Football's Magic Money Tree

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 05, 2019 10:58 am

We have known for over a year now that FIFA is keen to build new/remould existing competitions as a result of a proposed £25bn deal (money talks). Throughout that time it has been claimed that Softbank's Vision fund (largely financed from Saudi Arabia) is behind the proposal, but just who/hat is Softbank? This article from Wired Magazine gives us an insight (warning it gets quite deep as per the magazines want)

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/softbank-vision-fund" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 05, 2019 12:13 pm

claptrappers_union wrote:The Premier League should hire Vince McMahon

I take it you don't think it is enough of a circus already

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 05, 2019 4:08 pm

Following Derby announcing their financial results earlier in the week - so they could shape the story about them - they have now posted them with Companies House - @KieranMaguirre who has been quite vocal/critical of this approach takes a look at the "Machinations of Mel" (my phrase)

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 2156800000" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 05, 2019 4:42 pm

I have posted before about the importance for Burnley as a town in having a Premier League team, I have also posted the report Liverpool made into the Economic Impact they have on the local and regional economy, this week I have questioned the gentrification of Hackney by Spurs as part of their desire for revenue growth. There is growing recognition of both the Economic and Social Impact of football clubs and their communities. EY (Ernst & Young Consulting to us older people) have published their annual report on the topic based at Premier League level.

https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAsse ... y-2019.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Given it was commissioned by the Premier League do not expect it to be critical

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 05, 2019 5:04 pm

going back to post #778 from yesterday - the Premier League have released a statement condemning the plans to reshape the Champs League

https://www.premierleague.com/news/1169225" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This seems to be a key outcome for all the Leagues that met in Lisbon a few days ago

https://offthepitch.com/a/premier-leagu ... per-league" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... animously/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:12 pm

Crystal Palace have released their financial results for last season and they are quite startling - £750K a week loss from trading - ouch and on a revenue of £150m - that is what happens when wages are £117 and amortisation on players is £46m

@KieranMaguire has a gander

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 1593315328" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

the full results are here

https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/docu ... 1048d2b04c" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:35 pm

It is a discussion I have kept well out of - but this is the best conversation I have heard as to how Brexit will affect the Premier League - shame it has to come from an Australian radio station - @KieranMaguirre answers the questions

https://omny.fm/shows/cameron-reddin/ho ... ue-forever" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

btw - I have always thought that Brexit would make overseas recruitment extremely difficult for us as we cannot afford established stars

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:49 pm

Posted a bit about soft power especially China and the Gulf states recently as part of the general idea of why vast quantities of money flow into the game we love. He is an informative article articulating why Qatar has employed such a strategy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/fash ... ckade.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Sat Apr 06, 2019 12:56 pm

Football DNA again - this time on Agents following this weeks annual figures for English clubs payments to Football Intermediaries as they are officially known - this has fast become a site recognised for quality output

https://ftballdna.com/2019/04/05/agents-of-misery/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Sat Apr 06, 2019 1:20 pm

In post #737 Andy Holt owner/chaiman at Accy effectively said that the Solidarity payments to the Football league would be reduced (even though combined rights revenues to the Premier League would go up)) today he has confirmed the EFL agreed to it without pitching it to it's members

https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/11 ... 6223842304" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; - naturally the EFL have not said a word about it to the public

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Sat Apr 06, 2019 11:13 pm

Price of Football does that deep dive thing on Crystal Palace results - the things a Bighton fan will do when they just lost at Wembley (again)

http://priceoffootball.com/crystal-pala ... ppy-today/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Sun Apr 07, 2019 12:32 am

You may have missed that Real Madrid re-launched they efforts to refurbish their stadium this week - The Telegraph asks a few questions and pokes around their finances - I have posted a series of articles over the last few months by the Telegraph as it examines whether things really add-up in Madrid - again behind a paywall so transposed

The eight-year saga of Real Madrid's €575m Bernabeu revamp continues to raise more questions than answers - Sam Wallace - Chief Football Writer

Another re-launch this week of Real Madrid’s future vision for their Bernabeu Stadium, although little mention that they have already done this twice before, once in 2011 and again in January 2014, and on neither occasion have the artists’ impressions progressed to be any more than that.

