Football's Magic Money Tree

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Chester Perry
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:46 am

More on that Franz Beckenbauer judgement from the FIFA Ethics committee be Graham Dunbar for the Associated Press

https://apnews.com/article/internationa ... d154209880

FIFA ends bribery case against Germany great Beckenbauer
By GRAHAM DUNBAR - yesterday

GENEVA (AP) — FIFA’s ethics judges closed a bribery investigation against German great Franz Beckenbauer because a statute of limitations expired, soccer’s world governing body said Thursday.

Beckenbauer and other German officials who helped organize the 2006 World Cup had been subject to a FIFA ethics investigation opened in 2016. There was no time limitation on bribery prosecutions in FIFA’s ethics code until it amended the rules in 2018 to add a 10-year limit.

Cases against Theo Zwanziger, who once replaced Beckenbauer on the FIFA executive committee member, and Horst Schmidt were also closed, FIFA said Thursday.

The case involved a complex trail of suspect payments between the German World Cup organizers, FIFA and Qatari soccer official Mohamed bin Hammam ahead of the 2006 tournament.

“Mr. Beckenbauer’s actions were related and limited to the bribe payment of (10 million Swiss francs) to Mr. Bin Hammam, which occurred in 2002,” FIFA ethics judges said.

Federal prosecutors in Switzerland had also investigated the case but their criminal trial collapsed in April last year, also because a statute of limitations was set to expire.

Beckenbauer was not indicted for that trial, after prosecutors accepted his health reasons, though he was set to give evidence as a witness by video link.

A dispute between FIFA and the 75-year-old Beckenbauer about his state of health was revealed in the ruling published Thursday to explain why the ethics case was closed.

Beckenbauer’s lawyers said he could not be interrogated because he was “suffering from a progressive neurodegenerative disease (and) there is no expectation of a notable improvement.”

Those details were provided in a March 2020 medical certificate also given to Swiss prosecutors ahead of the trial.

“Mr. Beckenbauer is not in a position to participate in lengthy oral questioning or proceedings,” his lawyers told FIFA.

However, FIFA judges noted that Beckenbauer had attended public events and given interviews last year, including events to celebrate 30 years since he coached West Germany to win the 1990 World Cup.

“His medical condition did not prevent him from attending events, traveling to foreign countries (despite the COVID pandemic), posing for pictures, making speeches, and giving at least three interviews,” FIFA judges said in their ruling.

“In particular, he did not appear to have any memory problems remembering matches of the 1990 FIFA World Cup, an event occurring 30 years ago, in vivid detail,” the ruling said.

Beckenbauer became the first player to both captain and coach a World Cup-winning team. He lifted the trophy for West Germany in 1974, when it also hosted the tournament.

A three-time European Cup-winning captain with Bayern Munich, he left to play for New York Cosmos alongside Pelé.

The judges also said “Beckenbauer invoked his right to silence and refused to provide the investigatory chamber with any written or oral statement” requested between 2015 and 2018.

Beckenbauer also refused to attend three interviews with FIFA investigators citing that he had undergone “open heart surgery and was suffering from several medical conditions.”

Investigations began after an October 2015 report in Der Spiegel magazine claimed Germany’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup had a slush fund of 6.7 million euros (now $8.2 million) to buy votes.

“The whole thing was absurd and arbitrary from the start,” Zwanziger said Thursday in a statement to the DPA agency.
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:09 am

Inter Milan may be top of Serie A and on the way to the title but the troubles and challenges for owners Suning keep on mounting

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 7723811850
Last edited by Chester Perry on Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:25 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:18 am

another day, another interesting piece I can neither read in full nor transcribe - still there are some interesting tempters in what we can see - offthepitch.com with a column on Private Equity and Football titled

"Football offers unrivalled brand loyalty, no chance of defection, predictable and recurring revenues and new ways to leverage value - Private Equities lust for European football is here to stay"

https://offthepitch.com/a/football-offe ... g-revenues

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:24 am

In a move that brings back memories of Liverpool FC wanting to trademark the word "Liverpool" in relation to football, La Liga have been refused permission to trademark "El Classico" in Europe, from SportsBusiness.com

LaLiga thwarted in El Clásico trademark appeal
SportBusiness Staff
February 25, 2021

The General Court of the European Union has rejected an appeal entered by LaLiga, organising body of the top two divisions of Spanish club football, as it seeks to reinforce trademarks related to El Clásico, the commonly used phrase to describe games between Barcelona and Real Madrid.

LaLiga took to the Luxembourg-based General Court, part of the Court of Justice of the EU, after being met with opposition to its plans from the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).

The El Clásico brand is already recognised as a LaLiga trademark when used in association with the organisation’s official logo. In February 2017, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) granted LaLiga permission to trademark the phrase alone in the United States and United Arab Emirates, with the organisation seeking to do likewise in Europe.

However, its efforts for European recognition have been stymied by EUIPO, with two appeals having been rejected. Spanish newspaper El País said EUIPO has argued that El Clásico is a descriptive phrase that lacks distinctive character in one of the official languages of the EU, in this case Spanish.

EUIPO has also argued that “the expression ‘El Clásico’ will be perceived by the Spanish, French, German, Dutch and Portuguese public as an expression used to describe a sporting confrontation that exists between teams with a notable rivalry, not only in the case of football matches, but also other sports”.

In its argument in front of the General Court, LaLiga is said to have pointed to the “high level of knowledge, popularity and reputation that the brand has acquired to date due to the use that has been made of it”. This, in the opinion of LaLiga, gives it a distinctive character.

However, the General Court has supported EUIPO, ruling that the lack of distinctive character constitutes grounds for “absolute denial” of the registration of a trademark. The Court’s ruling added: “The evidence presented by LaLiga, taken individually or as a whole, did not demonstrate that, on the date of the application for registration, a significant part of the relevant public perceived the trademark applied for as an indication of the commercial origin of the services it designates.”

The General Court’s ruling can be appealed before the European Court of Justice.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 12:04 pm

This isn't new news as such, It has been stated that Leeds are looking to generate a multi-club model for a while, and while this article is looking at the benefit of it for Leeds no one os considering what it is actually doing to the game itself. The games authorities may see it as a way of saving clubs (even leagues) but in effect it is another example of perpetuating a dominance of leagues. Most would acknowledge the incredible rise of Belgian talent over the last 15 years but their league and clubs have just got weaker, perhaps more so than they have ever been on the European stage. All those talent developing clubs should be making for an exciting and competitive league for broadcasters too, yet as it stands it is the 10th best domestic rights deal in Europe, behind the EFL (two thirds of which is for the League cup - premier League involvement drives that) and Brazil's Campeonato Série A

https://theathletic.co.uk/2408272/2021/ ... -on-leeds/
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 12:29 pm

The fascinating and lucrative world of UEFA coefficients and what tournaments they can get access to - last year the performances of The old Firm in the Europa League qualified one them (who else wins the league up there) for automatic Champions League group qualification and it guaranteed revenue uplift of at least £10m and probably significantly more. This year following the abysmal performance of Celtic in the Europa League, things are much more tight - Rangers need to keep on winning to ensure they keep that treasured place for the 2022/23 season - if they do and win the league again next season they will in all likelihood be on the verge of another long period of domestic dominance.

https://twitter.com/DaleJohnsonESPN/sta ... 0913595395

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:23 pm

Somehow I missed this on Wednesday - from SprortsProMedia - another for the Vultures are at the door private Equity metadata theme

Report: DFL set to invite private equity bids as soon as this week
As many as 30 bidders interested in Bundesliga International minority stake.

Posted: February 24 2021 By: Tom Bassam

- Bidders see growth potential in German soccer’s overseas rights business
- Advent, Bain, CVC and BC Partners among interested parties

The German Football League (DFL) is ready to invite investment bids for a minority stake in its overseas media rights business, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Reports regarding private equity interest in the DFL’s Bundesliga International arm first emerged at the latter end of 2020. Advent International and BC Partners were initially linked with a deal, before the Financial Times reported that more than 20 private equity firms were interested.

Other bidders could include Bain Capital, CVC Capital Partners, General Atlantic and KKR & Co, according to previous reports.

Japanese financial services company Nomura were reportedly hired to field inquiries and now, according to Bloomberg, as many as 30 bidders could make their interest formal as soon as this week.

The DFL declined to comment on the Bloomberg story, but Doug Harmer, a partner at Oakwell Sports Advisory, which is working with a potential bidder, told the financial news outlet: “There is sure to be a lot of interest. This is a well run league from a fiscal perspective, but you would ask whether more could be done to make it a more international product.”

German soccer, like all sports properties which rely on attendance revenue for a significant portion of their income, is suffering. DFL chief executive Christian Seifert said in January that the top two tiers were likely to finish the season without fans in venues.

That said, its broadcast income is still strong. Domestically, the Bundesliga, German soccer’s top flight, is just behind Spain’s La Liga in terms of broadcast rights revenue, and third behind the Premier League out of Europe’s big five national competitions. Even after seeing a €200 million fall in the overall value of its domestic broadcast partnerships, the DFL brings in €1.1 billion (US$1.2 billion) a season, compared to the Spanish top flight’s €1.33 billion (US$1.61 billion).

However, in terms of overseas rights revenue, the DFL is significantly behind its European rivals. The loss of its Middle East and North Africa (MENA) broadcast contract with BeIN Sports has contributed to annual revenue from that sector falling to €200 million (US$243 million) for this season. The Premier League, with its US$1.87 billion worth of overseas rights contracts, and La Liga, which brings in €897 million (US$1.09 billion) internationally, are streets ahead.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:31 pm

Apparently today is the day that Serie A clubs will determine who wins the domestic broadcast rights in the next cycle, we have been here before of course - 9 of 20 clubs failed to attend the virtual meeting last time and there is still the unsettled issue of a Private Equity commercial partner. Meanwhile Sky Italia have taken a new tack in their efforts to block the DAZM/Telecom Italia bid - from SportsBusiness.com

DAZN, Sky joust over market competition issue before crucial Serie A meeting
Martin Ross
February 26, 2021

DAZN, the OTT subscription broadcaster, has defended the availability of its potential Serie A output during the 2021-24 cycle after rival bidder Sky Italia, the pay-television broadcaster, wrote to the league to raise its concerns over an impact on competition in the market.

Having teamed up with Telecom Italia (TIM), the Italian telecoms operator, DAZN has submitted the leading offer of €840m ($1.02bn) per season for rights to seven exclusive matches per matchweek and co-exclusive rights to three matches.

Ahead of a league assembly meeting today (Friday) to vote on a rights award, Sky has sought to increase pressure on the clubs by flagging its concerns to Lega Serie A in a letter, the details of which have been leaked to the press.

The letter, seen by Italian news agency Ansa, claims that TIM would “benefit from preferential treatment in the distribution of DAZN, despite TIM being the incumbent operator with greater market strength in Italy, in particular in the broadband segment”.

Maximo Ibarra, the Sky Italia chief executive, writes that “such a preferential distribution agreement could therefore generate potential competitive and compatibility issues with the Melandri Law”.

At the start of the week, TIM clarified the nature of its support for DAZN’s bid as it emerged that the telco would cover around 40 per cent of DAZN’s proposed rights fee investment. TIM has said that it is not taking part in the rights tender but is supporting DAZN’s proposal, having “signed an agreement to supplement the already existing distribution agreement [with DAZN], conditional upon DAZN being awarded the aforementioned tender”.

Sky argues that the distribution agreement threatens to “restrict access to football” and thus “damages the value of Serie A”. It underlined the importance of Serie A matches being distributed across all platforms and the maximum number of devices.

In response, DAZN said this morning: “First of all, it is stressed that the possible acquisition by DAZN of the Serie A TV rights for the next three seasons would represent an important opportunity for the expansion of the pay-TV market, and would also be an opportunity to accelerate the process of digitization and modernization of the whole country.

“DAZN contents would continue to be enjoyed, as is already the case today, through the broadband services of all telephone operators and devices available in Italy. DAZN, like Netflix, Amazon and Disney+, in fact represents the future of distribution and fruition of video contents that consumers can experience in absolute freedom and comfort.”

In a direct swipe at Sky’s erstwhile dominance, DAZN added: “Finally, the concerns expressed about a penalisation of football fans who – it is said – would no longer be guaranteed a plurality of vision, seems peculiar to say the least, considering that the soccer market has historically always been characterised by a dominant player, and this also emerged from recent AGCM [Italy’s antitrust authority] rulings.”

Last year, Italy’s Council of State rejected an appeal by Sky against a ban on the Italian pay-television broadcaster acquiring exclusive digital media rights. Sky filed its appeal in July last year and had hoped that the process would overturn the imposition placed upon it by the AGCM.

TIM’s alliance with DAZN is also thought to include technological support.

