Football's Magic Money Tree

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Chester Perry
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:48 pm

It is starting from a very low base but Ligue 1 is seeking to build up it's commercial earnings by having a pool of sponsors - no doubt trying to emulate the very successful approach employed by La Liga - naturally it has found a betting partner (though they are subject to much greater limitations than we find in this country - from SportsBusiness.com

Betclic acquires Ligue 1 bookmaker rights as LFP targets pool of sponsors
Matthew Glendinning - July 27, 2020

France’s Ligue de Professionnel (LFP) this month struck only the second betting deal in its history, a three-year agreement with Betclic that will run from 2020-21 to 2022-23.

The deal makes Betclic the official bookmaker of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 and is valued in the high six-figure euros per season, according to industry experts.

Betclic takes on the designation after it was unfilled for two seasons – 2018-19 and 2019-20 – after Française des Jeux (FDJ) exited a three-and-a-half-season agreement (starting January 2017) with two years still to run.

The FDJ deal was worth between €2m ($2.3m) and €3m per year, according to experts, but included major partner rights to the Coupe de la Ligue, worth between €1m and €2m per year, along with official partner rights to Ligue 1, Ligue 2 and the Champions Trophy, the annual match between the champions of Ligue 1 and the winners of the Coupe de France.

FDJ opted out of the contract to focus on club sponsorships with Olympique de Marseille, Olympique Lyonnais, AS Monaco and FC Nantes.

The Betclic deal was made by the LFP’s commercial management with the marketing and sponsorship management department at Betclic. No agency was involved.

The LFP told SportBusiness Sponsorship that the governing body had been in touch with key bookmakers in the French market for the previous year, working on a proposal that would fit the betting operators’ needs within the constraints imposed by the LFP and the clubs. The deal includes neither perimeter board advertising rights nor player image rights.

“The betting industry in France is a competitive market with five or six key players,” an LFP spokesperson told SportBusiness Sponsorship. “Each rights-holder has its own benefits to offer to brands and, as a league, we offered the chance to be associated as the official bookmaker of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2 and promote it on every medium.”

The deal will mainly be activated on LFP-owned digital channels, with engaging content, money-can’t-buy experiences and various other assets that will be revealed and activated throughout the length of the contract.

The deal is important, the league said, because it is key to the LFP’s new digital strategy: “Partnering up with a market leader and digital-driven company benefits the growth of LFP fanbase, adds value to LFP’s competition ecosystem and creates engaging content for every football fan. Every agreement is key to LFP’s growth and to generate and add value among its partners and to its competitions.”

The deal is also important because the LFP has moved from a pyramid model of multiple tiers to a pool model, in which a larger group of sponsors with similar rights will sit below the title sponsors to Ligue 1 and Ligue 2.

Food delivery service Uber Eats will be headline sponsor of Ligue 1 next season in a deal worth €10.5m per season, covering 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. Agricultural tyre company BKT deal will be title sponsor of League 2 in a deal worth between €2m and €2.5m per year from 2020-21 to 2023-24.

Beneath these are a tier of partners with rights that are currently mixed with those attached to the Coupe de la Ligue. The league-owned cup competition will be axed after the 2019-20 final between Paris Saint-Germain and Lyon on July 31, necessitating a reset of the contracts.

The decision to drop the competition, which generated about €4m per year from sponsorship, was made by the league last year because of waning interest in the property among broadcasters.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 1:59 pm

It is just another example of how the biggest clubs gain advantage over everyone else - and no surprise that Manchester United were the first to come up with the idea (though they were just trying to catch-up with the famous Milan-Lab at the time). Barcelona and Real Madrid have announced that they have extended their sponsorship with Medical Equipment supplier Cannon Medical. The rest of us have to buy the equipment if we want it. - from SportsBusiness.com

Canon Medical extends with Barcelona and Real Madrid to 2025
Matthew Glendinning - July 28, 2020

Japanese medical device company Canon Medical Systems has renewed its medical supplier agreements with LaLiga clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid for five more years until 2025.

Both deals include the provision of medical imaging equipment, with Canon Medical designated as the official medical systems partner at the global partner level with Barcelona and the official diagnostic imaging partner at Real Madrid.

Despite this, the company is not listed on the digital billboards of either club, indicating that the supply rights are the key asset for Canon Medical, rather than branding or IP rights.

At Barcelona, Canon Medical has supplied the club’s medical centre at the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper training facility with a range of imaging solutions since 2015.