The CGI version undoubtedly caught the eye, with a steel wrap over the 72-year-old concrete structure first commissioned by Santiago Bernabeu, and lots of talk about new technology and fan experiences. Sadly no extra standard seats for the rank and file punters at a club where membership had been capped at around 92,500 for some time and one might legitimately ask what €575 million actually buys you these days in stadium design.

If only there was someone at the club who knew a bit about large building projects, unless of course you count the autocratic president Florentino Perez, who happens also to be the chairman of ACS, the largest construction company in Spain. He was joined on stage this week by the major of Madrid, Manuela Carmena, who strayed off script by expressing, not unjustifiably, her astonishment that it had taken the club so long.

Coming in the week that Tottenham Hotspur opened their new stadium to general acclaim, having demolished one and built another in its place in the space of less than two years, it was unfortunate timing. As their financial results revealed, Spurs borrowed around £460 million to build their new ground, with a loan facility for more, and have around £100 million cash in hand. No-one is under any illusions that the next few years will be a balancing act between paying for the stadium and maintaining a team capable of challenging for the top four.

The three Madrid Champions League titles of the previous three seasons have proved a convenient distraction from the shambles of their own stadium redevelopment. One should say they have encountered more challenging times in that regard: at the end of the Civil War in 1939, their old Chamartin stadium had been stripped even of its wooden benches, such was the need of a starving population for firewood.

The club’s former president Colonel Ortega, the historian David Goldblatt has written, was executed for his republican sympathies. His successor was imprisoned. Only when the club was put in the hands of one of its former players, Bernabeu, who had served in General Franco’s army, did the dictator find someone he liked. Bernabeu proved so persuasive that it is the belief of many that the concrete that built the stadium came from the same consignment earmarked for Franco’s military monument, The Valley of the Fallen.

It was the Real Madrid membership that paid for the new Chamartin stadium that would come to adopt the name of the project’s instigator. Around 45,000 socios invested in bonds and so the stadium was built. The old footage of workmen hacking away at the ground under a boiling Spanish sun was part of the heritage video at this week’s launch. Strangely, the official website page listing the club’s presidents from 1900 to the present day makes no mention of the doomed Colonel Ortega.

Perez is certainly keen on one old tradition from the 1940s: one of Spain’s richest men also wants the membership to pay for the new stadium. This is doubly important given that the delays over the stadium cost Madrid their first backer, IPIC, an Abu Dhabi energy company who were to have the naming rights. There was the inconvenience of a European Competitions’ commission investigation into the original Las Tablas land deal between the club and the city’s then sympathetic council, which ordered Real Madrid to pay back around €20.3 million of illegal state aid.

Last year, Perez asked the club’s general assembly, a nominal council of elected figures from among the membership that he controls, to grant permission for the club to borrow €575 million for the rebuilding of the Bernabeu. There will be a remodelling of the surrounding area, a bigger scoreboard and a retractable roof at a club that has never required cover in the past. The plans look impressive but the capacity is unchanged and the details were vague.

“New revenues” sounded like a plan to rinse the hospitality market in an “increasingly difficult international football setting" which can be roughly translated as frustration at the lag Spanish footballs broadcast revenues suffer in relation to the Premier League.

More pressing for Perez is where the money comes from this time around. There was no firm indication that financing has been obtained for the new Bernabeu, although rumours abound – from American banks to another bond issue. In the most recent financial results from July of last year the club did factor in a €45 million loss relating to the imminent demolition of the Esquinas shopping mall that adjoins the current stadium. For accounting reasons that may have to come down this summer so the losses do not get passed on to next year’s books.