Along with streaming on its OTT platform, DAZN currently airs Serie A action on its linear channel, which is available on Sky’s pay-television platform. The DAZN offering is also available as an add-on for subscribers to Telecom Italia’s TIMvision live streaming and video-on-demand service, and to Vodafone’s television customers.

Should DAZN be awarded the rights on the terms offered, then 40 per cent of its bid would equate to €336m per year. TIM’s payments would be settled in six annual instalments of identical amounts “made to an escrow bank account to be used exclusively for payments to Serie A”, according to details of a letter published by Bloomberg.

Serie A’s existing deals with Sky and DAZN (from 2018-19 to 2020-21) are worth €973m per year.

Sky is thought to have bid €750m for Package 2, one of the ‘mixed’ marketing packages offered by Lega Serie A, comprising rights across all platforms but with only co-exclusivity for internet, IPTV and mobile rights. It recently emerged that Sky has offered an upfront payment of €505m as part of its offer, including the settling of the disputed final instalment for the 2019-20 season.

Ahead of today’s seemingly crucial league assembly meeting, subscription broadcaster Eleven Sports has made an offer for the ‘Lega’ channel project, according to Il Sole 24 Ore.

Should rights be awarded to DAZN on the terms reported, then revenue over and above the €840m per year would come from the sale of non-exclusive rights to the three matches. The league would also be saving a commission payment of between €50m and €60m per season to the Infront agency, its outgoing media-rights adviser.

Serie A clubs have continued to mull over the domestic rights bids as there remains nervousness about whether a private equity agreement will be signed off.

The launch of the domestic tender came just weeks after Serie A clubs accepted an offer from private equity companies including CVC for a 10-per-cent stake in a new entity that will manage its media-rights business. The proposal is worth €1.7bn and also involves fellow private equity firm Advent International and Italy’s state-backed investor Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI).

While Serie A’s smaller clubs have thus far stopped short of backing a vote for the domestic media rights sales, the league’s top clubs have been keen to vote. These clubs are thought to include AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Lazio, Udinese, Napoli and Fiorentina.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:36 pm

This was an enduring subplot in the ultimately failed Saudi bid for Newcastle United - Amanda Staveley and her court case against Barclay's for an introduction commission - She's lost the case and Barclay's do not come out of it too well either (apart from retaining a large some of money) - from the Financial Times

Staveley loses Barclays High Court battle
JANE CROFT FEBRUARY 26, 2021

Amanda Staveley has lost her High Court case against Barclays, despite the judge ruling that the bank was “guilty of serious deceit” towards her investment firm, PCP Capital Partners, over a 2008 fundraising.

PCP had brought a High Court lawsuit against Barclays, alleging deceit over its 2008 capital raising with Qatar. The case was heard last year.

In the 2008 banking crisis, PCP had been involved in abortive efforts to put together a consortium to invest in Barclays with Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Mansour. PCP sued Barclays in the High Court after it found out that Abu Dhabi was not getting the same deal as Qatar, which also invested in the bank.

Handing down his ruling on the case, Mr Justice David Waksman said Barclays had made false misrepresentations to PCP, but he added that the firm’s overall lawsuit failed because it could not prove it would have obtained the necessary debt funding to do a deal.

He said Staveley was a “tough, clever and creative entrepreneur”, who negotiated an “excellent deal” with Barclays and said he rejected the bank’s attempts to paint her as a lightweight and a “chancer” who engaged in a “hustle” to insert herself in the middle of the 2008 capital raising.

The judge said: “I can understand why this outcome will be a serious disappointment to PCP, especially after I have found Barclays to be guilty of serious deceit towards it.”

The case raises fresh questions about the bank’s behaviour during the 2008 emergency cash call in which Barclays relied on money from Middle Eastern investors rather than take a UK government bail out.

The bank escaped criminal charges over the 2008 fundraising from the Serious Fraud Office in 2018 when the Criminal Court of Appeal dismissed charges against it. Three former Barclays executives were cleared by a jury over the 2008 fundraising in a fraud case brought by the Serious Fraud Office last year.

Barclays said: “We welcome the Court’s decision to dismiss PCP’s claim in its entirety and award it no damages.”

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:48 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Thu Jan 28, 2021 2:27 pm
The collective bargaining of TV rights is going to come to Portugal - just not yet - the 2027/28 season to be exact - from SportsProMedia

Primeira Liga TV rights to be centralised from 2027/28 season
New model described as a ‘core tool’ for the development of Portuguese soccer.

Posted: January 28 2021 By: Sam Carp

- LP and FPF to form new media rights company in coming months
- Sport TV holds rights to home matches for 17 of Primeira Liga’s 18 clubs until 2025/26

The domestic television rights to Portuguese soccer’s Primeira Liga will be centralised from the 2027/28 season onwards under an agreement between the top-flight league and the sport’s national governing body.

Liga Portugal (LP) and the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) that will see them form a company in the coming months to oversee the media rights sales process for the Primeira Liga.

The new approach will be a ‘core tool’ for the development of professional soccer in Portugal, according to the two parties, who added in a joint statement that the clubs will have ‘permanent involvement’ in the new media rights business.

“The sustainability and development of national football as a whole are closely linked to this negotiation,” said FPF president Fernando Gomes. “It seems to us that this is a sign of the irrevocable will of the FPF and the league to complete this process and work together to come up with better solutions for national football. ”

The move had been expected after it emerged earlier this month that the Portuguese government was readying legislation for a centralised media rights sales process.

It marks a significant departure from the current model, under which the clubs sell rights to their home games on an individual basis.

All but one of the current Primeira Liga clubs have deals with pay-TV broadcaster Sport TV until the end of the 2025/26 season.

Benfica games, however, are broadcast via the club’s in-house network, Benfica TV. The club also has a carriage deal in place with Nos, the Portuguese telecommunications company.
It seems the collective bargaining in Portugal's Primiera Liga has received government approval, maybe something of a surprise given how deep Benfica's ties run into government, still it is 7 years away from actually being of consequence. - from Sportical.com

Government backs Liga Portugal's move to collective rights sales from 2028-29
Soccer - 26 Feb 2021

Pedro Proença, president of Liga Portugal, has hailed an "historic day" for soccer in the country, after the government approved the centralisation of television rights from 2028-29.

The council of ministers decision is the penultimate hurdle in the move towards collective selling, with the competition authority still needing to have its say, although that is considered a formality.

The LP and the FPF, the national federation, last month signed a memorandum of understanding related to the centralised negotiation, and announced they will create a company to manage the sales process.

Following yesterday's government approval, Proença wrote on Facebook: “The diploma approved today in the council of ministers and which provides for the centralisation of audiovisual rights is a historic moment and, I have no doubt, will forever mark a structural change in professional football in Portugal.

“This is the fundamental step in the process that will, as has already been publicly assumed, have a close involvement between the LP and the FPF, always in conjunction with all clubs and with respect for the contracts currently in force and the operators that hold them.”

Proença reserved particular praise for Portugal's secretary of state for youth and sports, João Paulo Rebelo, for pushing through the issue.

Rights in the top-tier Primeira Liga are marketed by individual clubs rather than centrally by the league, with SportTV, the pay-television broadcaster, having deals to show the home matches of 17 sides, the only outlier being Benfica, whose games are shown by the in-house BTV, and distributed by the NOS platform.

There have been growing calls over the past year to adopt the system more commonly used in rival European leagues in order to better redistribute wealth. In Portugal, the present model means the ratio between the club at the top and bottom of the league is 15:1.

International rights to Primeria Liga are distributed by Sportfive, the international sports marketing agency, until the end of the 2022-23 season.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:59 pm

Somewhat weirdly, this has slipped by almost unnoticed - Juventus half year results show a further huge loss - from Reuteurs

Juventus sees loss in 2020/21 as COVID-19 pushes it further into the red
By Reuters Staff

2 MIN READ

MILAN, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Italy’s Juventus said on Thursday it would close its 2020-2021 financial year with a loss after the COVID-19 crisis pushed the Serie A club further in the red, with revenues plummeting in the first six months due to closed door matches.

“At present, the 2020/2021 financial year is expected to result in a loss given that, unlike the previous one, it will be entirely influenced by the effects of the pandemic”, Juventus said in a statement.

The company’s financial year ends in June.

It added that the closure of stadiums and government-imposed restrictions penalised both proceeds from matches and sales of licensed product. Controlled by the Agnelli family, Juventus said it recorded a loss of 113 million euros ($138.18 million) in July-December, compared with a 50.3 million euro loss in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue fell by 20% to 258.3 million euros, mainly due to the impact of COVID-19, the Turin-based club said in a statement. Net debt fell 7.1% to 357.8 million euros.

Juventus reported a loss of nearly 90 million euros in the 2019-2020 financial year.
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The club have released an official (and very comprehensive) statement of the finances - It helps that they are a listed company, but Italian Football (probably as a result of all those fraud cases) is perhaps the most transparent in the world in the financial data it gives out. You can download the statement here

https://www.juventus.com/en/news/articl ... -2020-2021

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:31 pm

On the back of all the recent news about China's retreat from football outside it's borders makes this a timely piece for Simon Chadwick

https://www.iris-france.org/154666-chin ... -for-home/

China’s Championing of Football makes State led U-Turn for home
Tribune 26 février 2021
By Prof. Simon Chadwick, Professor and Director of Eurasian Sport at EMlyon

When Argentinian player Carlos Tevez signed for Chinese Super League club Shanghai Shenhua at the end of 2016, it marked perhaps the most significant episode in what, at the time, seemed to be a booming market for football.

Tevez’s salary (reportedly worth upwards of euro €670,000 per week) has become the stuff of legend, and was taken to be a sign of China’s commitment to developing its football. Others, including Tevez himself, tended to see such ostentatious spending as unfathomable yet highly lucrative. Indeed, when he left Shanghai to return back to Argentina after just a year with Shenhua, Tevez talked of his ‘holiday in China’.

The origins of a rapid growth in spending on expensive overseas players are found in statements supposedly made by President Xi Jinping, in which he supposedly claimed that he wanted China to win the men’s FIFA World Cup. These statements came just ahead of the country’s launching of its 13th Five-Year Plan, which advocated the need for a more outward looking China and also encouraged outbound Chinese investment.

One of the early movers in responding to what became a tidal wave was Wang Jianlin, owner of the Wanda Corporation. Wang had been a long-time football fan and owner of a club in China, who then acquired a 20% stake in Spain’s Atletico Madrid. Many other such acquisitions followed, with Chinese investors buying a host of clubs including England’s Wolverhampton Wanderers (by Fosun), Italy’s Inter Milan (by Suning) and the Czech Republic’s Slavia Prague (by CEFC Energy).

Why there was a sudden surge in such acquisitions is, even now, still being debated. Some observers have seen it as a means through which China could learn about elite professional football – both on and off-the-field. Others have seen it as symbolic, a signal by China that it intended to play the game (and, ultimately, win the World Cup). Otherwise, investing into an industrial sector in response to state diktats has always been a way to for Chinese businesses to ingratiate themselves with the government.

Yet there were also investors whose motives were questionable, at least to officials in Beijing. Some probably saw an opportunity to move their assets, which may have been accumulated by suspect means, overseas whilst too many of these Chinese investors in football proved unable to demonstrate any tangible return-on-investment from their rush into the sport.

The latter was a particular point of concern, especially among those working in the Chinese financial system. Not only was football becoming a significant leakage from the Chinese economy, overseas club investors were also exposing China’s financial system to undue financial risk by borrowing at home and spending abroad (often on highly expensive players who were of little use to the Chinese national team’s performances).

By mid-2017, China’s government stepped in, famously labelling overseas club acquisitions as ‘irrational investments’. At that time, there was also a sense that these new club owners were becoming celebrities in their own right and beginning to see themselves as somehow being bigger than the Chinese state.

Hence what had started with Wang began to end with Wang, the businessman being forced to offload all but 3% of his stake in Atletico. Ahead of this disposal, in the second half of 2017, Wang was detained by Chinese officials and had his passport confiscated. He did, nevertheless, subsequently reappear, around the same time that it was announced that Wanda would be acquiring the Chinese Super League club Dalian.

Wang wasn’t alone; CEFC Energy was quickly forced to sell Slavia Prague and the power company’s owner, Ye Jianming, was imprisoned upon his return to China. Meanwhile, Fosun’s owner, Guo Guangchang, was also reportedly detained by the Chinese authorities (perhaps a reflection of the conglomerate being one of China’s most indebted companies).

More recently, Suning (a high street electrical retailer) has actively been seeking a buyer for Inter Milan. This comes at a time when the company needs debt financing, brought about by the Italian football club’s precarious finances. It is no coincidence that Suning is supported by Alibaba, whose owner Jack Ma has also recently been detained by the authorities (following issues with Alibaba’s stalled stock market floatation of Ant Finance).

