3492474880" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


the compare that to The Scottish Payouts for the Season just finished


https://twitter.com/RockSportDAB/status ... 6116139008" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Last edited by Chester Perry on Fri May 24, 2019 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 6:38 pm

In the next step in outlining his issues with the game @AndyhHolt takes aim at the Big Six, how the will manipulate OTT (Over the Top = streaming) media to the exclusion of everyone else, and how the authorities both Football and Government will allow them to as they are mistaken in their one size fits all approach

https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/11 ... 6403293184" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 6:43 pm

In a timely announcement (see posts #1179, #1180 and #1181) FIFA is returning "corruption" to it's code of ethics following it's controversial removal only last year.

https://apnews.com/9280058c39d74bcabc4faaf9bf46a79d" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 7:23 pm

The FT Football Business Summit this week certainly managed to capture a few headlines and yet one of my links in post #1158 made mention of Claire Enders prediction that following the dip in domestic rights this cycle the next will make another 20% fall and the Champions League one may drop as much as 40% didn't seem to capture them in the same fashion. Her advice, get your wages in order

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... -deal.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 7:31 pm

Yet get promoted with a late charge, some exhilarating football and a narrow 1 -0 victory in the play-off final. Then you spend well in excess of £100m on new talent and don't play the players that got you there, it doesn't work out, you sack not one but two managers and still do not seem to have a footballing strategy or even someone with the slightest understanding of the game in charge of all Football matters, inevitably you are relegated and appoint your 3rd manager of the season (at least he seems to care). Do you lick your wounds and seek to control you finances, no you kick on with that new stand you have been planning (with the seemingly insane confidence that you will be promoted soon)


http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2019/may/2 ... evelopment" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 7:38 pm

I have posted a number of times about Real Madrid's finances (a particular hobby horse of the Telegraph - for good reason) - we have heard about their planned renovation of the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, but questioned just how they ere going to finance it - well now we know - they have sold the next 4 seasons TV rights to raise euro 200m for the upfront costs

http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/real ... 4g.twitter" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

so the question now is - what are they going to use to buy all those new players they want and what about their wages that only get paid every 6 months - just after the TV monies have been paid

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 8:05 pm

In the spirit of post #1182 BT have commissioned a documentary looking at the state of the game - it will air next week - should be fascinating stuff and features contributions from a numbrr of those I regularly refer to on this thread - It is called State of Play

here is a taste - https://www.youtube.com/embed/DCAUdooR3KU" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It airs after the Europa League final next Wednesday - I just hope it is broadcast via youtube like the match itself

another clip from the programme https://twitter.com/btsportfootball/sta ... 1962149889" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Last edited by Chester Perry on Fri May 24, 2019 8:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 8:20 pm

Offthepitch.com looks at the wider implications of the French case against PSG president Nasser Al-Khelaifi in relation to the 2019 World Athletics Championship (see posts #1179 and #1180) - Transcribe as their articles tend to fall behind paywalls

PSG owner’s corruption charge raises bigger questions for European football

French prosecutors charge Qataris sportsbroker with corruption. Nasser Al-Khelaifi says that the payments were a non-refundable deposit for the event’s commercial rights.

Nasser Al-Khelaifi under investigation by Swiss and French authorities.

Possible implications for broadcast deals and sports politics.

by James Corbett

French prosecutors have announced that Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi is under investigation for corruption in a move that potentially holds wider implications for European football.

The charges, which Al-Khelaifi denies, relate to Qatar’s bids to host the 2017 and 2019 track world championships.

As well as holding the PSG presidency, Al-Khelaifi sits on the boards of both UEFA and the European Club Association (ECA) as well as serving as the chairman of one of football’s largest TV rightsholders, BeIN, and Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), which is linked to the Qatari government.

The charges raise yet more questions for UEFA and the ECA, who are currently allied in a battle to control the future of European club competitions. Since October 2018 Al-Khelaifi is under separate criminal investigation in Switzerland, where both bodies are domiciled.

Suspect payments
In the French investigation, the CEO of beIN, Yousef Al-Obaidly, was also handed preliminary charges of corruption, while former IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) president Lamine Diack is also being probed for “passive corruption” in the same case.