As part of the agreement, Canon Medical has also collaborated with the Barça Innovation Hub – the club’s platform for innovation, research and training projects – to develop sports medicine that helps in the prevention and diagnosis of critical injuries both on and off the pitch.

In October 2019, Canon Medical and the Barça Innovation Hub co-presented the Global Sports Medicine Forum, which invited experts to share their thoughts on how medical imaging can support the health and well-being of elite athletes.

The club said the new agreement forms part of FC Barcelona’s quest to proactively source and work with partners that are aligned with club’s own values and philosophy. “It also reinforces its strategy of establishing alliances that can help it to continue leading the way not only on the field of play, but also in terms of sports partnership and marketing,” the club said.

At Real Madrid, Canon Medical has helped Real Madrid conduct more than 4,000 diagnostic studies over the last four years to players from the football and basketball teams, and the academy.

As per the agreements, Canon Medical is set to provide each club with six new diagnostic imaging solutions, including a world-first AI-powered MRI system, the Vantage Galan 3T with Advanced intelligent Clear-IQ Engine (AiCE), and a suite of ultrasound solutions up to June 30, 2025.

Canon Medical is also the official medical systems partner at English Premier League club Manchester United under a multi-year deal signed in October 2018.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:03 pm

Serie A are supposed to be weighing up the proposals for investment on Thursday according to SportsBusiness.com - not that the offers are binding and compare that to the new Ligue 1 TV deal that has no financial guarantees if the new service fails in the market place.

Lega Serie A set to weigh up rights proposals
SportBusiness Staff - July 28, 2020

Six investment funds are said to have made binding offers to Lega Serie A, governing body of the top division of Italian club football, regarding a media company that would market broadcast rights.

Wanda Sports Group and its agency Infront, along with Spanish agency and production group Mediapro are reported to have entered separate joint proposals.

The proposals to the Lega advisor, French financial consultancy Lazard, will be discussed at a Lega club assembly meeting on Thursday, according to multiple reports in the Italian media.

CVC Capital Partners, Bain Capital and Advent International are said to have made offers for minority stakes in the new media company, according to the Il Messaggero newspaper.

Apollo Global Management, Fortress Investment Group, and Blackstone, through its GSO investment arm, are instead said to have put forward financing proposals.

Meanwhile, Wanda-Infront and Mediapro are reported to have made a direct non-binding proposal to the clubs concerning the formation of a partnership to create a Serie A channel.

Infront has strong existing ties to the Lega. The agency holds a six-year near-€6bn ($7bn) minimum-guarantee agreement to work as its exclusive adviser on domestic and international media-rights sales. But that deal comes to an end in 2020-2021. Infront has worked as the league’s media-rights adviser since 2008.

Read this: Serie A | Can new investors wake football’s sleeping giant?

Earlier this month, Lega Serie A was said to have placed a cap of 15 per cent on any potential private equity investment into a new commercial entity. A letter from Serie A president Paolo Dal Pino to the interested parties is said to have added that the proposals must contain a legal assessment confirming that the terms and conditions of the bid comply with Italy’s Melandri law, which governs the collective selling of media rights in the country.

Reports concerning external investment in Serie A have been rife in recent weeks. Lega Serie A this month decided to continue to examine proposals from private equity investors following a general assembly meeting.

CVC was previously said to have enjoyed an exclusive negotiation window. CVC’s reported €2.2bn bid was to acquire 20 per cent of a new company that would manage the media rights, Serie A’s international trademark and commercial development, and part-finance a new investment fund responsible for stadium development.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:06 pm

Fascinating opinion piece at SportsProMedia.com on the rights athletes/footballers have just acquired as "data subjects" and the implications that presents

Fiona Green, co-founder of CRM and data consultancy Winners, explains why athletes' new rights as 'data subjects' could shake up soccer's transfer market.

Posted: July 28 2020By: Fiona Green
Opinion | GDPR has the potential to have the same impact on soccer finance as Bosman

Many of you reading this will be aware of the Bosman ruling concerning the freedom of movement of workers. But how many of you were working in soccer in 1990 when Jean-Marc Bosman first requested a move to Dunkerque or 1995 when the European Court ruled in his favour?

If you’re holding your hand up right now you will remember the huge impact it had on the player transfer market within the European Union, how many column inches it generated for the sports journalists, as well as how many clubs had to reassess the financial and timing impact the ruling had on their transfer decisions moving forward.