As overseas club ownership has been consigned to Chinese football history, so the influx of playing talent has also reversed. Indeed, several of the country’s high-profile signings have left China to go and play elsewhere. The Chinese Football Association’s imposition of a player salary-cap is one reason for this, gone are the days of Carlos Tevez style ‘pay days’ and expensive, often unnecessary, imports.

Instead, China appears to be turning inward upon itself, though with a specific purpose in mind. The 14th Five-Year Plan (due for ratification in 2021) explicitly refers to the need for domestic industry to strengthen and develop its position. It also emphasises the need for inbound investment, not just a call to the country’s investors to come home but also to foreign companies to spend in China.

Both prior to and following the launch of the next plan, there is already a clear sense of China’s priorities, not least that business and football should follow state orders, commit to their own country, reduce debt exposure, and focus on making Chinese football great. As such, football is now being played in all Chinese schools, some of the world’s largest football stadiums are currently being built in China, and Chinese corporations continue to cluster around FIFA.

This is one area of overseas football investment that China’s government has not sought to curtail. Over the last five years, numerous Chinese brands have become FIFA partners leading football’s world governing body to publicly acknowledge its financial inter-dependence with China. Dependent relationships often involve shifts in power between the two partners, which hints at where China is now going.

Rather than winning the World Cup by 2050, China is actually seeking to become a leading FIFA nation in different terms by that date. Hence, its staging of the 2030 men’s tournament would be a part of the country’s trajectory as well as being a major coup for the government in Beijing. If a Chinese bid to stage the event transpires and is then successful, the country will play host to the World Cup’s centenary tournament. This would be hugely symbolic, for China, for FIFA and for the world of football in general.

Under such circumstances, Xi will not want his team to be embarrassed. Hence the pace of training local players, at home in China, has become more like a frantic quest. Talent development is a long-term process, but as a short-term fix the naturalisation of overseas players has started taking place. This carries with it all manner of issues, though China appears intent on trying to qualify for the 2022 and 2026 men’s World Cups.

It has been a short but intense journey from Tevez’s Shanghai holiday and Wang’s Spanish sojourn to China’s more focused football intent. Whether the country will become a leading FIFA nation remains to be seen, however the country’s more purposeful and strategic approach points to a different outcome than that which was delivered over the last five-year planning cycle.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 2:46 pm

Yet more American Investment into European Football, and yes another example of a multi-club operation if it succeeds - this time in the likely takeover of Ipswich, which given the travials of recent years will please the owner as much as the fans - Paul Cook is being linked as the replacement of Lambert

https://theathletic.co.uk/2413249/2021/ ... e-lambert/

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 6:57 pm

Rui Pinto - John of Football Leaks fame is still trying to clear himself of charges in Portugal but there is better news for one of the Media organisations that have been publishing Football Leaks material - The Black Sea have just seen a two year old case against them in the Romanian Courts dismissed. this is their report on it

https://theblacksea.eu/stories/romanian ... s-stories/

Romanian Court dismisses lawsuit against Football Leaks stories

Two-year legal battle ends in win for Football Leaks reporting

By Craig Shaw
25 February 2021

The Black Sea’s Football Leaks reporting has been vindicated after a two-year legal battle in Romanian courts. In a ruling on Wednesday, the judge rejected the action brought by Tevfik Arif, Arif Efendi and Doyen Sports Investment Limited, the subject of a series of stories from 2016.

The judge has yet to issue a full, written judgment and reasoning on the decision, but nevertheless found the complaints by the Arifs to be “unfounded.”

Two years after publication of Football Leaks, Tevfik Arif, his son, Arif Efendi (aka Arif Arifov), and their Malta-based Doyen Sports Investment Limited, sued the Romanian Centre for Investigative Journalism (CRJI) in Bucharest during the last days of 2018. CRJI members had established The Black Sea as a project in 2013.

The Arifs filed two actions, at first a temporary gag order - obtained without a hearing or the knowledge of the journalists – that demanded every story on The Black Sea’s website which mentioned the Arifs be taken down. They then filed two further “emergency orders” intended to keep the stories offline and forbid journalists, and associated investigative groups, from publishing anything about the family or their companies in the future.

The stories remained available on The Black Sea’s website throughout the protracted legal case, which saw the Arifs and Doyen Sports requesting postponement around half a dozen times. As the trial experienced continued delays, CRJI accrued fines of 1000 RON (aprox €200) for each day the stories stayed online. The gag order has so far produced a penalty of almost €70,000 for CRJI, one of the oldest non-profit investigative centres in Europe.

The additional complaints to have the stories permanently removed were on the basis that the journalism was defamatory, based on hacked documents, and had harmed their ability to do business and obtain bank accounts. They also targeted Njalla, The Black Sea’s domain registrar, to force them to remove the stories. The company resisted the efforts.

But in a shocking disregard for privacy, during the course of proceedings, the Arif family lawyers were able to obtain personal and private information, including the full names and full home addresses, of journalists associated with CRJI and The Black Sea from the EU Domain registry EURID.

The suit stems from reports more than four years ago. In November 2016, The Black Sea and its partners in the European Investigative Collaborations network co-published the Football Leaks investigation, an expose of football’s dirty dealings, based on more than 11 million leaked documents, 3.4 terabytes of data.

The reporting led to official investigations for tax fraud and money laundering, some of which are still ongoing.

Among the main subjects of the investigation were the wealthy and highly secretive Arifs, a Kazakh-Turkish family, with strong ties to post-Soviet oligarchs, organised crime, and world leaders, like Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The brothers Tevfik (aka Tofik Arifov) and Refik Arif were the chief actors in the operations, but the new generation of children, including Arif Efendi, Tevfik’s son, began to emerge in the business.

It was reported that Arifs’ vast fortune stems from a deliberately obfuscated ownership of a polluting chrome foundry in Aktobe, Kazakhstan, known as ACCP – ownership the family are desperate to remain hidden.

Since the mid-1990s, the profits from ACCP – roughly $2bn according to our analysis and documents we’ve seen – appear to have been funnelled out of Kazakhstan via a series of offshore companies and money laundering schemes, facilitating generations of the Arifs to live lavish lifestyles, flying via private planes to series of luxury homes in Istanbul, London and New York.

But it also permitted the family to enter other industries: real estate, with Donald Trump, construction and hotels, commodities trading, and deals in the Turkish energy sector, such as a gas project with Sitki Ayan, suspected of bribing the President Erdoğan for tax abatements.

In later years, when Tevfik’s son, Arif, wanted to forge his own future, by entering into football’s since-banned third party ownership (TPO) business and commodities trading, he, too, tapped the chrome factory for funds. He borrowed tens of millions of dollars to finance Doyen Sports and Doyen Capital in London.

It was Doyen’s dealings in European football that caused its operation to be blown open. Targeted by the Football Leaks whistle-blowers, Doyen’s secrets fell into the hands of German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, along with massive amounts of unconnected data. Der Spiegel shared the data with EIC network partners.

Football Leaks’s data revealed information about the world's biggest clubs, and Fifa and Uefa, but also about the offices where secret deals are forged between clubs, players and agents.

The face of 'Football Leaks' is 'John', a then anonymous whistleblower wishing to expose abuses in the international soccer world. In 2019, John was arrested and identified as Rui Pinto, a young Portuguese national.

Pinto remained in pretrial arrest for more than a year. Since last year, he has been cooperating with the Portuguese prosecutors. He handed over 17,5 terabyte of data to authorities and is now living in a whistleblower protection program at a secret location in Portugal. Pinto, who was also a source of “Malta Files” and “Luanda Leaks” is currently on trial in Portugal on suspicion of hacking, among other charges.

Despite EIC partners publishing similar allegations against the Arifs back in 2016, The Black Sea was the only publication targeted by the family. In the years since publication, they made multiple attempts to remove links and references to the stories in Google search results, using the EU’s “right to be forgotten” laws. Google rejected their requests, citing the public interest nature of The Black Sea’s journalism.

Stefan Candea, coordinator of the EIC Network, and President of CRJI told The Black Sea: “We must thank our lawyer, Diana Hatneanu, who, on her own, defeated the lawyers of Doyen and Arif, who had been represented by Stoica & Asociatii, the law office of Valeriu Stoica, the former Liberal Party Minister of Justice.”

He also thanks Media Defence for its valuable legal support, and criticised the EURid (the .eu domain registry manager) for providing the Arif lawyers, within hours* of the request and without warning, the full names and full home address of every journalist who’d ever owned theblacksea.eu.

*CORRECTION: EURid provided personal, private information to the German lawyers of the Arifs and Doyen within hours, not days.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 7:13 pm

This seems like some kind of metaphor - Man Utd agree a deal to have their tv channel broadcast in a large part of North Africa with a Chinese owned media company that is being sued by Bein Media (a long time Premier League partner) for failing to pay it's debts - this from the Times - my free article for this week

United strike deal with Chinese TV platform that cannot pay its debts

Martyn Ziegler, Chief Sports Reporter
Friday February 26 2021, 5.00pm, The Times

Manchester United have announced a deal for a Chinese-owned pay TV platform to carry MUTV in sub-Saharan Africa, with the club apparently unconcerned that the operator is facing a winding up claim in court.

United said this week that the deal with StarTimes will include it distributing MUTV to 30 different countries in Africa, allowing the “hundreds of millions of passionate fans in Africa” access to the club’s 24-hour TV channel.

The announcement came within days of it being revealed by SportCal that the beIN Media Group has applied for a winding up order against StarTimes in the Hong Kong courts. The Qatar-owned group claims it is owed $10.89 million (£8 million) by StarTimes and that it has not made any payments for French Ligue 1 rights in sub-Saharan Africa in a deal going back to 2018.

United’s agreement has raised eyebrows in the media industry, given that StarTimes is in arrears with some other rights holders too, though it has also kept up to date with payments for many of its deals.

The club would not comment but it is understood that United felt the deal was worth the risk as the sums of money involved were relatively small compared to usual competition rights. The agreement would greatly increase MUTV’s reach in Africa.

StarTimes, who would not comment on beIN’s legal action, are not the first Chinese-owned broadcasters to have missed rights payments in recent months. PPTV, the pay-TV platform owned by Suning, is being sued by the Premier League, which cancelled its rights deal after missed payments last year. The company is also in arrears to Italy’s Serie A.

Mediapro, the Spanish rights agency owned by a Chinese private equity firm, lost the domestic rights to France’s Ligue 1 for failing to make payments.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 11:15 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:31 pm
Apparently today is the day that Serie A clubs will determine who wins the domestic broadcast rights in the next cycle, we have been here before of course - 9 of 20 clubs failed to attend the virtual meeting last time and there is still the unsettled issue of a Private Equity commercial partner. Meanwhile Sky Italia have taken a new tack in their efforts to block the DAZM/Telecom Italia bid - from SportsBusiness.com

DAZN, Sky joust over market competition issue before crucial Serie A meeting
Martin Ross
February 26, 2021

DAZN, the OTT subscription broadcaster, has defended the availability of its potential Serie A output during the 2021-24 cycle after rival bidder Sky Italia, the pay-television broadcaster, wrote to the league to raise its concerns over an impact on competition in the market.

Having teamed up with Telecom Italia (TIM), the Italian telecoms operator, DAZN has submitted the leading offer of €840m ($1.02bn) per season for rights to seven exclusive matches per matchweek and co-exclusive rights to three matches.

Ahead of a league assembly meeting today (Friday) to vote on a rights award, Sky has sought to increase pressure on the clubs by flagging its concerns to Lega Serie A in a letter, the details of which have been leaked to the press.

The letter, seen by Italian news agency Ansa, claims that TIM would “benefit from preferential treatment in the distribution of DAZN, despite TIM being the incumbent operator with greater market strength in Italy, in particular in the broadband segment”.

Maximo Ibarra, the Sky Italia chief executive, writes that “such a preferential distribution agreement could therefore generate potential competitive and compatibility issues with the Melandri Law”.

At the start of the week, TIM clarified the nature of its support for DAZN’s bid as it emerged that the telco would cover around 40 per cent of DAZN’s proposed rights fee investment. TIM has said that it is not taking part in the rights tender but is supporting DAZN’s proposal, having “signed an agreement to supplement the already existing distribution agreement [with DAZN], conditional upon DAZN being awarded the aforementioned tender”.

Sky argues that the distribution agreement threatens to “restrict access to football” and thus “damages the value of Serie A”. It underlined the importance of Serie A matches being distributed across all platforms and the maximum number of devices.

In response, DAZN said this morning: “First of all, it is stressed that the possible acquisition by DAZN of the Serie A TV rights for the next three seasons would represent an important opportunity for the expansion of the pay-TV market, and would also be an opportunity to accelerate the process of digitization and modernization of the whole country.