In the meantime, Spurs, less successful, but now in a position to take on the future have completed their stadium project in much less time than the eight years and counting on the Bernabeu clock. The club from north London do not have 13 European Cups in the cabinet, but they do have a wage bill of £147 million. Madrid will have to address a wage bill of €430 million, second only to Barcelona.

In the meantime we await another summer when the drumbeat from Spain will doubtless be that Madrid are in the market for any number of big name players. Where these astronomical sums are to come from remains a mystery at a club where, eight years on, they are still waiting to rebuild a stadium that will not get any bigger.

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Sun Apr 07, 2019 12:35 am

Also in the Telegraph from Sam Wallace - this short piece on the threat of Andrea Agnelli and his European chums to the Premier League and all football leagues

European envy of the Premier League's TV riches continues to grow

Sooner rather than later the battle will come over the future of the Champions League, because the biggest clubs in Europe outside England are not going to wait around to discover how much the next Premier League round of rights for 2022-2024 exceed their own. The European Club Association big powers lead by Juventus chairman Andrea Agnelli want a de facto European League that guarantees them a place every year and many more games.

This is the period of the Premier League’s history when its staunch belief in collective bargaining and fair sharing of the revenue will be tested to its maximum. Friday’s statement of solidarity was a start but just the beginning of a battle that will determine whether the old league system of English football can survive the onset of modern game’s priorities.

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 12:44 am

Is it possible that the Premier League would appoint the Spanish League executive who managed to get Barca and Real to accept a shared TV with the rest of the League to improve the competition - the role certainly needs someone who can manage the interests of all

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

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 10:51 am

With the latter stages of the European club competitions kicking off this week @SwissRamble looks at the financials (revenue & wages) of those still in the competitions - The gaps illustrate how comparatively even the competition is in the Premier League (Their are clubs in the Championship that spend more on wages than Ajax for example)

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 5746634752" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 11:25 am

When you are a club with ambition but do not have the funds/sugar daddy to buy the fully developed talents to take your club to the level you aspire to your only option is to develop them yourself. Yet, even at this level you can find yourself out bid and out glamourised by the big boys - it is then you have to get really smart - much has been made in this country in regards to Brentford and last week I highlighted the developments going on at West Brom for over a decade. Here is a series of in-depth articles on AZ Alkmaar and their approach - quite long but also quite stimulating for fans of a club such as ours

https://leadersinsport.com/performance/ ... ig-budget/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://leadersinsport.com/performance/ ... -athletes/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://leadersinsport.com/performance/ ... jn-beuker/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Royboyclaret · Post by **Royboyclaret** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 12:05 pm

Chester Perry wrote:With the latter stages of the European club competitions kicking off this week @SwissRamble looks at the financials (revenue & wages) of those still in the competitions - The gaps illustrate how comparatively even the competition is in the Premier League (Their are clubs in the Championship that spend more on wages than Ajax for example)

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 5746634752" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Remarkable that Burnley have reached a point where our Wage bill is higher than two of the eight remaining Champions League teams.

Ajax in particular, where their players appear to be earning around £28k per week, or half that of the Burnley players.

That said, Ajax look to be a particularly well run club with a Wage/Income ratio of less than 60%. Again very similar to Burnley.

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 1:01 pm

An excellent article in the Times about the proposals for the Champions League post 2024 - behind a paywall (I had to wait for more 1 free article a week to view it) so transposed in full - There is one on there about the Bolton situation I would love to read if anyone can transpose it

Champions League: proposals that ignore what sport is - Oliver Kay, Chief Football Correspondent

It gets crowded in the Billy Wright Stand on match nights at Molineux. On the first-floor landing, outside the executive boxes, fans are drawn to the cabinets that show off memorabilia from Wolverhampton Wanderers’ illustrious past. As well as the shirts and medals, there are front pages of the Sporting Star on the evenings of the club’s FA Cup triumphs in 1949 (“It’s ours!”) and 1960 (“Ours again”). On Tuesday night, in the week that Wolves bid to reach their first final since 1960, those exhibits were attracting quite a crowd.