Now, 30 years on, we are on the cusp of another transformation in this area, this time driven by the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

You will all have heard of the GDPR, or if you have not you will have experienced the changes it has made to the way we navigate the internet – those annoying cookie notifications the first time you visit a new website that started appearing around May last year for example.

But why am I suggesting these seemingly minor new wrinkles could create a Bosman-size chasm in the way we currently work with soccer players? Well, now those players are afforded new rights as 'data subjects' under the GDPR - as are athletes in any sports where transfers have an impact on their careers.

The new rights for data subjects:
1) The right to access – under this right, any soccer player can ask for access to the records that their clubs have on them. Crucially this includes all their data including biometrics, and any other performance-related information generated during a match, a training session, a medical session, etc.

2) The right to portability – any player can request that their data is made accessible for any other party to be able to access and “take”, transferring it into their own systems.

3) The right to deletion – now any player can ask any club, governing body, or league to delete all the data they have about them. Just like that – years of goal scoring history, performances, red cards, wiped from history. Forever.

So what are the potential ramifications on the transfer market? Primarily because of point two above. Imagine this situation. Club A wants to buy a player from Club B and knowing about the right to portability, asks the player to bring ALL their data with them. Club B refuses because they consider it their data, and Club A says to the player “if you don’t get me your data, I’m not going to buy you”. Club B would then be restricting the player’s ability to get a job. The very same issue at the heart of the Bosman ruling.

Add another level to this, if the player wins the argument and gets their data over to Club A, they then have the opportunity to reverse-engineer the data points and get an insight into Club B’s training methods.

There’s a potential flaw in my discussion here – the right to portability only refers to data that the player gave Club B, not the data that Club B generated themselves. So, would training data, biometrics, etc. be considered data the club generated or data that could only be generated by the player running, jumping, throwing, etc.?

I have tried to open this debate on several occasions with different people ever since Bas Schnater and I first discussed it as case study material for a book I wrote for the sports industry, 'Winning with Data', but there are the two main reasons I have never managed to get traction on the subject:

1) The subject of data is often included in a player’s contract with the club, i.e. ownership is already dealt with. My response to that is while it might be the case, when it comes to the law, it usually sits above any contract between two parties. The player and Club B might agree on one thing, but if the GDPR provides a route to contradict this, surely the law prevails?

2) It is opening a Pandora’s Box and why would you want to do so? Because when May 2018 hit, so many rights holders were not prepared, ill advised, or did not have clarity over what they should do next, and the impact was quite huge. I cannot tell you how many clients we have had to help recover their databases because they thought they had to delete them (they did not) or re-engage their fans because they thought they could not email them (they could).

Surely it is better to be prepared to manage a situation before it happens - to understand all the possible implications, to have a crisis management plan, to have a tried and trusted resource for assistance should we not know where to go?

I’m hoping that as a result of this post, there is enough interest out there to take this discussion one step further and investigate it. I know that the usual practice is to wait for case law – but do we really want to wait until a forward-thinking agent tests the theory with one of their players and the football world goes into freefall as we scrabble around to figure out what to do?

Fiona Green has operated in the sports industry for more 34 years, with the vast majority of her coming on the agency-side representing rights holders in sponsorship, TV rights and licensing. Now a CRM and BI practitioner, Green recently published a book 'Winning with Data: CRM and Analytics for the Business of Sports'. The work was nominated for the 2018 FT.com Best Business Book of the Year award.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:12 pm

Missed this last week - apparently there is a bit of a scandal brewing in Serie A over the T's&C's of match tickets

Brescia and Lecce join AGCM’s Serie A ticketing investigation
SportBusiness Staff - July 21, 2020


The Italian antitrust authority, l’Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM), has widened its probe into the ticketing sales process conducted by Serie A football clubs by launching proceedings against a further two teams, Brescia and Lecce.

The investigation concerns unfair, or “vexatious”, contract terms in the sale of season tickets. The AGCM said Brescia and Lecce had failed to adhere to a request made on January 24 to alter their practices, adding that it has dropped proceedings against SPAL and Hellas Verona after they conformed.

The authority alleges that Brescia and Lecce include terms in their season ticket offers that are unclear and infringe consumer rights. The investigation relates to clauses which limit the rights of ticket-holders to a refund in the case of stadia being closed or matches being postponed and purport to exempt clubs from paying damages in cases where the postponement of a match has been the direct responsibility of the club.