“DAZN contents would continue to be enjoyed, as is already the case today, through the broadband services of all telephone operators and devices available in Italy. DAZN, like Netflix, Amazon and Disney+, in fact represents the future of distribution and fruition of video contents that consumers can experience in absolute freedom and comfort.”

In a direct swipe at Sky’s erstwhile dominance, DAZN added: “Finally, the concerns expressed about a penalisation of football fans who – it is said – would no longer be guaranteed a plurality of vision, seems peculiar to say the least, considering that the soccer market has historically always been characterised by a dominant player, and this also emerged from recent AGCM [Italy’s antitrust authority] rulings.”

Last year, Italy’s Council of State rejected an appeal by Sky against a ban on the Italian pay-television broadcaster acquiring exclusive digital media rights. Sky filed its appeal in July last year and had hoped that the process would overturn the imposition placed upon it by the AGCM.

TIM’s alliance with DAZN is also thought to include technological support.

Along with streaming on its OTT platform, DAZN currently airs Serie A action on its linear channel, which is available on Sky’s pay-television platform. The DAZN offering is also available as an add-on for subscribers to Telecom Italia’s TIMvision live streaming and video-on-demand service, and to Vodafone’s television customers.

Should DAZN be awarded the rights on the terms offered, then 40 per cent of its bid would equate to €336m per year. TIM’s payments would be settled in six annual instalments of identical amounts “made to an escrow bank account to be used exclusively for payments to Serie A”, according to details of a letter published by Bloomberg.

Serie A’s existing deals with Sky and DAZN (from 2018-19 to 2020-21) are worth €973m per year.

Sky is thought to have bid €750m for Package 2, one of the ‘mixed’ marketing packages offered by Lega Serie A, comprising rights across all platforms but with only co-exclusivity for internet, IPTV and mobile rights. It recently emerged that Sky has offered an upfront payment of €505m as part of its offer, including the settling of the disputed final instalment for the 2019-20 season.

Ahead of today’s seemingly crucial league assembly meeting, subscription broadcaster Eleven Sports has made an offer for the ‘Lega’ channel project, according to Il Sole 24 Ore.

Should rights be awarded to DAZN on the terms reported, then revenue over and above the €840m per year would come from the sale of non-exclusive rights to the three matches. The league would also be saving a commission payment of between €50m and €60m per season to the Infront agency, its outgoing media-rights adviser.

Serie A clubs have continued to mull over the domestic rights bids as there remains nervousness about whether a private equity agreement will be signed off.

The launch of the domestic tender came just weeks after Serie A clubs accepted an offer from private equity companies including CVC for a 10-per-cent stake in a new entity that will manage its media-rights business. The proposal is worth €1.7bn and also involves fellow private equity firm Advent International and Italy’s state-backed investor Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI).

While Serie A’s smaller clubs have thus far stopped short of backing a vote for the domestic media rights sales, the league’s top clubs have been keen to vote. These clubs are thought to include AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Lazio, Udinese, Napoli and Fiorentina.
Still no decision on the Serie A rights as 9 clubs abstain for a vote - they need a14 to carry a decision (like the Premier League

https://twitter.com/SportBusiness/statu ... 4828766208

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Feb 26, 2021 11:28 pm

Football Leaks has another victim - Spanish authorities charge football agent Abdilgafar Fali Ramadani and his associates with money laundering and offences against the public purse

https://theblacksea.eu/stories/football ... all-leaks/

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat Feb 27, 2021 7:10 pm

It appears that Redbird Capital is back in for FSG after failing with the $8 billion reversal into the SPAC Redball, this time they are wanting 10% for around $750m - from Sportico.com

REDBIRD CAPITAL ACQUIRING TEN PERCENT OF FENWAY SPORTS GROUP FOR $750 MILLION
BY SCOTT SOSHNICK, BRENDAN COFFEY FEBRUARY 26, 2021 10:54AM

RedBird Capital is nearing a deal to acquire more than 10% of Fenway Sports Group for approximately $750 million, according to individuals familiar with the matter. The deal values the owner of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC at more than $7 billion, according the people, who were granted anonymity because the matter is private. It would be the latest sports-related investment for RedBird, following the acquisition of Toulouse FC and the XFL, which is scheduled to relaunch in 2022.

RedBird founder Gerry Cardinale for some time has been trying to acquire a piece of Fenway, which is controlled by John Henry. Cardinale and Red Sox executive Sam Kennedy declined to comment. A SPAC, with $575 million in capital, led by Cardinale and Oakland A’s executive Billy Beane, had been in negotiations to acquire a portion of Fenway earlier this year, in a deal that would have valued the company at $8 billion. Those talks ultimately led to the private investment by RedBird. The deal will likely close in the next six weeks.

Fenway Sport Group boasts a portfolio of successful sports franchises. The Boston Red Sox have won four World Series this century and are a New England institution, drawing more than 2.9 million fans in 2019, more than 96% of its home field capacity. Liverpool, meanwhile, are the defending Premier League champions and considered one of the ‘Big 6’ teams that historically rule English soccer. Fenway also owns Roush Fenway Racing, one of the more successful auto racing teams in NASCAR, as well as the New England Sports Network. FSG also owns Fenway Park and some surrounding lots in central Boston, as well a marketing group that owns half of LeBron James’s marketing and brand rights.

Cardinale is also a stakeholder in the OneTeam Collective, along with the NFLPA and the MLBPA. It’s unclear if there would be any conflict in holding stakes in both ownership and union properties. RedBird also owns a stake of the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network, the regional broadcaster of the Red Sox rival New York Yankees. Cardinale entered that business in a 2019 deal valuing YES at $3.47 billion. Earlier this month RedBird bought a sizable minority stake in Wasserman Media Group, a sports marketing and talent agency.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun Feb 28, 2021 11:59 am

This should not come as too much of a surprise to those who have been following the thread closely - Suning owners of Inter Milan and PPTV have liquated their Chinese Super League club today, Jisangsu FC were reigning champions, the women's team has gone too.

https://twitter.com/titan_plus/status/1 ... 5203586050

it will be getting people increasingly nervous about Inter Milan, who remain on course for the Serie A title, that club have a lot of outstanding transfer debt, as well as all it's other problems, including a substantial sum to Manchester United for Lukaku

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 7323118592

imagine if Inter go into administration, what the consequential knock on could be throughout the football landscape as the football banking economy of staged transfer payment begins to stutter from one or more key hubs.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:56 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Sun Feb 28, 2021 11:59 am
This should not come as too much of a surprise to those who have been following the thread closely - Suning owners of Inter Milan and PPTV have liquated their Chinese Super League club today, Jisangsu FC were reigning champions, the women's team has gone too.

https://twitter.com/titan_plus/status/1 ... 5203586050

it will be getting people increasingly nervous about Inter Milan, who remain on course for the Serie A title, that club have a lot of outstanding transfer debt, as well as all it's other problems, including a substantial sum to Manchester United for Lukaku

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 7323118592

imagine if Inter go into administration, what the consequential knock on could be throughout the football landscape as the football banking economy of staged transfer payment begins to stutter from one or more key hubs.
@SwissRamble emphasising the point of transfer debt at Inter Milan - that is significant number

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 4944007168

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Mon Mar 01, 2021 1:06 pm

Fun and games at Barcelona this morning as a Police raid saw a number of arrests including the ex President Josep Maria Bartemou, The elections for a new President are supposed to happen this coming weekend

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... -operation

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Mon Mar 01, 2021 1:33 pm

this is an Interesting move in the Australian sports broadcast Market place, A relatively new OTT provider has outbid everyone for the next cycle of Champions League rights, the sums are not huge (you need to consider the local broadcast times, it will certainly make the Premier League sit up and notice though, they need new entrants into a lot of their markets to start bidding wars - from SportsProMedia

Report: Sports Flick in shock AUS$60m Champions League rights deal
Startup streaming service outbids Optus for Australian broadcast partnership.

Posted: March 1 2021By: Ed Dixon

- Three-year deal reportedly kicking off from 2021/22
- Sports Flick has focused on fringe sports and niche leagues sinch launch
- Platform’s CEO indicates more soccer rights deals are imminent

Sydney-based streaming service Sports Flick has emerged as the shock winner for broadcast rights to the Uefa Champions League in Australia, according to The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH).

The over-the-top (OTT) platform reportedly bid about AUS$60 million (US$46.4 million) to secure coverage of European club soccer’s elite competition for three years from the start of the 2021/22 season.

Currently, Sports Flick mainly streams fringe sports and leagues with niche local followings, such as Indian baseball, Nicaraguan soccer and Future Wrestling Australia. Optus Sport is Uefa’s current Champions League broadcaster in Australia but was reportedly ‘stunned’ by Sports Flick’s audacious offer, which the SMH adds took place under a 'blind auction-style' tender process.

Speculation that Optus Sport had lost the rights had been building in Australian media for weeks, but the fact that a fledgling brand like Sports Flick has seemingly captured the contract is a shock to the market.

That said, Sports Flick has been making inroads into soccer, securing rights to the K-League, South Korea's top-flight league, which Optus had also previously held. The service also has rights to the Uefa Women’s Champions League and the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) Arabian Gulf League. Those offerings sit alongside other content ranging from cricket and jujutsu to boxing and international rugby league.

Having initially focused on securing rights for more obscure content, any deal for the Champions League rights would elevate Sports Flick as a major player in the Australian broadcast space.

Sports Flick was founded by Dylan Azzopardi, who has also been its chief executive since January 2019. On his Twitter he has described the service as “a home for football”. On 25th February, he said that Sports Flick would be “announcing a few more football leagues in the coming days”, which has since included the top-tier Austrian Football Bundesliga.

Azzopardi also indicated in the same tweet that a further three leagues would follow, but stopped short of confirming one would be the Champions League.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Mon Mar 01, 2021 1:34 pm


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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Mon Mar 01, 2021 4:28 pm

A rare free article from Offthepitch.com looks at the potential benefits for Serie A clubs if the partnership with Private Equity om the commercial company happens

some charts to view as well, I will transcribe the words

https://offthepitch.com/a/potential-opt ... e-interest

Potential for optimising stadium and commercial infrastructure will retain investors' Serie A interest even if private equity sale breaks down

25 February 2021 2:11 PM

  • The postponement of a decision to allow a consortium of private equity firms to invest in Italy's top flight has seemingly put the deal in doubt.

  • Experts believe the arrangement, which would see CVC, Advent and FSI acquire a ten per cent stake for €1.6 billion, is still likely to go through, but warns of repercussions if it fails.

  • It's obvious why the league is interesting from an investment point of view as new 100-year leases with local municipalities effectively hand back clubs' control over their stadiums.

  • Optimising stadium infrastructure and commercial operations is key to understanding why recent acquisitions of clubs such as AS Roma and Parma have taken place.


EMIL GJERDING NIELSON AND MADS MEISNER nielson@offthepitch.com

The formalities looked to be in place when the Serie A in November last year said its 20 clubs had reached agreement to sell a ten per cent stake in the league to a consortium of CVC Capital, Advent International and FSI for €1.6 billion.

But now, three months later, the deal has still not been finalised and doubts have started to arise amid a separate decision over a sale of the league's domestic broadcasting rights for the next three seasons.

Last week, nine clubs refused to participate in a general assembly set to discuss the matter, believing the €750 million and €850 million a year bids from Sky and DAZN, respectively, fell short of expectations. The league reconvenes on Friday 26th February.

Is the league overplaying its hand? It's clear that the Serie A presents an attractive investment opportunity. While the coronavirus pandemic has contributed to a depreciation in value and thereby increased the upside for any investor, its historic product, strong brand and big-name clubs speak to its marketability.

Recent acquisitions of AS Roma, Parma, and Spezia by American investors only further highlight the potential. Andrea Sartori, KPMG global head of sports, says the trend already emerged before the pandemic, which only ended up amplifying it to an unprecedented extent.

The interest, he says, is explained "by the alignment of a favourable opportunity for the financial investors and the urgent need of liquidity of the industry, due to the pandemic."

"Investors had been looking to invest into the football business even before the pandemic, attracted by more stable and more predictable revenues and cash flow, and by the potential growth expected for some leagues and clubs," Sartori says.

However, the league's true potential actually lies in what it doesn't have, according to industry experts and insiders: a culture of sustainable financial management, commercial and technological knowhow, and modern stadium infrastructure capable of driving revenues across the board.

Lack of sophistication

As has been the case with most other investments made in football over the past year, the interest stems in part from the financial turmoil, with the crisis removing revenue at the blink of an eye without a corresponding decrease in expenses.

The result of lessening value is that a return can immediately be generated by simply getting the depressed asset back on track, enabling you to in the meantime cut unnecessary costs, aka streamline, and develop business areas that perhaps haven't been performing in line with industry benchmarks.