The case facing PSG president Al-Khelaifi is based on documents showing that Pamodzi, a company owned by one of Diack’s (The former IAAF president) sons, received two payments totalling $3.5million from Oryx, a Qatar Sports Investments owned company, days before the vote to host the 2017 IAAF World Championships. Oryx, was set up to handle the sponsorship and rights for Qatar’s bid.

Avoid a doping ban
Qatar eventually lost to London but was later awarded the 2019 World Championships. Diack’s son, Papa Massata Diack, a former IAAF marketing consultant, has since been banned for allegations of extorting money from a Russian marathon runner to avoid a doping ban before the 2012 Olympics and is subject of an Interpol wanted notice.

Al-Khelaifi’s lawyers have said the payments made by Oryx were transparent and were simply a non-refundable deposit for the event’s commercial rights if Qatar’s bid was successful.

In that event a further $29million would have been payable. They further claim that Pamodzi has paid $3.2million of the Oryx payment back to master rights holders, Dentsu and the IAAF.

Tainted business
The new charges again call into question Al-Khelaifi’s judgement.

Last October Swiss prosecutors named him a criminal suspect in a case in which he is accused of bribing the former FIFA secretary general Jérôme Valcke to secure World Cup 2026 and 2030 TV rights for BeIN. Al-Khelaifi has denied thosee accusations and voluntarily met with the Swiss authorities.

The Qatari had previously been in negotiations to buy the South American rights company, Full Play, until its founders were found to be among those charged for paying millions of dollars in bribes for rights to TV contracts in the US Department of Justice’s FIFA corruption investigation.

Owed him millions for his vote
During testimony in the subsequent trials in Brooklyn, the Qatar 2022 World Cup was referenced on several occasions by witnesses and defendants.
One witness testified that Julio Grondona, the late head of the Argentinean FA a senior vice president of FIFA, had complained that the Qataris owed him millions for his vote.

Qatar 2022 has repeatedly denied wrongdoing in its successful bid to host the World Cup.

High influence
What happens next in the French case may hold wider implications for a game in which Al-Khelaifi has become one of its key power brokers.
In February he was appointed as one of the ECA’s two representatives to the UEFA Executive Committee, where his influence has been felt as the two bodies collaborate to reshape the future of European club competition. His possible withdrawal – whether involuntary or not – may impact this debate.

Questions have also been raised – most recently by this publication – about QSI’s willingness to keep pumping money into PSG. Could this development shift the debate further towards a strategic withdrawal?

Moreover, sensitivity about Qatar’s image at a time when it is embroiled in a significant regional conflict with its neighbours, may force a rethink about its overall role in football if wrongdoing is proven.

Given its expansion into the game in the past decade, this could encompass any part of Al-Khelaifi’s portfolio: club ownership, broadcast rights holder, or political power-broker.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 8:31 pm

Wow - Is Steve Gibson confident or just very angry - From the Telegraph

Exclusive: Middlesbrough to sue Derby over alleged breaches of financial rules - John Percy 24 May 2019 • 7:36pm

Middlesbrough have stunned Derby by announcing their intention to sue the Championship club, days before the play-off final at Wembley.
Steve Gibson, the Middlesbrough owner, has taken drastic action in his dispute with Mel Morris by vowing to take legal action over what he insists are clear breaches of financial rules.

Gibson is alleging that Morris has broken the English Football League’s profitability and sustainability rules and Middlesbrough officials contacted Derby on Friday to inform them of their stance.

Boro are understood to be furious that Derby reported a £14.6m profit in their 2017/18 accounts, after Morris sold the club’s Pride Park stadium and then leased it back. Gibson believes that Morris has flouted the rules.

Derby are adamant they have been fully compliant, and the timing of Middlesbrough’s shock move has surprised the club ahead of their play-off final against Aston Villa on Monday.

Morris also twice invited Middlesbrough officials to look at Derby’s accounts in a meeting of all EFL clubs at Nottingham Forest’s City Ground in March.

He said: "Middlesbrough were offered by us in writing to come with their advisors to go through our submissions for profitability and sustainability, [but] they declined."