The alleged infringements represent breaches of articles 33, 34 and 35 of the country’s Consumer Code. In January, the AGCM opened proceedings against nine other clubs: AC Milan, Atalanta, Cagliari, Genoa, Inter Milan, Juventus, Lazio, Roma and Udinese.

These proceedings continue after cases against two other clubs, Bologna and Parma, were dropped after the two clubs agreed to modify some of their terms.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:20 pm

Scottish Football has just effectively widened the revenue gap between the old firm and the rest of the game - I really do not understand this decision, it is as barmy as the ifollow nonsense in the EFL - the revenues should be gathered centrally and distributed in the dame wasy as the other media rights

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53560168

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:31 pm

Surprised to not see anything about this on here today - The lack of Diversity on the FA board is going to be a big issue going forward - quite possibly for sponsors too - they could easily walk away as we have seen elsewhere around the world recently, this for an organisation that has recently announced swinging cut-backs is very serious

GREG CLARKE HAS WRITTEN A LETTER TO FA COUNCIL MEMBERS FOLLOWING LATEST BOARD MEETING
Tuesday 28 Jul 2020

FA chairman Greg Clarke has written to all FA Council members following July's Board meeting
Dear colleagues,

Over the last few years we have sought to empower the FA Council in one of its core roles: holding the FA Board and Executive to account.

For the Council to exercise this important function it must have timely access to information and be able to challenge and question it. Changes to Council meetings to encourage questions, without notice, and schedule time for them in the agenda has been important to me in my role of Leader of Council. Transparency and accountability are important attributes for any governance system worthy of the name.

I wrote to you earlier in the year about Paul Elliott’s work to develop a voluntary code for equality in football. Sue Hough, Rupinder Bains and Mark Bullingham are working with Paul together with senior individuals, of all ethnicities, from across football.

In parallel with the work Paul has been leading, I have been talking to leaders across the Professional and National Game to encourage progress in inclusion.

Our game is diverse. We have doubled the number of women and girls playing football in the last four years. Across the whole game nearly 20 per cent of males aged 16 and over playing football are from BAME communities. The figure for women and girls is even higher.

The FA Board has made good progress on inclusion since the reforms approved by Council in 2017. 10 per cent of FA Board members are from a BAME background and 10 per cent come from the LGBT+ community. 40 per cent of the FA Board is female.

At last week’s FA Board meeting we debated the need to evaluate further reform to improve inclusion and effectiveness on the FA Board for consultation with Council.

We discussed a number of options including: making the Chair of the Inclusion Advisory Board a Director and giving the Professional and National Games an extra Board seat each that could provide the flexibility to allow appointment of diverse candidates should they be the best qualified person for the role. Both our Independent Directors offered to stand down to create opportunities for a more diverse Board but the Board was united in declining their offer.

The Professional Game were against such a review believing the changes introduced in 2017 were sufficient. The National Game were sympathetic to a review and consultation with Council but did not want to oppose the Professional Game.

However, without the support of the Professional Game and National Game, who have a majority of Directors, a review of the FA Board composition is not possible. I had hoped that the FA, as the game’s governing body, would have been able to examine whether its own Board was appropriately constituted to represent a diverse game and share its thinking with Council. This process is happening across football but will not now happen with respect to the FA Board.

As FA Chairman this disappoints me, as Leader of Council I felt honour bound to inform you of the situation. It seems to me better to be open on the issue now rather than surprise Council when Paul Elliott publishes the recommendations of his working group in October.

Greg Clarke

By Greg Clarke
FA Chairman
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just for clarity the media are reporting it as The Premier League being the ones who have blocked this proposal
Last edited by Chester Perry on Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 2:49 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:29 am
John Nicholson and Adrian Goldberg of The "When Sky Invented Football" podcast presents a "Manifesto for English Football"

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/a ... 0486338652
Adrian Goldberg has been busy in the last few days - today not only saw that When Sky Invented Football Podcast but this article in the BylineTimes which actually covers the previous When Sky Invented Football Podcast (which I linked last week) too.

ENGLISH FOOTBALL'S OWN GOAL
A Game of Dodgy Money & Foreign Influence
Adrian Goldberg - 28 July 2020

The beautiful game has become a way for foreign aggressors to gain leverage over British politics, reports Adrian Goldberg

Since the dawn of the Premier League in 1992, English football has never been overly worried about the source of global money swilling through its coffers, with major clubs only too happy to plump their bank accounts with cash from kleptocrats, oil states and oligarchs – and even the occasional harmless philanthropist.