Other fans found themselves drawn to the artefacts from Wolves’ ventures into Europe in the 1950s — the historic friendly match against Ferenc Puskás’s Honved team in December 1954, which Stan Cullis’s team won 3-2 to be declared unofficial “champions of the world”. A rare dissenting voice at Molineux that evening was the French football writer Gabriel Hanot, who, feeling Wolves’s football to be inferior to that of Real Madrid, proposed in L’Équipe that “a European championship be organised between clubs. Then Wolves really could prove they are the best.”

That was the catalyst for the European Cup, which was launched the following season, with invitations extended to a representative of Europe’s 16 leading nations. The English invitation went to Chelsea, who beat Wolves to the league title in 1954-55, but their involvement was blocked by the FA and the Football League, who, depressingly and not untypically, saw no future in a concept dreamt up by Johnny Foreigner. (Manchester United, under Matt Busby, would defy that veto a year later.) The entrants included Real, AC Milan, PSV Eindhoven and Sporting Lisbon but also, reflecting the era, names that resonate less loudly across Europe these days: Aarhus, Djurgardens, Gwardia Warsaw, Voros Lobogo (now MTK Budapest) and, closer to home, Hibernian.

West Germany were represented by Rot-Weiss Essen (though Saarland, then under French occupation, were represented by Saarbrücken). Bayern Munich? They had just been relegated from the Oberliga Sud and would not even be among the 16 clubs selected to join the Bundesliga in 1963. Paris Saint-Germain? They were not even founded until a merger in 1970 and had only won two French league titles until the transformation that came upon being acquired as a soft-power asset for the Qatari state in 2011.

As Nuno Espírito Santo says several times in every press conference, this is football. Empires rise and empires fall. Wolves fell into financial difficulties in the mid-1980s and were relegated from the old First Division to the Fourth Division in consecutive seasons. They briefly found their way back to the top flight under Sir Jack Hayward’s ownership in 2003 and six years later under Steve Morgan, and now, finally, seventh in the Premier League and looking forward to an FA Cup semi-final tomorrow, they seem genuinely resurgent. The manner of this resurgence — built on the calibre of coach and players they have been able to sign with considerable help from the Gestifute agency, which is part-owned by Wolves’s Chinese owners Fosun International — sits uncomfortably with many of us, but then again so does much else about the modern game. This is football, the 21st-century way.

Whatever the rest of the season has in store, Wolves should be setting their long-term ambitions higher and higher. This season, the Premier League. Next season, the Europa League? Beyond that . . . the Champions League?

The obvious riposte is to say that the Champions League is already a closed shop — that it is the same clubs who qualify every season, that the later stages are always dominated by the biggest clubs from England, Spain and, to a lesser extent, Germany, Italy and France, even if Ajax’s resurgence this year carries distant echoes of a more meritocratic age — but, if the ECA has its way, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Do not bet on it. Even if they or Everton or Leicester City or West Ham United or anyone else can break the mighty stranglehold of the Premier League’s “big six”, never mind force their way into the top four, there are plans afoot to tighten the admissions policy for the Champions League. As detailed in The Times yesterday, the European Club Association (ECA) is lobbying for a revamp that would effectively see the Champions League operate as a closed shop from 2024-25 onwards.

The three-tier structure proposed by the ECA would result in an elite competition open to 32 clubs, 24 of whom would be retained for the following season regardless of league performance. There would be the threat of relegation to a second tier, but even then there are plans to retain wild-card places, on the basis of past European performance, for big clubs who may not qualify. Great if you are AC Milan or another of the sleeping giants from the Champions League era. Dreadful if you are Celtic or Red Star Belgrade or another of those great clubs who, through no fault of their own, have been left behind by the inequalities of the modern game, or if you are Wolves or any other club hoping to challenge the Champions League elite in their own country.