"The implied value has decreased due to the pandemic, meaning you can invest at a convenient price with the expectation that the effect of the pandemic will be offset and result in a remarkable return on investment or capital gain over 4-5 years," says Antonio Boccia, an experienced IPO and M&A advisor at Bestinver.

In the Serie A, there are plenty of areas to focus on. Some describe the league as not as sophisticated as, say, the Premier League, in terms of commercial performance, especially because its use of technology and innovation in general is lacking.

Accordingly, that presents an investor with a significant upside – especially for someone as well-connected and experienced as the bidders in question.

But there are also other areas to look at. Infrastructure in particular should be an area of importance given how a stadium can not only drive revenue through matchday income but through prominent partnerships and non-matchday events.

The Commisso problem

The main issue in Italy has for a long time been that only few stadiums, Juventus' and Udinese's to name some, are owned by the clubs themselves – instead by their local governments - giving them little opportunity to develop what should be one of if not the core asset.

Fiorentina owner Rocco Commisso's struggle to build a new stadium is well known – something he elaborated on in a wide-ranging interview with Off The Pitch last year – but it seems like things are starting to change for the better.

Several teams are in ongoing discussions with their local municipalities over committing to 100-year leases for their stadiums, effectively handing ownership back to the clubs. That enables them to redevelop and make use of their stadiums for other innovative purposes besides hosting matches.

"Increasing stadium ownerships could definitely boost the renovation of the often obsolete venues currently used by the vast majority of the Italian clubs, with some positive exceptions like Juventus FC, Udinese Calcio and US Sassuolo Calcio," Sartori says.

"The realisation of new stadia, either as green field projects or renovations, could generate a virtuous circle, triggered by the growth of matchday revenues and an increasing commercial appeal leading to major resources to improve the squad, better sporting results and by consequence additional revenues."

Kyle Krause, the founder and CEO of Krause Group who took over relegation threatened Parma last year, recently said the redevelopment of the club's Stadio Tardini would move ahead even if they are reduced to the Serie B, exemplifying the potential for the significant return investors see in infrastructure.

Indeed, that could be a major factor in value creation for each individual club, but also to boost the overall quality of the league's product.

When democracy falls short

And that brings us back to TV rights. If anything, the past few months have highlighted some of the issues with a democratic league structure, where all clubs get one vote. The struggle to get the deal over the finish line precisely reveals why it could benefit the league to have a profit-oriented, neutral party negotiating commercial and broadcasting deals.

"The most important challenge for Serie A is the internationalisation process, in order to increase its appeal in new markets currently dominated by the English Premier League and the Spanish LaLiga. New investors could definitely help clubs/leagues by providing the needed resources to finance this growth process," Sartori says.

"Having an external company led by private equity funds managing TV rights could help the league to professionalise its activity, improve the decision-making process and facilitate the creation of a unique common strategy aiming to maximise the broadcasting deals' values, overcoming the frequent divergencies between various clubs."

CVC in particular has a successful track record in both rugby and Formula One and wouldn't be eyeing the Serie A if it didn't believe it could replicate the incremental value it has created in its other investments.

"At the end of the day they will likely find a solution, but the deal will be closed at conditions more favourable to the investors," Boccia says.

Sartori concurs though he remains more hesitant of the coming years' economic performance.

"Private equity funds usually set a target equity return for their investments of around 20-25 per cent. Considering also the current negative economic landscape, it is not so obvious expecting these kinds of returns in football, despite the potentials mentioned," he says.

The continued disruption of the pandemic of course adds another layer of upside to the investment for clubs, but the immediate cash pay-out is unlikely to be the decisive swing for clubs who currently find themselves balancing their bottom lines. That's why clubs have been prepared to play the waiting game.

"The big pro is the immediate liquidity injection that clubs would receive by the funds. On the other hand, clubs and the league would need to agree to give away part of their autonomy and let external parties enter in their governance: once again that's the price they would have to pay to receive oxygen and keep their business running," Sartori says.

An adverse effect of that, however – if the deal does fall through – could be scaring off future interest from investors who wouldn't want to deal with the struggle of balancing 20 conflicting interests.

But even if the league decides to go ahead without this particular consortium, investors are likely to remain interested and see upsides through either a professionalisation of commercial operations or infrastructure developments.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Mar 02, 2021 12:55 am

Chester Perry wrote:
Sat Feb 27, 2021 7:10 pm
It appears that Redbird Capital is back in for FSG after failing with the $8 billion reversal into the SPAC Redball, this time they are wanting 10% for around $750m - from Sportico.com

REDBIRD CAPITAL ACQUIRING TEN PERCENT OF FENWAY SPORTS GROUP FOR $750 MILLION
BY SCOTT SOSHNICK, BRENDAN COFFEY FEBRUARY 26, 2021 10:54AM

RedBird Capital is nearing a deal to acquire more than 10% of Fenway Sports Group for approximately $750 million, according to individuals familiar with the matter. The deal values the owner of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool FC at more than $7 billion, according the people, who were granted anonymity because the matter is private. It would be the latest sports-related investment for RedBird, following the acquisition of Toulouse FC and the XFL, which is scheduled to relaunch in 2022.

RedBird founder Gerry Cardinale for some time has been trying to acquire a piece of Fenway, which is controlled by John Henry. Cardinale and Red Sox executive Sam Kennedy declined to comment. A SPAC, with $575 million in capital, led by Cardinale and Oakland A’s executive Billy Beane, had been in negotiations to acquire a portion of Fenway earlier this year, in a deal that would have valued the company at $8 billion. Those talks ultimately led to the private investment by RedBird. The deal will likely close in the next six weeks.

Fenway Sport Group boasts a portfolio of successful sports franchises. The Boston Red Sox have won four World Series this century and are a New England institution, drawing more than 2.9 million fans in 2019, more than 96% of its home field capacity. Liverpool, meanwhile, are the defending Premier League champions and considered one of the ‘Big 6’ teams that historically rule English soccer. Fenway also owns Roush Fenway Racing, one of the more successful auto racing teams in NASCAR, as well as the New England Sports Network. FSG also owns Fenway Park and some surrounding lots in central Boston, as well a marketing group that owns half of LeBron James’s marketing and brand rights.

Cardinale is also a stakeholder in the OneTeam Collective, along with the NFLPA and the MLBPA. It’s unclear if there would be any conflict in holding stakes in both ownership and union properties. RedBird also owns a stake of the Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network, the regional broadcaster of the Red Sox rival New York Yankees. Cardinale entered that business in a 2019 deal valuing YES at $3.47 billion. Earlier this month RedBird bought a sizable minority stake in Wasserman Media Group, a sports marketing and talent agency.
The Huddle Up daily newsletter picks up the Redbird Capital bid for a share of FSG and offers some interesting views - there is a stand-out comment though -

https://huddleup.substack.com/p/fenway- ... LtNnjhKKv0

"On a micro level, sports media rights are expected to double within the next 5-7 years."

really, are you sure - and this is a very respected newsletter - I fail to see how this is possible

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Mar 02, 2021 1:14 am

Some goof Information to be had here - Kings Chambers are specialists in Insolvency and produce a periodic newsletter, this one focuses on Football Insolvency and a number of issues around it including the Football Creditor rule and The regulations within the game around insolvency, it finishes with an interview with the current administrators at Wigan

https://www.kingschambers.com/assets/fi ... lvency.pdf

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Mar 02, 2021 1:26 am

The election for the new President of CAF (Confederation of African Football is not until the 12th of March, but we already now who it will be thanks to the machinations of FIFA this past weekend and no doubt over the past year or so - as ever Philippe Auclair is on the case

https://twitter.com/PhilippeAuclair/sta ... 1126227969

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Mar 02, 2021 10:59 am

If the government wanted to send a message out on it's views in regard to gambling reform which includes sports sponsorship it appears to have done so with the new person in charge, there may be some relief in football - from the Guardian

Tory minister who backed FOBTs takes over review of gambling laws
John Whittingdale has a history of voting against stronger regulation of the industry

Rob Davies - Mon 1 Mar 2021 19.03 GMT

A Conservative minister who was in favour of allowing fixed-odds betting terminals (FOBTs) at motorway service stations and amusement arcades has been put in charge of a landmark review of gambling laws, the Guardian has learned.

Campaigners for gambling reform voiced concern after it emerged that John Whittingdale, the minister for media and data, is taking over responsibility for the review from the sports minister, Nigel Huddleston, nearly three months after it was launched.

They pointed to Whittingdale’s record of voting against stronger regulation of the industry and comments playing down the dangers of FOBTs.

Whittingdale was chair of the culture select committee when it produced a report suggesting that FOBTs should be permitted at venues such as bingo halls and amusement arcades. The 2012 report could also have led to the highly addictive £100-per-spin machines being installed at motorway service stations across the country. The proposals were not adopted by David Cameron’s government.

Whittingdale later took aim at the common description of FOBTs as the “crack cocaine” of gambling, telling an industry conference: “I’m not so sure they’ve even the cannabis of gambling.” NHS surveys have consistently shown that FOBTs are associated with higher rates of addiction than other gambling products.

In 2014, during a debate in the House of Commons, Whittingdale said it was “virtually impossible” to lose large sums on the machines. However, a later study by the Gambling Commission found that FOBT players lost more than £1,000 on more than 233,000 occasions over a 10-month period.

The Conservative government ultimately cut the maximum stake from £100 to £2, branding the machines a “social blight”.

Labour’s Carolyn Harris, who chairs a cross-party group of MPs investigating gambling-related harm, said she was concerned at the change in ministerial oversight of the review.

“Given the new appointee has a history of being strongly supportive of the industry, I very much hope he will be focused on the evidence and not influenced by aggressive industry lobbying,” she said.

The change is thought to be due to the intensity of Huddleston’s workload overseeing efforts to alleviate the impact of Covid-19 on sport, tourism and heritage.

A spokesperson for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: “The minister [Whittingdale] fully supports the comprehensive, evidence-led review of the gambling act to ensure that legislation is fit for the digital age.”

Liz Ritchie, of the charity Gambling with Lives, which was set up by families bereaved by gambling-related suicide, said: “The failures of successive ministers to right the wrongs of the 2005 Gambling Act and rein in the greed of the gambling industry has led to thousands of people dying through gambling related suicide and millions of lives torn apart. The new minister has a chance to put this right. Bereaved families will hold him to the task of preserving the lives of the next generation.”

Voting records show Whittingdale has consistently opposed measures to impose tighter controls on the sector. In 2013 he voted not to require gambling companies to ban people who have registered for self-exclusion. In 2011 he voted against measures that would have prevented gambling companies from getting automatic planning permission to open shops in plots vacated by banks.

Matt Zarb-Cousin, of the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, said: “Public support for gambling reform is overwhelming. So if the government’s going to get its gambling review right, hopefully John’s views have changed since 2012.”

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Mar 02, 2021 2:07 pm

We have had the four part series - An Experts guide to owning a European soccer club from SportsProMedia now here it is in a podcast

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

I think this is better than the articles - more detail and more coherent

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:13 pm

2022 sees two major sporting event the Winter Olympics in China and the World Cup in Qatar - the former is currently the subject of much discussion about boycott centred on the Uyghur situation, in Qatar the issues are not just to do the migrant workers, one country, Norway, at least is being pushed into a debate by football fans over a boycott

https://twitter.com/FotMob/status/1366342360452517888

this could all change quickly though, following the recent article on migrant worker deaths in the Guardian as this move by the Dutch trade ministry shows

https://twitter.com/DM_Harding/status/1 ... 9889773569

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Mar 02, 2021 7:28 pm

We keep reading about the huge amount of American Private Equity money wanting to grab hold of a sports Franchise - well there is one going in Sacramento the site of an MLS expansion franchise for 2023 - where the Prime billionaire investor has pulled out citing escalated costs as a result of Covid - from ESPN

Sacramento MLS team on indefinite hold after investor pulls out of deal

27 Feb, 2021 - Jeff Carlisle

Major League Soccer announced on Friday that the expansion team set for Sacramento, California, scheduled to begin play in 2023, is now on indefinite hold after Ron Burkle, the primary investor of the proposed team, informed MLS officials that he has "decided not to move forward with the acquisition of an MLS expansion team" in the city because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation cited increasing costs associated with building a stadium at the Downtown Railyards site as the primary reason Burkle, who also co-owns the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League, decided not to move forward. One source said that the costs for the Sacramento stadium went from $300 million to $400 million, while infrastructure costs increased from $27 million to $47 million. On top of those increases, the ability to raise funds from the projects' limited partners, all in the middle of a pandemic, fell roughly $60 million short of what was anticipated

"After working for many years to bring an MLS team to Sacramento, the League continues to believe it can be a great MLS market," MLS said in a statement. "In the coming days, the League will work with Mayor Darrell Steinberg to evaluate possible next steps for MLS in Sacramento."