Proud of its status as the most popular league in the world, the English Premier League’s (EPL) unofficial stance seems to have been ‘take the money now, worry about where it has come from later’.

However, it seems that ‘later’ has now arrived.

A time of reckoning is at hand, fuelled not least by the Government’s increasingly combative foreign policy. It is certainly difficult to see the prospect of new investment by Russian billionaires anytime soon, after last week’s devastating parliamentary report about Moscow’s malign influence in British politics – combined with the treatment of Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, who is seemingly in a dispute with the Government about a new UK visa.

Author Catherine Belton, for instance, has claimed that Abramovich’s purchase of Chelsea was personally ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who won’t be too pleased by the Government’s treatment of his ally. According to Belton, the aim of the Chelsea takeover was to extend Russian influence in London, as part of a larger infiltration of the West, sometimes using “dirty money”.

MPs on the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) said that the UK’s investor visa scheme had been abused by Russians, providing an “ideal [mechanism] by which illicit finance could be recycled through what has been referred to as the London ‘laundromat’”.

According to Zarina Zabrisky, an expert in Putin’s rise to power, business people who became seriously wealthy after the collapse of the Soviet Union can only have done so with “krysha” – paid protection – from what has been described as a “Mafia state”.

She told the Byline Times podcast: “If you refuse to live by the rules of the organisation – the whole ‘Mafia State’ – it’s not like you won’t just be able to be a part of it. You will be eradicated, murdered.”

Bournemouth is another club that has been funded by a wealthy businessman who made his fortune in the anarchic wreckage of post-Soviet Russia, but a Siberian chill in relations between the UK and Russia will hardly encourage more to come forward – at least in the near future.

China, meanwhile, relegated television coverage of the climax of the Premier League season from its main football channel to a less popular network, despite splashing out on a mammoth £564 million deal.

This appears to be in retaliation to Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s decision to ban Huawei from Britain’s 5G telecommunications network and his invitation to up to three million Hong Kong citizens to settle in the UK, after Beijing pressed ahead with the passing of its new national security law on the island.

Supporters of half a dozen professional clubs with Chinese owners – including top flight Wolverhampton Wanderers, Southampton, and newly promoted West Bromwich Albion – will be waiting anxiously to see what happens next.

Professor Simon Chadwick, director of the Centre for the Eurasian Sport Industry at Emlyon Business School, told Byline Times that close relationships with China have been fostered by successive UK Prime Ministers – using football.

“Back in the late 90s, Tony Blair courted the Chinese Government in part through football,” he said. “Blair really saw the value and power of football as an instrument of diplomacy and so he frequently used it in trade missions to China.”

When Labour was ousted in 2010, the incoming Conservative-led Government continued to use football as an expression of UK soft power. Prime Minister David Cameron was famously pictured with Chinese President Xi Jinping alongside Manchester City player Sergio Aguero, during a Chinese state visit to the UK in 2015.

Around this time, Chinese investors became seriously interested in the Premier League, prompted by a declaration by President Xi that his country hoped to become a force in world football.

In some cases, Chadwick said, Chinese business owners who had acquired their money by nefarious means took the President’s message as a sign to safely move their money offshore to the UK.

In part an effort to secure the patronage and good favour of their country’s leader, Chinese businessmen bought heavily into European football, taking stakes in clubs in France, Italy, as well as England. “You saw a feeding frenzy of investment overseas,” Chadwick added.

But it didn’t always turn out well. Birmingham City found itself in the hands of Carson Yeung, a Hong Kong-based investor convicted in 2014 of money laundering and sentenced to six years in prison, while Wigan Athletic was recently forced into administration after its Hong Kong-based backers lost patience with the club’s heavy losses.

There have been brighter stories too – notably the ownership of Fosun International, which has turned Wolverhampton Wanderers into Champions League contenders. But the competitive nature of English football makes it a risky business – a fact which has not gone unnoticed in Beijing.

In 2017, Chinese officials criticised “irrational investments” – interpreted as a heavy hint against buying any more overseas football clubs – after which the number of new deals has virtually dried up. Add this to the recent diplomatic spat between the UK and China and, as Chadwick describes it, there is a “perfect storm” which could have a “profound impact” on English teams with Chinese owners.