It was heartening to see the Premier League clubs, as a collective, condemn these proposals yesterday. In a statement, the 20 clubs expressed “significant concerns” about the ECA’s plans and “unanimously agreed it is inappropriate for European football bodies” to threaten such upheaval. Yet there is certainly a feeling at board level among some of the richest Premier League clubs that a new Champions League format, which will guarantee more matches between the most commercially successful teams, is inevitable in the long term. Some feel it desirable.

The European football landscape has been changed dramatically by the elitism that the Champions League has brought, causing vast inequalities between leagues and within leagues. It seems almost impossibly romantic in 2019 that Ajax, four-times European champions, have reached a Champions League quarter-final for the first time in 16 years. The priority for the ECA’s 230 members should be to try to restore some modicum of competitive balance, but no, of course the agenda is dictated by the biggest clubs, who dominate the organisation’s executive structure. They want the supremacy of their elite to be ringfenced, not challenged.

These clubs want guaranteed Champions League qualification, guaranteed matches against each other, guaranteed broadcast, commercial and matchday revenue of a level far beyond that which comes when they have to play against clubs such as Celtic and PSV Eindhoven, never mind AEK Athens and Red Star Belgrade. In the minds of the self-perpetuating elite, those are second-class or third-class clubs, not worthy of the biggest stage or the biggest revenue streams. They can have their own competition, a sideshow, away from the main event.

It is just as well, for the likes of PSG and indeed Chelsea, Manchester City and Atletico Madrid, that the European football landscape was not redrawn like this a decade or two earlier. In fact, it is just as well for Liverpool, Barcelona, Bayern, Juventus and others that it was not a closed shop from the start. Throughout its history, football’s appeal has been increased by the possibility of upward mobility. Access to the biggest competitions and biggest prizes has never been more exclusive than now. To go even further in that direction would be an affront to competition.

Let us not forget what European competition’s appeal is based on: not just excellence but a taste of the exotic. That is what made those floodlit friendlies at Molineux and elsewhere in the 1950s so enthralling, leading to the European Cup as we knew it and then, ultimately, to a Champions League which has brought more games between the biggest clubs, raising the standard of the competition like never before.

But these latest proposals? They stink of entitlement and greed and a total ignorance of what the sport is and what it should be. They are an outrage, particularly to those who know their football history and those, like the fans gathered on that landing at Molineux on Tuesday, who dream of recapturing past glories.

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:48 pm

John Nicholson is on an angry rant again - this time he asks - What is the F***ing point in chasing a distant 7th?

https://www.football365.com/news/whats- ... nt-seventh" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

aggi · Post by **aggi** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:49 pm

Chester Perry wrote:seems like there is 2 prong attack on Agents (see post #762) with HMRC now writng to a large number in regard to fraudulent activity - this from the Times

One of the issues here actually implicates players rather than agents. There have been investigations for a while regarding situations where a club pays a player's agent and whether this should technically be viewed as a payment to the player who should then be paying the agent. If it's the latter then that payment to the agent will be subject to income tax and NI as if it was the player's salary.

GodIsADeeJay81 · Post by **GodIsADeeJay81** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 2:57 pm

Chester Perry wrote:John Nicholson is on an angry rant again - this time he asks - What is the F***ing point in chasing a distant 7th?

https://www.football365.com/news/whats- ... nt-seventh" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great article!!

Some fans don't seem to grasp that most clubs are just fillers for the PL

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:00 pm

Andy Holt issues a manifesto for the new leadership of the EFL (when it materialises)

https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/11 ... 4566976513" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I sometimes think John Nicholson is a pen name for Andy Holt

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 3:26 pm

aggi wrote:One of the issues here actually implicates players rather than agents. There have been investigations for a while regarding situations where a club pays a player's agent and whether this should technically be viewed as a payment to the player who should then be paying the agent. If it's the latter then that payment to the agent will be subject to income tax and NI as if it was the player's salary.