Gibson’s attempt to force an independent inquiry of club finances was also rejected by all of the Championship clubs in another meeting last month.

Villa and Sheffield Wednesday have also been in Gibson’s sights but his row with Derby is now threatening to turn ugly.
Derby were unavailable for comment.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 8:45 pm

In post #951 I suggested Sunderland was for Sale again - In post #1035 it was suggested that they may have had a buyer. Sunderland's owners have only been in charge for a year and they seemed to have seduced the fan's with a long term strategy - the first step of which may come on Sunday against Charlton. But are things what they seem?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... again.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Once again Stewart Donald denies everything

https://www.eveningexpress.co.uk/sport/ ... underland/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sad to say we may only find out the truth if things go belly up at Wembley

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 8:54 pm

That thread from The FT Football Business Summit in post #1158 I then referred to in post #1186 also contained a discussion about the viewing football engagement and viewing habits of young teens (bitesize follow stars etc - I posted a few things before and they are behaving very similarly to the Eastern audiences). This bitesize engagement is provided by platforms like TikTok and it has been signing up clubs around Europe to host their own channels - now Liverpool have become the first in the Premier League to sign such a deal

http://www.sportspromedia.com/news/live ... ons-league" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 9:11 pm

In post #1085 Burnley had dropped 5 places in Brand Finance 50 - Now The POWA Index for England's top clubs has been published showing the best performance for sponsorship in English Football - we are 19th behind the likes of Villa, Leeds, Stoke and West Brom - no points for guessing who is still the clear front runner though

https://sponsorship.sportbusiness.com/n ... ew-report/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

this is important because it is fed by and driven by our ability to derive commercial income and make a return on that sponsorship for the sponsor - more information on POWA Index here https://powaindex.com/#!/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; but not the report sadly

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 9:15 pm

Following a fair bit of discussion on this thread about our own valuation (and Liverpool University saying we were the 7th most valuable club in the PL) I await with interest to see if/where we sit in KPMG's annual list of the 32 most valuable clubs in world football (I will say I don't think we will be in) - just as interesting (if not more so ) will be the formula they employ to arrive at these valuations - the report is expected next week

https://twitter.com/Football_BM/status/ ... 0351633414" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Royboyclaret » Fri May 24, 2019 9:56 pm

Chester Perry wrote:Following a fair bit of discussion on this thread about our own valuation (and Liverpool University saying we were the 7th most valuable club in the PL) I await with interest to see if/where we sit in KPMG's annual list of the 32 most valuable clubs in world football (I will say I don't think we will be in) - just as interesting (if not more so ) will be the formula they employ to arrive at these valuations - the report is expected next week

https://twitter.com/Football_BM/status/ ... 0351633414" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Highly unlikely that Burnley would feature prominently on any list provided by KPMG. It's fair to say that when we parted company with KPMG as auditors of our annual accounts we certainly did not part on the best possible terms.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 24, 2019 10:01 pm

There have been a lot of changes at Southampton in the last 12 months - Offthepitch.com looks at 3 and believes it knows exactly why they have occurred - transcribed as likely to fall behind a paywall

Lack of transfer assets prompt Southampton changes

Three Southampton executives departed as the price for a lack of bankable stars.

The Saints financial model is built on finding, developing and selling top talent.
by Alex Miller

A lack of bankable playing talent at Southampton was a major cause for three high profile departures from the club.

Sources close to the club have revealed that concerns over a lack of sellable assets, plus criticisms over a lack of young players coming through into the first team, led club shareholders Gao Jisheng and Katharina Liebherr, to take drastic action.

“The perceived lack of obvious top talent and emerging stars has caused the club to make dramatic changes to the structure of the club, as well as changes in personnel”, said a source.

Southampton recently issued a statement saying it was time to take “constructive action" and confirmed a review into the club's football operation.

No extension
Chairman Ralph Krueger’s six-year stay at the club officially ends on June 30th. His contract has not been extended.

His departure follows that of vice-chairman Les Reed, who became the Football Association's new technical director in December. Reed leaving was the removal of the final link to former owner Markus Leibherr.