If this all seems a long way from the ‘jumpers for goalposts’ ethos of old-school footy, that’s because it is. The sport at its highest level has allowed itself to become the play-thing of the super rich and is none too fussy about how that wealth was acquired.

It is a strategy which leaves much-loved local clubs too often reliant on dodgy cash, absentee owners and the whims of foreign politicians – an own goal which, in the long run, could prove costly for the English game.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 3:32 pm

The Telegraph on that letter from Greg Clarke today on the FA Board diversity - to be clear The EFL and PL voted against (in part to retain their own positions of power on the board - The EFL and PL leagues are owned by clubs - it is the 91 clubs that voted against, though that may not be for the reasons portrayed in the letter or the media - I suspect they do not want an extra seat but would rather fill existing seats with their choice of a diversity representative (which for the professional game is difficult - they themselves don't have much diversity at the top level

FA chairman angered after Premier League and EFL representatives block attempts to promote diversity
TOM MORGAN JULY 28, 2020

The chairman of the Football Association has expressed anger after attempts to add diversity to the governing body's board were blocked by representatives from the Premier League and the English Football League.

Among proposals turned down were efforts to promote the former Chelsea defender Paul Elliott, chair of the FA's inclusion advisory board, to the full board. In a letter to the FA Council, Greg Clarke aimed thinly-veiled criticism at senior figures by saying the vote "disappoints" him.

The gesture of solidarity from Clarke is understood to have been well received by Elliott, who has yet to comment. The snub is a major blow as governing bodies across the sporting sector have launched major drives to improve boardroom representation in recent weeks.

UK Sport and Sport England this month announced efforts to avoid "another false dawn" on boardroom diversity after a Telegraph Sport investigation laid bare the scarcity of black representation in positions of real power.

With just three per cent of board members of taxpayer-funded national governing bodies (NGBs) being black, Elliott had already spearheaded plans with the FA to launch a voluntary diversity code in October to coincide with Black History Month.

However, at last week's FA Board, major new boardroom reforms at the governing body hit a stumbling block, it has now emerged. Clarke described in a letter to the FA Council how "we debated the need to evaluate further reform to improve inclusion and effectiveness on the FA board for consultation with Council". As well as promoting Elliott, Clarke also suggested an alternative option where the professional and amateur sides of football were each given an extra seat on the board.

"Both our independent directors offered to stand down to create opportunities for a more diverse board but the board was united in declining their offer," Clarke said.

The FA board is made up of 10 members, including three nominated by the professional game, three by the national (amateur) game, two independent directors, Clarke and Mark Bullingham, the chief executive.

The professional representatives "were against such a review, believing the changes introduced in 2017 were sufficient". The national game representatives were sympathetic to a review and consultation with council "but did not want to oppose the professional game", Clarke added.

"However, without the support of the Professional Game and National Game, who have a majority of Directors, a review of the FA Board composition is not possible," Clarke added.

"I had hoped that the FA, as the game's governing body, would have been able to examine whether its own Board was appropriately constituted to represent a diverse game and share its thinking with Council. This process is happening across football but will not now happen with respect to the FA noard. As FA Chairman this disappoints me, as leader of council I felt honour bound to inform you of the situation.

"It seems to me better to be open on the issue now rather than surprise Council when Paul Elliott publishes the recommendations of his working group in October."

The meeting last week came as clubs were being invited to sign up for the FA's Equality In Football Leadership, with the aim of increasing diversity in senior roles across the sport, with no black chairmen currently in the Premier League.

Preliminary talks have begun over the code, which will set targets for diversity rather than quotas. A number of club sources have indicated October as the launch date, which is seen as a fitting time of the year due to Black History Month.

In his letter published online by the FA, Clarke said Elliott's work with the voluntary code was part of multiple efforts to "empower the FA Council in one of its core roles: holding the FA Board and Executive to account".

"In parallel with the work Paul has been leading, I have been talking to leaders across the Professional and National Game to encourage progress in inclusion," he added.

"Our game is diverse. We have doubled the number of women and girls playing football in the last four years. Across the whole game nearly 20 per cent of males aged 16 and over playing football are from BAME communities. The figure for women and girls is even higher. The FA Board has made good progress on inclusion since the reforms approved by Council in 2017. 10 per cent of FA Board members are from a BAME background and 10 per cent come from the LGBT+ community. 40 per cent of the FA Board is female.

Anti-discrimination campaigners voiced concern at the decision by football’s leaders.