If the service provided by the agent has been for the benefit of the player then there really can be no argument can there - has to be the players responsibility so yes a club payment must be classed as player earnings - That while occasionally difficult to prove will have a lot twitching nervously. Imagine HMRC exercising the bite of the Spanish authorities with the added extra incentive that you can pay extra to avoid jail time,

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Mon Apr 08, 2019 11:13 pm

Martin Samuel in the Mail takes his turn at Andrea Angelli and the ECA - far from the eloquence of Oliver Kay (see post #800) but the loathing is real enough

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

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Tue Apr 09, 2019 7:46 pm

following on from post #796 about the possibility of the Premier League appointing Scudamore's La liga counterpart to his role it has emerged that the German version has already said "Nein Danke" or somesuch - will anyone take this task on?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/spor ... eague.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Tue Apr 09, 2019 8:18 pm

Football DNA take their turn on the proposed revamp of European Club competitions

https://ftballdna.com/2019/04/09/elexit ... breakaway/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Tue Apr 09, 2019 8:28 pm

first mentioned the curious situation at the Irish FA in post #652 - now seems that Sport Ireland is still not happy so have suspended their funding - this still has a fair way to run

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

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:43 pm

Another article about whether there really is a big six (i.e. have Spurs final got the financial wherewithal to legitimately be part of it)

https://offthepitch.com/a/big-six-myth-now-reality" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:50 pm

Some surprising figures for United's home fixture to Barcelona tonight (all I can say is the pies must be pretty poor to sell that few given attendance)

https://offthepitch.com/a/solskjaer-bid ... -6000-pies" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

though given the age and decrepit nature of old Trafford these days perhaps not surprising

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

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 1:57 pm

The kind of thing that gets Ed Woodward hot under the collar

http://fcbusiness.co.uk/news/city-or-un ... omination/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 2:01 pm

This month's FC Business Magazine features an Interview with our own Dave Baldwin

Online edition here

https://cloud.3dissue.com/6374/7271/131 ... .html?r=12" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 2:32 pm

More for the Ed Woodward's of the game

World Football Summit have done a survey of the Future of the game circa 2022 (not very far away at all) - very few opportunities there for a club like ours - enough to make one quite pessimistic if taken as the defacto way forward (which happily I don't)

https://worldfootballsummit.com/archivo ... dustry.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

GodIsADeeJay81 · Post by **GodIsADeeJay81** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:35 pm

Chester Perry wrote:This month's FC Business Magazine features an Interview with our own Dave Baldwin

Online edition here

https://cloud.3dissue.com/6374/7271/131 ... .html?r=12" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good article that.

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:38 pm

GodIsADeeJay81 wrote:Good article that.

I have to say I was hoping for a whole lot more about our club rather than him being a man proud of his Bradford roots as interesting as it is knowing about his background

GodIsADeeJay81 · Post by **GodIsADeeJay81** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:55 pm

Chester Perry wrote:I have to say I was hoping for a whole lot more about our club rather than him being a man proud of his Bradford roots as interesting as it is knowing about his background

I do remember the season ticket pricing being really good at Bradford and a lot of people were impressed with it.

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:59 pm

GodIsADeeJay81 wrote:I do remember the season ticket pricing being really good at Bradford and a lot of people were impressed with it.

yes impressive in terms of affordability (18000+ this year i believe) also very good on bring those of none traditional football backgrounds into the club - but awful in terms of providing revenue for a struggling team.

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Wed Apr 10, 2019 4:24 pm

more on Bradford - not particularly promising is it - though there is now a new owner

https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/sport/f ... -1-9478988" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and the accounts - for what they are worth - are not very revealing though show a track record of losses

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 7055137793" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/docu ... cd95d93c9e" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 5:49 pm

Remember last summer and the wailing and gnashing of teeth from the big six over the need for more revenue and breaking the even split of international TV rights - here is an interesting graphic on the gap between the 6th and 7th top earners in the Premier league - look how equitable it has become even before that deal )which is forecast to give the top six and extra £75m kicks in.

https://twitter.com/vysyble/status/1116247222729965569" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