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, in a statement to ESPN, said, "I am very disappointed in Mr. Burkle's decision to step out of his October 2019 public commitment to our city. Despite the difficult past year for our city, we have upheld every commitment to Mr. Burkle, the league, and our community. We took major steps to welcome Major League Soccer to a new stadium in The Railyards, and we remain prepared to move forward immediately.

"I greatly appreciate the support of Commissioner Don Garber and MLS. They have done right by us, and they continue to stand behind us. We will still bring MLS to Sacramento, and we will work with the league to find a new lead investor."

MLS announced the team in Sacramento to much fanfare in October 2019, but the deal was complicated. Not only did Burkle and co-investor Matt Alvarez need to put up a $200 million expansion fee, plus the costs of the stadium, but Burkle and Alvarez also needed to acquire a majority stake in USL Championship side Sacramento Republic from owner Kevin Nagle. That part of the deal was also not completed.

Doubts began to emerge earlier this year about whether Burkle would move forward with the project after The Athletic reported that his group had not signed the long-form agreement with MLS. That news proved a harbinger, as Burkle informed MLS on late Friday that he was pulling out of the deal. Sources confirmed an additional report in The Athletic that Burkle's group never signed the long-form agreement with MLS.

"I want to thank Mayor Steinberg for his continued efforts to bring MLS to Sacramento," MLS commissioner Don Garber said. "His commitment to the city and delivering for its passionate soccer fans should make all citizens of Sacramento proud.

"Interest in owning a club in Major League Soccer has never been higher. And I remain incredibly optimistic about finalizing expansion plans for our 30th team."

The announcement amounts to a massive setback, and possibly a death knell, for Sacramento's expansion hopes. While the Sacramento Republic remains well supported, finding an ownership group with sufficiently deep pockets has been a struggle. In late 2017, Sacramento was thought to be one of the front-runners in the expansion race but ended up losing out to Nashville and Cincinnati when Meg Whitman opted not to invest in Sacramento's expansion effort.

Burkle was thought to be Sacramento's main investor, but now, despite having a stadium site picked out, Sacramento's future as a home for an MLS team is in serious doubt.

"We are not starting from scratch by any means," Mayor Steinberg added, "We have an approved stadium plan and an approved plan to build and pay for infrastructure. We also have the best fan base in the country -- one that has shown time and time again that it can support an MLS team."

"We have only begun to fight for what our city deserves.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Mar 02, 2021 7:35 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Wed Feb 17, 2021 1:17 am
The problems and disputes over the allocation of rights for Serie A in the next cycle continue - it is all quite messy - from SportsBusiness.com

Serie A delays Mena bid deadline again, top clubs demand domestic rights vote
Martin Ross - February 16, 2021

Lega Serie A’s broadcast rights sales process in the Middle East and North Africa has been further delayed after the bid deadline was pushed back for a second time.

Having launched the sales process on January 15, the league went on to delay the original February 1 deadline by two weeks. Ahead of yesterday’s (Monday’s) rescheduled deadline, the league opted to issue a new deadline of 10am (CET) on February 28.

The latest delay comes amid tepid interest from incumbent rights-holder beIN Media Group, with the pay-television broadcaster left frustrated by a sales process that allows country-specific bids.

The league’s difficulties in generating sufficient interest in the Mena rights also come with leading clubs pushing for a vote to be held tomorrow on the domestic rights. Elsewhere, Lega Serie A chief executive Luigi De Siervo has raised the possibility of a weekly free-to-air match to boost exposure.

The domestic and international rights are available for the next three-season cycle, from 2021-22 to 2023-24, and also include the Coppa Italia and Supercoppa Italiana. Rights in the Mena region are being offered in a region-wide package and also individual packages in each country, including Saudi Arabia.

Lega Serie A has already entered into a process of private negotiations with agencies and broadcasters for broadcast rights in the rest of the world in a separate tender process.

Tensions surfaced during the current rights cycle between beIN and the league. This peaked in June as beIN enacted a blackout of coverage amid ongoing tensions over the league’s relationship with Saudi Arabia and the country’s links to pirate channel beoutQ.

A compensation deal with the league and IMG, the agency that holds the international rights, was subsequently struck and coverage resumed. The broadcaster’s original Serie A rights agreement across various territories, including France, Australia and the Middle East and North Africa was worth around $170m (€140m) per season.

During its recent Mena rights sales process, the English Premier League agreed a new three-year deal with beIN worth a total of $500m and covering the whole region.

The beIN-Lega Serie A relationship became particularly strained following the league’s decision to host the Supercoppa in Saudi Arabia. The kingdom had enforced an economic blockade on Qatar, the home nation and state funder of beIN, though that has now been lifted.

The Supercoppa hosting agreement, which is referenced in the tender, allows for Saudi Arabia to host three editions of the flagship match between 2018-19 and 2022-23. With two iterations having already been staged in the kingdom, the ITT document underlines that the broadcast rights in Saudi Arabia have already been awarded exclusively for the remaining match to be played in the country.

It is also stated that if the match is played in another Mena country, then the rights “may also be granted by Lega Serie A to one single other broadcaster for any form of broadcasting in such country” and for the season in question.

IMG acquired the Serie A international rights from 2018-19 to 2020-21 in a deal originally worth just over €380m ($460m) per season. That covers international broadcast rights, club archive rights, betting rights, a marketing spend and fee for access to the broadcast signal. An ambitious financial target for the international rights of somewhere between the fee currently paid by IMG and €500m per season was outlined by the league upon the tender’s launch.

As with the global rights ITT, Lega Serie A has excluded a package of rights in Mena which it previously carved out for Italian nationals living abroad.
There are suggestions that the Mena rights sale for Serie A is still struggling with BeIN Sport remaining trued to their word and not bidding, exactly as they acted with the Bundesliga - it is making that Premier League deal look extremely strong value, even though the price has not increased

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Mar 03, 2021 5:32 pm

The presidential election at Barcelona on Sunday, combined with more disturbing recent events gives Sam Wallace of the Telegraph, to ram home is long time held views on both of the Spanish big two.

New Barcelona president will be beholden to club's bankers rather than its members
SAM WALLACE MARCH 03, 2021

The candidate most likely to win the Barcelona presidential elections this Sunday, Joan Laporta, a lawyer who was ousted from the role 11 years earlier, is already talking about a refinancing of the giant debt, in excess of €1 billion, that the next regime will have to handle.

Barcelona are drowning in debt and, consolidated or not, it puts in perspective the notion of who runs the club that had traded on the democracy of its fan-ownership structure for years. Will it be the president elected by his fellow 140,000 socio members? Or will it be Goldman Sachs or any of the other financial institutions with whom the club will have to negotiate for their survival. “Mes que un club”? More like just another football institution, jacked up on debt and in thrall to its lenders.

This has been another dreadful week for one half of Spain’s impecunious big two. The arrest of former president Jose Maria Bartomeu, the scion of rich Catalan industrialists, who spent Monday night in a jail in the city demonstrated how dirty the war has become. The club’s alleged part in the smearing of leading players including Lionel Messi, on social media, and the vast sums they paid for a consultancy to do so is potentially a dreadful stain on a famous institution. In the end, however, it will all be about the debt and what kind of club emerges from under it.

In spite of Barcelona’s success on the pitch Laporta lost the presidency in 2010 amid allegations that the club was financially mismanaged off the field. Compared to the current situation, the Laporta years look like the model of restraint. He is popular, and has destroyed the lead that rival Victor Font previously held in the polls, but Laporta can only play the hand that he has been dealt. The US investment bank Goldman Sachs has already agreed in principle to finance the stadium redevelopment programme, and there are discussions about a further €850 million by issuing bonds to refinance the debt. What’s another €850 million between friends?

It will be the lenders who run Barcelona in the future, not the members or the president. And one might argue that they could hardly do a worse job than the elected officials who – paying no more than the standard annual membership fee - have marshalled the club’s finances disastrously.

A third candidate, Antoni Freixa is talking up the sale of the merchandising and licensing subsidiary “Barca Corporate” – which he says will raise €250 million to sign two or three “top players”. Prompting those who have looked at the balance sheet to wonder: what planet is he on? The money is no more than the sale of future revenues to an investment fund who are then repaid out of future profits, also claiming any rise in margins. Real Madrid have the same deal in place with the US hedge fund Providence. Both clubs present the loan as revenue to boost the headline figure of their annual turnover, but it is just more of the same: selling tomorrow to pay for today.

Freixa, like many others, seems to be intoxicated by the Barcelona of the past – as if the transfer spending of the 2000s and the 2010s is a spell that cannot be broken. Perhaps someone needs to sit him down and tell him it is over. What matters now is how the club handles its deficit, and whether it can stay alive. Freixa is not the only one. There are elements of the Spanish media who feel that if they just keep ignoring it, and focussing on the next fantasy signing, then maybe they can keep reality at bay.

Covid-19 has brought the unsustainable financial models of Barcelona and Real Madrid – not to mention their dismal standards of governance – to their knees, but the seeds were sown years before the pandemic. Florentino Perez, the Real president who changed the rules to mean that it was impossible for him to be challenged in elections. Bartomeu, the Barcelona president who presided over the meltdown in relations between club and squad.

In these febrile days, the picture can change quickly. The interim president Carlos Tusquets has been outspoken about the dismal finances despite being part of the Bartomeu administration himself. The famous former player Xavi Hernandez has moved from being a Font supporter to a position of neutrality, presumably as Laporta’s poll numbers have surged. Jordi Cruyff, who wields the proxy for his late father Johan, switched allegiances from Font to Laporta – casually announcing it midway through a radio interview.

Meanwhile Catalan independence politics play out in the background, and there are even suggestions that the former Barcelona regime are being made to pay for their lack of public support for the region’s imprisoned political and cultural figures. Whatever the truth of that, their transfer spending alone warrants an independent inquiry. Although there are barely the funds for anything these days.

Laporta, who brought Ronaldinho and Deco to the club – and agreed a deal with Manchester United for David Beckham in 2003 which the player refused to entertain – will no doubt have some tricks up his sleeve if elected. He may yet find a way of persuading Messi to stay, although he might have to pay the little maestro in seashells and bottle tops. But in the end, Laporta is just an administrator – a lawyer with a fondness for the city’s nightlife – not a billionaire or nation-state investment fund.

The saddest part of Barcelona’s debt, and that of Real too, is that it suggests that European football’s great member-owned clubs of the 20th century are a liability. Not because the vast majority of the support do not care but because the few who are elected to run them do not care enough. Incompetent, venal, profligate and perhaps worse than that. More than a club? Not anymore. It is a club in thrall to a power far greater than itself. Whoever controls the debt, controls Barcelona.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 12:39 pm

This should be interesting - The Business of Sport Podcast from the Athletic today looks at - Football Club Ownership: Data, Decisions & Competitive Edge

the blurb

Host Mark Chapman and The Athletic's football news reporter Matt Slater speak to Simon Hallett, owner of English League One side Plymouth Argyle football club and Chief Investment Officer at Harding Loevner, an investment boutique that manages more than $70 billion for individuals and institutions about how he finds the balances between running a football club like a business and a labour of love - as a life-long Plymouth fan.

We hear about the business processes implemented in leading a football club at the intersection of economics, finance and psychology and data.

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cH ... IExAF&ep=6

EDIT this is absolutely fascinating particularly the discussion about the nonsensical belief in genius and on decision making and the psychology around it. sounds an awful lot like the approach our club has taken with Sean Dyche down the years

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 1:03 pm

In what can only be good news for the fans and players it seems that Coventry city are close to be returning to the Ricoh stadium - from the BBC

Coventry City are close to finalising a deal to return to the Ricoh Arena next season, BBC CWR reports.

It is understood a deal with rugby union side Wasps - the owners of the ground - is all but agreed and could be confirmed as early as Friday.

The Sky Blues have shared Birmingham's St Andrew's stadium since August 2019.

The English Football League will discuss the issue at a board meeting on Wednesday, when some of the details are expected to be signed off.

The deal, which contains break clauses, will be for up to 10 years, although Championship side Coventry will be guaranteed a minimum of seven years back at the Ricoh Arena.

Club owners Sisu still aim to build a new stadium on the south-west edge of the city, on land owned by the University of Warwick.

An agreement to end Coventry's groundshare deal with Birmingham is yet to be reached, with a significant cost understood to come with ending the deal.

A long-running saga
Coventry left Highfield Road in 2005 to move to the Ricoh Arena but, after a long-running rent row escalated, they spent the 2013-14 season at Northampton Town's Sixfields.

The Sky Blues returned to the Ricoh in September 2014, followed by Wasps moving in three months later. The ground, part-owned by the city council, was then sold to the Premiership rugby union club.