Reed joined Southampton in April 2010 with the club in League One. He oversaw a period in which the club won promotion to the Championship, then the Premier League and they reached the EFL Cup final in 2017.

Martin Hunter followed Reed in leaving Saints. Hunter joined Southampton two months after Reed in July 2010 as the under-21 head coach and has since held a variety of roles in his eight-year tenure.

Hunter was the Technical Director of Saints and oversaw the development of the under-23 side, managed by Radhi Jaidi.

Nurture players
The club’s model over the last decade has been built on employing coaches to nurture players and selling them for big fees. Over £300 million has been recouped in that time.

In recent years the club nurtured and sold playing talent including Virgil van Dijk, Sadio Mane, Adam Lallana, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Theo Walcott, Gareth Bale, Dejan Lovren, Luke Shaw, Nathaniel Clyne, Victor Wanyama, Toby Alderwireld, Morgan Schneiderlin and Calum Chambers.
Now the owners are keen to avoid having a single figurehead in charge of football, and so are looking at a total of three appointments to head various departments.

First piece in the jigsaw
Ross Wilson, the club’s director of football operations, is overseeing the club’s transfer business, alongside Martyn Glover.

Wilson’s role is to manage the scouting and recruitment of players. He was instrumental in the signing of van Dijk from Celtic for £13 million in 2015.
Glover recently joined as the club’s Head of Scouting and Recruitment. He had been chief scout at Everton since 2016. His appointment is seen as the first piece in the jigsaw of Saints’ restructuring of the football side of the club.

A third member of the new structure is still to be confirmed. A new Head of Football Operations has been touted, with several names tipped to arrive at St Mary’s.

Bankable talent
The return of Paul Mitchell, now at RB Leipzig, has been mooted, while Stuart Webber currently Technical Director at Norwich City, has also been linked.

Ex-Brentford chief executive Mark Devlin was linked to the club before his appointment as Dundalk CEO.

For whoever else arrives at St Mary’s, the brief is clear - bring in and nurture a stream of young bankable talent.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat May 25, 2019 9:24 am

@KieranMaguire looks at the crux of Steve Gibson's case against Derby (why not Sheff Wed and Villa as well?)

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 3175350272" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It don't give him much hope I feel

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat May 25, 2019 9:43 am

The Times takes a look at the growing push for a European Super league and despite the PL clubs officially speaking out against it one of them in particular is very gung ho in the push towards it becoming a reality - transcribed as a result of paywall (that's my free articles for another week)


The European Super League is an existential threat to domestic football - Matt Dickinson, Chief Sports Writer

The vision of Ferran Soriano, the chief executive of Manchester City, is modern football hurtling inexorably towards an elite of super clubs. And if you think we are already there, you lack his boundless ambition.

For all the magnitude of Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid and, increasingly, City, Soriano thinks these giants still have a long way to go on the journey from a local sporting circus to “global entertainment companies like Walt Disney”.

As he once explained to The Guardian, how can the biggest clubs have turnover of just €500 million when the grandest claim to have about 500 million fans worldwide? Monetising one Euro from each of them annually is terrible failure to a smart businessman like him in a world where City can have franchises in the United States and Australia, and partner clubs in Japan, Uruguay, Spain, and China while also looking at India and other opportunities.

The global ambition is vast. And that worries other clubs around the Premier League table far more than whether Pep Guardiola’s team are winning the treble, crushing domestic opposition like Watford 6-0 in the FA Cup final, or even if they are breaching financial fair play rules (a charge City deny) to hoover up the best players.

follow Soriano’s thinking through for this elite and inevitably you end up with a Super League and that is no longer some mythical creature — a Loch Ness monster, all rumour — but something that is, scandalously, being given credibility even at Uefa.

This is the real existential threat to domestic football and one that cannot be ignored. It could arrive, with destructive consequences for the game as we love it, via the side door, given proposals for a Champions League overhauled to enrich and protect the elite.

In short, the plan would have only four out of 32 Champions League places dependent on finishing position in a domestic league, and an expansion from six to 14 group matches. It would be a revolution, ending the primacy of the major European leagues. If the top 24 teams in the Champions League each season keep their place, why should United, City or Liverpool sweat for the top four in the Premier League?