2016/17 is the outlier as it includes Leicester being the League's top earner in Europe from their great run in the Champions League as Premier League champions

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:41 pm

Posted a bit about China's Belt and Road Initiative (a new silk road) and how it is using soft power (often via football) to help smooth it's economic objectives. It turns out that the Premier League are investigating Southampton's owner Gao Jisheng after news emerged that the Chinese State has effectively taken operational control of his business interests.

https://offthepitch.com/a/premier-leagu ... outhampton" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

so what is the interest in Southampton other than the fact it is home Britain's 2nd deepest port - some key info about that in here

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/spon ... al-britain" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:46 pm

AC Milan back in the UEFA FFP dock again - after using legal processes to take part in the Europa League this season

https://offthepitch.com/a/uefa-charges- ... once-again" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:53 pm

Here is how you justify spending close to 600m Euros on Stadium improvements - though just how Real expect to generate an additional 150m euro a season from the Stadium is another question

https://offthepitch.com/a/florentino-pe ... llion-year" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 9:59 pm

The French football League has joined the German, Spanish and Premier Leagues in condemning the proposals for UEFA's club competitions post 2024

https://offthepitch.com/a/french-footba ... ons-league" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 10:38 pm

The Price of Football does a deep dive into two-time FFP dodging Derby's Financial Accounts of 2017/18

http://priceoffootball.com/derby-county ... -be-there/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Thu Apr 11, 2019 11:47 pm

I have been trying to get my head around this one for the last few hours but short of the fact that 2 of these clubs have actually won the European Cup why would the Qatar Sport Investments (owners of PSG) want to by an English club

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/20 ... ake-links/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

there is the thought that the European Super League will never come off and the Premier League will dominate all going into the future - can you imagine a big 8 or 9 (see post #821)

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:17 am

When Man Utd switched to Adidas the game was blown away by the £75m a year deal (especially as Utd had brought all other merchandising in house) but that no longer is the case and how quickly the market changes -Barcelona got a £140m a year deal the season after the utd signed theirs and it now appears that even Liverpool who sell nothing like the same volume as utd are going to surpass it too.

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

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:26 am

Interesting article on the importance of clubs having a Technical Director with Football knowledge- it is important for most clubs in the top 2 tiers let alone the behemoth that is Man Utd

https://offthepitch.com/a/why-did-man-u ... l-director" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

must say I am a little wary of who Rigg directly reports to (and the exact nature of his role) - sometimes I get the impression that our manager has a little too much influence over the club and that causes me a little concern re succession planning - I will state that I have absolutely no desire to see him leave

Royboyclaret · Post by **Royboyclaret** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:36 am

Chester Perry wrote:Posted a bit about China's Belt and Road Initiative (a new silk road) and how it is using soft power (often via football) to help smooth it's economic objectives. It turns out that the Premier League are investigating Southampton's owner Gao Jisheng after news emerged that the Chinese State has effectively taken operational control of his business interests.

https://offthepitch.com/a/premier-leagu ... outhampton" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

so what is the interest in Southampton other than the fact it is home Britain's 2nd deepest port - some key info about that in here

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/spon ... al-britain" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Mmm, interesting developments at Southampton.......Chairman Ralph Krueger will leave the club in June.

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:43 am

Just one post other post on this thread that refers to Brexit (see post #789) TIFO Football look at Brexit's likely impact on our National Team

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHmjlVz ... e=youtu.be" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 10:53 am

Your club is potentially about to win the league for the first time in 29 years, among the favourites to reach it's 9th European cup final and is amongst the top 2 or 3 supported clubs in the Muslim world and then you go and get this minor sponsor (why would you do that)

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 2376491008" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Chester Perry · Post by **Chester Perry** » Fri Apr 12, 2019 11:04 am

Will the politics of the major administrative organisations of our game ever clean themselves up

https://offthepitch.com/a/exclusive-asi ... tion-carve" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

- or do we need to just accept that other cultures do things differently (see post #697)