City then spent the next four full seasons there but Sisu could not reach an agreement with Wasps to play the 2019-20 campaign there and found alternative arrangements at St Andrew's.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 3:05 pm

It has taken quite a while and even a journey to a higher court to overturn a previous judgement, but the news for the big two Spanish clubs just does not get any better, They and two others have been ordered to repay , what has been determined as State aid by the European Courts - from the Associated Press

https://apnews.com/article/europe-madri ... d768d7e228

EU’s court deals setback to Barcelona, Madrid in tax case
By SAMUEL PETREQUIN
today

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union’s top court dealt a blow to Barcelona, Real Madrid and two other Spanish soccer clubs on Thursday by upholding a decision from the bloc’s executive arm ordering they should pay back illegal state aid.

In its final ruling, the European Court of Justice canceled a previous legal decision two years ago by a lower EU court that found the clubs’ tax regime was lawful, and said the action brought by Barcelona is “definitively rejected.”

In 2019, the Luxembourg-based General Court annulled a decision by the European Commission dating back to 2016 ordering the clubs to repay several million euros in tax compensations. The EU’s executive arm had found at the time that public support measures granted by Spain to several professional soccer clubs gave them an unfair advantage over other teams, in breach of EU state aid rules.

When the General Court annulled the decision, it said the commission had not proved the tax regime constituted an unlawful economic advantage. But the ECJ ruled that the lower court committed an error in law and observed that the measures which also benefited Osasuna and Athletic Bilbao indeed constituted an aid scheme covering an unspecified amount of money and time, and was not linked to a specific project.

The Commission said the four clubs were treated as non-profit organizations and paid a 5% lower tax rate on profit than rivals during more than 20 years, without an objective justification. It said the money to be recovered would be limited to 5 million euros ($6 million) per club but that the precise amount should be fixed by Spanish authorities.

Barcelona has been going through a turbulent week after former president Josep Bartomeu appeared before a judge following a night in jail while being investigated for possible irregularities during his administration. Bartomeu and other officials were arrested on Monday after Catalan police raided Barcelona’s headquarters in a search and seizure operation.

The arrests came less than a week before the club holds presidential elections.

Barcelona is coming off its first season without a trophy since 2007-08 and has a debt of more than 1.1 billion euros ($1.3 billion), largely because of the coronavirus crisis.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 8:56 pm

Manchester Uniteds first half financial results will be coming out in the next few minutes followed by an analysts call with Ed Woodward - for some reason their share have gone through the rood lately, I suspect they are about to fall

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 0286135298

This is interesting from the Manchester Evening News

Why the conference call is so late this time around
The inconsiderate timing of United's quarterly call is telling.

Usually, the statement carrying Ed Woodward's quotes drops at 12pm UK time - before the New York Stock Exchange opens - and the call takes place at 1pm. Tonight, United are conducting their business after the NYSE closes.

Most of the British newspapers will have arranged their sports pages by the time Woodward's call, due to begin at 9.30pm, is over and, whatever lines emerge from United's figures, it might not make the national 'papers. Liverpool-Chelsea is also due to finish at around 10pm, which is more news-worthy.

United are usually very eager to put a positive spin on the quarterly numbers. Not this time. They are trying to sweep some unflattering numbers under the carpet and have decided to eschew the damage control tactic.

The only time they opted for that all season was when they confirmed they had agreed a fee with Porto for Alex Telles - after United had been trounced 6-1 by Tottenham. You can guess what made the back pages.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 9:18 pm

You can follow the detail of the analysts call here

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... e-19966121

try not to get confused by the numbers they included the final few games of last season and merit payments, plus monies from the Europa League campaign

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 9:26 pm

Anyone. like me, wondering how Manchester United have recorded £3.2m of matchday revenue for the six months (£2m q1 £1,2m q2) - pittance for them but more than we would normally expect in a normal season

Manchester United also have a revolving £200m credit facility that is likely to be at a quarter or less interest that ALK are paying on their circa £200m valuation of Burnley - United used £60m of it in the last quarter, roughly what MSD lent to ALK to buy us, for united it will have covered operating costs and possible the transfer of their latest wonderkid

a good summary of the released data

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... 21-Results

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 10:12 pm

It seems like Ed Woodward believes there will be significant growth in overseas broadcast income in the next cycle - it is difficult to see how, despite the Nent deal and the likely increase from America, when you offset the China depreciation and flat to depreciating trends across Europe, especially when you include rebates and all that accepts that the Premier League is the Premium football product in most of those markets, in most cases over and above the domestic league

Growth for broadcasting figures?
"The NFL is the best example to point to in terms of a premium sports league.

"The way we thing about growth is likely to be with lower rated growth in UK rights sales but set-off by big growth on international side."

"Cycle 21-24 during Covid has seen some growth rates. Don't really want to put number on growth, but there is positivity even during Covid."

Ed Woodward

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:02 pm

@KieranMaguire with a quick look at those MAnchester United Q2 financial results

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 8121210880

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:15 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:31 pm
Apparently today is the day that Serie A clubs will determine who wins the domestic broadcast rights in the next cycle, we have been here before of course - 9 of 20 clubs failed to attend the virtual meeting last time and there is still the unsettled issue of a Private Equity commercial partner. Meanwhile Sky Italia have taken a new tack in their efforts to block the DAZM/Telecom Italia bid - from SportsBusiness.com

DAZN, Sky joust over market competition issue before crucial Serie A meeting
Martin Ross
February 26, 2021

DAZN, the OTT subscription broadcaster, has defended the availability of its potential Serie A output during the 2021-24 cycle after rival bidder Sky Italia, the pay-television broadcaster, wrote to the league to raise its concerns over an impact on competition in the market.

Having teamed up with Telecom Italia (TIM), the Italian telecoms operator, DAZN has submitted the leading offer of €840m ($1.02bn) per season for rights to seven exclusive matches per matchweek and co-exclusive rights to three matches.

Ahead of a league assembly meeting today (Friday) to vote on a rights award, Sky has sought to increase pressure on the clubs by flagging its concerns to Lega Serie A in a letter, the details of which have been leaked to the press.

The letter, seen by Italian news agency Ansa, claims that TIM would “benefit from preferential treatment in the distribution of DAZN, despite TIM being the incumbent operator with greater market strength in Italy, in particular in the broadband segment”.

Maximo Ibarra, the Sky Italia chief executive, writes that “such a preferential distribution agreement could therefore generate potential competitive and compatibility issues with the Melandri Law”.

At the start of the week, TIM clarified the nature of its support for DAZN’s bid as it emerged that the telco would cover around 40 per cent of DAZN’s proposed rights fee investment. TIM has said that it is not taking part in the rights tender but is supporting DAZN’s proposal, having “signed an agreement to supplement the already existing distribution agreement [with DAZN], conditional upon DAZN being awarded the aforementioned tender”.

Sky argues that the distribution agreement threatens to “restrict access to football” and thus “damages the value of Serie A”. It underlined the importance of Serie A matches being distributed across all platforms and the maximum number of devices.

In response, DAZN said this morning: “First of all, it is stressed that the possible acquisition by DAZN of the Serie A TV rights for the next three seasons would represent an important opportunity for the expansion of the pay-TV market, and would also be an opportunity to accelerate the process of digitization and modernization of the whole country.

“DAZN contents would continue to be enjoyed, as is already the case today, through the broadband services of all telephone operators and devices available in Italy. DAZN, like Netflix, Amazon and Disney+, in fact represents the future of distribution and fruition of video contents that consumers can experience in absolute freedom and comfort.”

In a direct swipe at Sky’s erstwhile dominance, DAZN added: “Finally, the concerns expressed about a penalisation of football fans who – it is said – would no longer be guaranteed a plurality of vision, seems peculiar to say the least, considering that the soccer market has historically always been characterised by a dominant player, and this also emerged from recent AGCM [Italy’s antitrust authority] rulings.”

Last year, Italy’s Council of State rejected an appeal by Sky against a ban on the Italian pay-television broadcaster acquiring exclusive digital media rights. Sky filed its appeal in July last year and had hoped that the process would overturn the imposition placed upon it by the AGCM.

TIM’s alliance with DAZN is also thought to include technological support.

Along with streaming on its OTT platform, DAZN currently airs Serie A action on its linear channel, which is available on Sky’s pay-television platform. The DAZN offering is also available as an add-on for subscribers to Telecom Italia’s TIMvision live streaming and video-on-demand service, and to Vodafone’s television customers.

Should DAZN be awarded the rights on the terms offered, then 40 per cent of its bid would equate to €336m per year. TIM’s payments would be settled in six annual instalments of identical amounts “made to an escrow bank account to be used exclusively for payments to Serie A”, according to details of a letter published by Bloomberg.

Serie A’s existing deals with Sky and DAZN (from 2018-19 to 2020-21) are worth €973m per year.

Sky is thought to have bid €750m for Package 2, one of the ‘mixed’ marketing packages offered by Lega Serie A, comprising rights across all platforms but with only co-exclusivity for internet, IPTV and mobile rights. It recently emerged that Sky has offered an upfront payment of €505m as part of its offer, including the settling of the disputed final instalment for the 2019-20 season.

Ahead of today’s seemingly crucial league assembly meeting, subscription broadcaster Eleven Sports has made an offer for the ‘Lega’ channel project, according to Il Sole 24 Ore.

Should rights be awarded to DAZN on the terms reported, then revenue over and above the €840m per year would come from the sale of non-exclusive rights to the three matches. The league would also be saving a commission payment of between €50m and €60m per season to the Infront agency, its outgoing media-rights adviser.

Serie A clubs have continued to mull over the domestic rights bids as there remains nervousness about whether a private equity agreement will be signed off.

The launch of the domestic tender came just weeks after Serie A clubs accepted an offer from private equity companies including CVC for a 10-per-cent stake in a new entity that will manage its media-rights business. The proposal is worth €1.7bn and also involves fellow private equity firm Advent International and Italy’s state-backed investor Fondo Strategico Italiano (FSI).

While Serie A’s smaller clubs have thus far stopped short of backing a vote for the domestic media rights sales, the league’s top clubs have been keen to vote. These clubs are thought to include AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Lazio, Udinese, Napoli and Fiorentina.
It didn't happen then and apparently it hasn't happened again today, they will have another go next Thursday - you do wonder what the outcome will be for Serie A's domestic rights in the next cycle - then there is still the minor issue of whether or not to accept the money from Private Equity - that is looking like a bigger issue in all this I have to say

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Mar 04, 2021 11:30 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:13 pm
2022 sees two major sporting event the Winter Olympics in China and the World Cup in Qatar - the former is currently the subject of much discussion about boycott centred on the Uyghur situation, in Qatar the issues are not just to do the migrant workers, one country, Norway, at least is being pushed into a debate by football fans over a boycott

https://twitter.com/FotMob/status/1366342360452517888

this could all change quickly though, following the recent article on migrant worker deaths in the Guardian as this move by the Dutch trade ministry shows

https://twitter.com/DM_Harding/status/1 ... 9889773569
The calls to boycott the Qatar World Cup are growing, Imagine if broadcasters and sponsors joined in the boycott - that would really force FIFA into actually doing something - this article from the Independent focuses on a Danish protest

The growing calls for a boycott of the Qatar World Cup
A backlash against the tournament being held in the Gulf state has intensified in recent weeks

David Harding International Editor - 10 hours ago

In December, Danish caretaker Casper Fischer did something he had never done before.

The 32 year old decided to petition Denmark’s parliament – the Folketing – to get the country’s national football team to boycott the World Cup finals being held in Qatar next year.

Together with five co-sponsors, Mr Fischer, who lives close to Copenhagen, said Denmark should forsake playing in the tournament in protest at the poor human rights’ conditions in the Gulf host nation, as well as Fifa corruption.

“We do not believe that we, as a democratic nation striving to live up to global human rights, can benefit from having some of the country’s most prominent sporting players participate in the finals and blue-stamp a dictatorship like Qatar,” states the petition.

If Mr Fischer manages to get 50,000 signatures by June 8 then, under Danish law, the country’s participation in the Qatar 2022 World Cup will have to be debated in the national parliament.

But even if he fails,the petition seems to have galvanised debate about participation in 2022, especially in Denmark, but also beyond. To date, almost 7,000 have signed

“I’d be more surprised if we reach the 50,000 than if we don’t,” Mr Fischer tells The Independent. “The 50,000 signatures was not the aim in itself. The aim was to shed light on how problematic it is that the second biggest sport event in the world is being held in Qatar.”

It is clear that Mr Fischer is not alone in his views.

One MP, Karsten Honge of the Socialist People’s Party, has backed the need for any parliamentary debate regardless of a petition, claiming it would allow Denmark’s point of view to be “seen and heard” in Qatar.

Even if there was no boycott, a parliamentary debate would “put maximum pressure on Qatar to improve human rights and workers’ rights”, Honge tells The Independent.