Uefa protests that it is only a consultation. Given that organisation’s responsibilities, it should have been dismissed at one glance but the biggest clubs have so much wealth, and therefore power, that the governing body finds itself being bullied from within.

The idea can, and must, be resisted but Javier Tebas, the president of La Liga, spoke in London this week of the real dangers of complacency “if we stay at home sipping tea”.

At the Premier League, a statement was released from the 20 clubs which said that the domestic division had to be protected. But, understandably, Tebas rolled his eyes at that and said that the top English clubs should be pushed to be honest about where they stand. There are good reasons to think that public words and private actions can be contradictory.

Thankfully, we have had Football Leaks to unearth just what plotting has been going on behind the scenes. In recent months, Der Spiegel in Germany disclosed meetings, starting in 2016, which involved a secret coalition led by four clubs — Barcelona, Real Madrid, Juventus, Bayern Munich — who were joined for part of the journey by United, Arsenal and AC Milan.

According to hacked emails, there were discussions about how a Super League may work, including the 17 teams with the strongest television presence from England, Spain, Italy, Germany and France permanently, plus one from a knockout of Portugal, Russia, Holland or Turkey.

Bayern were said to have even explored how to break from the Bundesliga, checking the legality of player contracts. Given the documents said that football already earned over $16.7 billion from global TV rights, more than twice American football, there was plenty to back up Soriano’s notion that these big clubs could become so much wealthier. They just have to work out how, among themselves.

After the leaks, there were lots of frantic rebuttals, saying it was just informal chats, but in Spain, they do not have to pretend. As long as a decade ago, Florentino Pérez, the president of Real Madrid, spoke openly of “a new European Super League which guarantees that the best always play the best”.

When Barcelona came to Old Trafford recently, their directors made it plain that they felt 11 years since their previous visit to Manchester had been way too long and there was a need to find ways to play more regularly.

In England, this is not a discussion for public. It is bad for business to be seen to be undermining the collective, which is why all 20 put their name to that statement. But it leaves the majority of Premier League clubs looking at their leading rivals with suspicion, and City in particular.

They find Soriano a difficult customer in any case. Aloof would be the kindest way of putting it. One executive from a mid-ranked Premier League club said that the Spaniard, fiddling on his phone during club meetings, never gave the impression that he looks below the top four in the table. Another said that, of the big clubs, City under Soriano were felt to be the most nakedly aggressive about pushing the claims of the elite.

Given what he was hired to do, with a declared ambition to make City the richest club in the world, Soriano could argue that he would only be doing his job if he was pursuing all possibilities. It is his task to ensure City do not lose out. United can rely on their long-established clout, as a club and brand, to be on the list whenever the invites are sent out to plot how to shaft the rest of the football pyramid. City had no such certainty until the past few years of their massively ambitious strategy.

For some of the top clubs, even if they harbour their own doubts about protected places in the Champions League, this may be less about greed than the fear of missing out.

But there is no defence for plans which are even more of an affront in a year when Tottenham Hotspur are finalists. Spurs would almost certainly have to win the Premier League to qualify for the Champions League if this went ahead in 2024.

As Steve Parish, the Crystal Palace chairman, wrote in an excellent column for The Sunday Times, there would be “no more rising up. No more Tottenhams”. No wonder he called it “the greatest threat for decades”.

This is not scaremongering when Aleksander Ceferin, the Uefa president, seems to regard these plans, championed by Andrea Agnelli, the Juventus chairman and head of the European Club Association, as a compromise to stop a full-blown breakaway. That the idea is not being instantly dismissed tells you everything.

Twenty years after a Super League was first mooted, this would lurch dangerously close. It is instructive to recall that, at that time, Leeds United were on the ascendancy. City were tumbling into the third tier of English football.

In the age of the super club, and Soriano’s vision of global entertainment corporations, perhaps those cyclical transformations simply will not happen any more. But football undermines the possibility at its peril.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat May 25, 2019 9:58 am

@Matt_Lawton in the Mail looks at the financial tightrope act at Derby and Villa, together with why the Owners of Boro and Leeds are left feeling like they are playing under a different set of rules

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... iches.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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