And the bank which sponsors the Danish team’s training gear, Arbejdernes Landsbank, says it does not want to be associated with the tournament.

“The World Cup in Qatar is a problem,” Peter Froulund, head of branding and communication at the bank says. “We have to decide what is the best way to approach this.”

A final decision on sponsorship will be taken in the summer, said Froulund, but it is “likely” that the bank will withdraw its branding if Denmark - top seeds in their qualifying group and drawn against countries including Scotland and Israel, as well as reaching the last 16 in the 2018 World Cup – heads to Qatar in November 2022.

The Danish Football Union has said it supports “a dialogue” with Qatar, rather than backing a boycott, unless that boycott extends to “business and diplomacy”, says the DFU’s Jakob Hoyer.

And talk of a boycott has in recent days extended to several top flight league clubs in Norway, including Tromso, who have openly called for the national team to not take part in the tournament.

Since it was controversially and surprisingly handed the right to host the World Cup back in 2010, Qatar has come intense scrutiny, especially on human rights, and faced many calls in the West to have the tournament taken away.

But the last few months have seen the most concerted calls for a boycott. These have increased in the past few days since a report in The Guardian that 6,500 Asian workers have died in Qatar since 2010.

The Gulf monarchy has embarked upon an unprecedented building programme in readiness for 2022.

Eight stadiums are being built from scratch or revamped for the tournament, dozens of news roads, a new metro system, airport, hotels, even a brand new city will be constructed in time for the World Cup. In 2017, Qatar revealed it was spending $500 million a week on the World Cup, an eye-watering amount even for a country transformed into one of the wealthiest on earth by vast gas revenues.

The transformation of the country is unique among nations preparing for a sporting tournament. When former Fifa president Sepp Blatter announced Qatar would be the 2022 host, just 1.8 million lived and worked in Qatar. Today, the population is around 2.8 million, swollen by importing hundreds and thousands of construction workers many from Bangladesh, Nepal, India and Pakistan.

It is the treatment of these workers which has caused huge concern around the world, with allegations - many substantiated - that too many live in poor accommodation, regularly go unpaid, and are treated appallingly by bosses in a system which is modern-day slavery.

Qatar has pointed to labour reforms already made – including ending the exploitative ‘kafala’ system, where workers could not change jobs without employers’ consent - and the promise of more changes in the pipeline.

But it has not been enough to silence critics and in the two days following the publication of the Guardian death story, Mr Fischer says the petition got 700 more signatures.

Fifa told The Independent: “We don’t think that a boycott of the World Cup would be the right approach or would serve any useful purpose to address any human rights issues in Qatar,” said a spokesperson.

“To be frank, we actually think that engagement and dialogue is the best way to promote understanding of universal human rights values.”

Boycotts of World Cups may be more common than is actually realised, with arguably the most significant happening in 1966, when all African nations refused to play in the tournament held in England over the number of spaces allocated to teams from the continent.

“My head tells me that a boycott of Qatar 2022 is unlikely,” says Simon Chadwick, professor of Eurasian Sport, Emlyon Business School in France. “Such a move would be unprecedented, create all manner of issues for those involved, and would be an overly simplistic response to a complex matter.

“However in my heart, it feels like anything is currently possible.”

Any boycott - should it happen - would almost certainly be confined to a few Western countries. Support for holding the World Cup in an Arab, Muslim country, the first in the Middle East to host it, has lots of backing elsewhere.

Some have questioned the motives of those in the West who want a boycott, and why Qatar is being targeted.

“The reality is that some people decided 10 years ago that they would never support a World Cup in Qatar,” a Qatari fan tells The Independent. “The World Cups in Brazil, Russia and South Africa had problems related to poverty, the environment and human rights, but I don’t recall any movements to boycott those tournaments.”

The World Cup “will do a lot of good things for my country”, added the Qatari.

If no boycotts go ahead, one form of protest that might be seen in 2022 is ‘taking a knee’. In an era of on the pitch protests, it is not unfeasible that some players might show solidarity with the cause of workers who have sacrificed all for football’s biggest tournament.

Online, some have called for such a move and Karsten Honge says such a move could “be one way” to protest.

It is certainly something World Cup organisers should be prepared for says Professor Chadwick.

“It is not inconceivable that players will take a knee to protest, perhaps about workers’ rights,” he says. “However some may feel compelled to protests about LGBT rights, or about Qatar’s environmental record. The question then becomes: how will Qatar and FIFA prepare for such protests and what action will they take?

“As Qatar 2022 draws closer football’s world governing body will need to make clear what its position is.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:22 am

This is an interesting podcast - from Ornstein and Chapman - Jorge Mendes & Wolves’ Portuguese revolution

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cH ... g&hl=en-GB

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 11:56 am

@AndyhHolt with a very interesting perspective on the EFL rules around administration this morning - there is a lot to consider here as it looks like Wigan may complete a whole season under administration and there is a possibility that could run into a second season or they end up playing another team in administration

https://twitter.com/AndyhHolt/status/13 ... 2252794885

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:15 pm

A great article from Miguel Delaney in the Independent, debating whether it is possible for Manchester City to ever become a bigger club than Manchester United ahead of this weekend's derby. There is much here to consider for our own club and it's journey of growth (hopefully) and also looking at what the new owners will be seeking to develop

Could Manchester City ever be bigger than Manchester United?
Pep Guardiola has created an identity at the Etihad, a key pillar in deciding the true size of a club

Miguel Delaney Chief Football Writer - 2 hours ago

When Manchester United and Manchester City were both going for Robin van Persie in the summer of 2012, Sir Alex Ferguson sought to seal the signature with a personal tour of Old Trafford, but it wasn’t necessary. Merely walking around the stadium was enough for the Dutch striker. City had the title as champions, and had the money to beat any offer, but United had something deeper; an allure that was so enticing for Van Persie. He just wanted to join, as the vernacular of the game has it, one of football’s “great clubs”.

The wonder is whether Erling Haaland or Kylian Mbappe, or any player who was under the age of 14 in 2012, would now feel the same. Van Persie was the influential player in United’s last league title, but the time since has seen the club stagnate, and become completely overtaken by a City that have won three more league titles and so much more. They are surely about to claim yet another in record-breaking manner, while Pep Guardiola’s philosophy gives the club a football identity that has marked the history of the game.

It is thereby a much bigger question than about the next transfer for the next great stars. It is about whether there will ever be a world where City can be “bigger” than United.

That seemingly simplistic debate has important implications for the future of the clubs, and the game itself.

A club’s “size” is really based on three interlinked pillars that businesses take very seriously. They are identity, support and wealth.

Identity of course comes from that notion of “history”, which basically means a club’s lore, and is what develops support outside a locality in the first place. Support then means - to put it crudely - a customer-base, and the kind of commercial potential that really fires football now. It is why so many clubs are now almost “content producers” - with all the social media innovations that phrase implies - as much as football teams.

United, like all the “great clubs” from Barcelona to Bayern Munich, have all of this. They also have something more, a crucial element of their identity from off the pitch that elevates them way beyond just being a super-successful club. There’s a gravitas that adds to their sporting greatness.

For Barcelona, it is the political dynamic as a vessel of Catalan identity, that is intertwined with their reputation for youth development through La Masia. There is similar with Bayern and Bavaria. For Real Madrid, it is the sense that they are the establishment in Spain, with all the gold-embossed authority that brings.

For United, the real-life tragedy of the Munich air disaster gave the club an emotional depth, with the nature of that great young team lending a sense of sanctity to their own principles of youth development and adventurous football. That was only enriched by the heroic but poignant recovery. With Liverpool, it is the very Anfield stands that have seen and amplified so much history, reflecting the supporter-city bond that defines the club. It is the nature of tragedies like Hillsborough that it has only strengthened this.

It is why all these clubs are more than just rolling images of great players and teams repeatedly lifting the greatest trophies, multiple leagues and multiple European Cups.

City of course have their own lore, that could be seen in the celebration of a great like Colin Bell, and everything he represented about the 1968 team. It was just that such successes stood out all the more because it came amid so much defeatism. Much of the club’s post-war identity has been based on their idiosyncrasies, and almost revelling in them - “we’re not really here”; “typical City”; Niall Quinn screaming at Steve Lomas not to waste time; a roll-call of greatly-loved players that were anything but great. They got relegated with cult heroes like Georgi Kinkladze and still kept turning up. They were really about much more than results, too, if from the other side of it.

The “legacy” clubs don’t look at their failures in the same way.

This contrast sits a little uneasily with the super-project the club are now.

It is why City still only have some of this.

There is no getting away from the fact the Abu Dhabi takeover changed the reality of what the club is - and that’s even before you get to the questions over what the Abu Dhabi takeover is.

It instantly gave City the most immediately visible of those pillars: the wealth. That allowed them to buy better and better players, build a better and better infrastructure, and give them the greatest current currency: the ability to attract the finest talent.

This is where Guardiola is so important to the history of the club, and the future. The philosophy of his football is about something greater, and represents a significant part of the game’s most admired ideological lineage, that started by Ajax of the late 1960s. It has produced the most spectacular play, and the shine of so many trophies.

This has far greater significance than current success. It attracts new fans. It is what children today gravitate towards. That is your support base of the future, and makes them as popular with the next generation as clubs like United were with the last one.

Along the same lines, they are making significant gains in “new” audiences like North America. City have been involved in the two most watched matches NBCSN have had. The Manchester derby of April 2015 attracted 1.16m viewers, the recent Liverpool-City match 1.05m.

It is also why there is longer-term strategy to apparently small-time battles like this week’s dispute with Opta over whether a penalty shoot-out constitutes a victory, or how they were ‘fourmidables’ rather than just treble-winners. These moves are about marking out their own space in the game’s collective consciousness, burnishing the club with more records, and historic feats.

There’s also the fact that, with the passing of time, people forget what you used to be. In the same way that current generations just don’t associate United with the impoverished club they often were before the second world war, future generations won’t remember the endearing dysfunction of the old City. It will be like a newspaper clipping from 80 years ago, a curio but just not relevant to the present.

On the other side, the club have done a hugely successful public relations job in suppressing uncomfortable questions about the ownership, and sportswashing. Any comment on these aspects is almost completely drowned out by general football commentary, especially the celebration of victory.

The image is just of gloss.

It is why, yes, City probably can be bigger than United at some point in the future - even if this takes 20-30 years.

Much of this of course overlooks what United can do.

Even without true top-level success over the last few years, they are still one of the world’s super-clubs in terms of commercial success. They’re close to incomparable, especially in England.

That will for a long time be served, and fortified, by just playing in England. You only have to look at how Liverpool maintained an international profile - and huge global support - in their fallow seasons, in the way AC Milan haven’t.

This is because of the spectacularly successful global land grab the Premier League has made, where it is almost a new cultural British empire. While the competition is so powerful, United’s own immense commercial profile will always be amplified.

There is a huge question right now over whether the Old Trafford hierarchy run their club as well as City’s, but these are the kind of issues that huge influxes of money tend to eventually correct. By sheer force of numbers, you will be afforded the opportunity to get it right. You could even make a similar argument there as regards Guardiola and centre-backs.

This is what money really does in football. It’s not that it creates 100 per cent success all the time. It’s that it will always give you the platform to get it right and dominate again.

That will mean that United will almost certainly reclaim the top trophies over the next few years.

It’s also arguable that, to really embellish what they are and deepen that emotional connection for the next generation of supporters, City need two more things. They need the truly global stars, and the profile they offer. They need European Cups, and the prestige they afford.

Guardiola has of course made that one of his missions at City.

Once City win the Champions League, though, there is an argument it will mark the start of a new era in the game.

The question for the future may not be whether City can be a bigger club than United. It may be whether United are one of a few clubs with the resources to compete.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:36 pm

We know that Newcastle are to go to arbitration with the Premier League (at the invitation of the Premier League) over the failed Saudi bid, this is a n interesting twist to it - Newcastle United have failed in a High Court bid to change the chair of that Arbitration panel

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 0480525312

with Teeside not Newcastle/Gateshead winning one of the 8 freeports just announced you wonder whether the Saudi's would still be interested anyhow

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 12:54 pm

Belgian giants, Club Brugge have announced that they are to take a stock market listing - and hope to develop a 40k stadium - The surprising (and useful) thing about this thread is the number of European clubs that already have a stock market listing, a few may surprise you

https://twitter.com/Football_BM/status/ ... 0076283905

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Mar 05, 2021 7:04 pm

Tomorrow's opponents Arsenal announce their 2019/20 Financial results

https://www.arsenal.com/news/financial- ... -published

The full report - downloads to your computer

https://www.arsenal.com/media/284069

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat Mar 06, 2021 2:53 pm

@KieranMaguire has a look at those Arsenal 2019/20 financial results

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 4082188289

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