Sanjay Bhandari, Kick It Out’s chair, said: “Black Lives Matter has rightfully caused organisations across all industries to consider how they attack systemic inequalities and better reflect society.

“That process must start at the top with the senior leadership team. It is only right that the FA should seek to seize the moment, to reflect on the composition of its leadership team and whether it represents the players, fans and participants in the game.

“I applaud Greg Clarke’s effort to do so. It is disappointing that this effort has been rejected. Before commenting further, we would need to understand better the professional game’s reasons for rejecting a review.”

The setback comes as Sport England and UK Sport launch their first joint review of the Code for Sports Governance, with a particular focus on "equality, diversity and inclusion" across the sector.

Launched in April 2017, the Code for Sports Governance has accelerated the professionalisation of many national sports bodies with focus areas such as new rules to ensure at least 25 per cent are independent members and guarantees that at least 30 per cent of each gender are represented on boards.

However, last month Telegraph Sport disclosed how a total of 64 per cent of funded NGBs have no Black And Minority Ethnic (BAME) board members at all. Some of the country’s biggest funded and unfunded sports bodies have only one black board member between them. No Premier League club, meanwhile, has a black owner, chairman or chief executive.

Eniola Aluko, the former England forward, and Paul Cleal, an advisor on improving diversity at executive level, have said clear targets for governing bodies are needed to tackle the current dearth in positions of real power.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:26 pm

Judging by this Telegraph article Bournemouth are going to need a firesale - this just goes to underline the lack of financial discipline at the club

Some of Bournemouth's highest earners have no relegation clauses, compounding club's financial concerns
MATT LAW JULY 28, 2020

Bournemouth face a huge battle to try to make a quick return to the Premier League while fighting the threat of a financial crisis as some of the club’s highest earners do not have relegation clauses in their contracts.

And that leaves Bournemouth under threat of losing stars such as Callum Wilson, Nathan Ake, Josh King and David Brooks for cut-price fees as top-flight clubs seek to take advantage of their predicament.

While Eddie Howe, who is paid around £4 million a year, considers his future, Bournemouth are likely to be forced into having to sell their most valuable assets to offset the financial impact of going down during the coronavirus pandemic.

Telegraph Sport can reveal that Bournemouth’s situation is made even more difficult by the fact that some of their star players do not have clauses in their contracts that mean they have to accept wage decreases following relegation.

In their latest set of accounts for the year ending June 2019, Bournemouth revealed that the club’s wage bill had increased to £110.9m and that their wage-to-turnover ratio was at a worrying 84.6 per cent. One unnamed executive’s salary and pension package rose to £1.9m, which represented an increase of £500,000 on the previous year.

Howe, his assistant Jason Tindall, chief executive Neill Blake and technical director Richard Hughes all took wage cuts during the coronavirus lockdown, but significant long-term cuts will need to be made to the club’s expenditure following relegation.

While some players are likely to see their wages decrease automatically after the club lost their fight against Premier League survival, others earning over £50,000-a-week had no clauses in their contracts covering the club for the eventuality of relegation.

Bournemouth will be forced to sell many of their best players, but could now see their values drop due to the need to raise money.

Chelsea have a £40m buy-back option on Ake, but the Blues, Manchester City and Manchester United are likely to try to negotiate a deal for around £25m if they decide to bid for the Dutch defender.

Striker Wilson has previously been valued at over £30m by Bournemouth, but they will struggle to attract bids for over half that fee. King’s contract expires in one year and the Cherries will get nowhere near the £20m they rejected from United at the end of the January transfer window. Midfielder Brooks is the subject of interest from a number of Premier League clubs hoping to land a bargain.

Bournemouth have already lost Ryan Fraser without earning a fee after the winger did not extend his contract when it expired at the end of June and did not play a part in the club’s unsuccessful fight against relegation.

Other than the money they have been paying out on salaries and the fact that not all players will immediately start earning less as a result of relegation, Bournemouth have a number of other financial worries hanging over them.

The club’s player registration costs were up from £55.8m to £94.2m which contributed to an overall loss of £32.4m - up from a loss of £10.9m a year earlier.

And, like many clubs, Bournemouth also have outstanding transfer fees to pay for a number of players, with the club believed to still owe £81m to other clubs with only £5m owed to them on deals.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:30 pm

I have posted it elsewhere but given the volume of posts about the case on this thread it needs to be here too - CAS have finally released the full decision report on the Man City appeal against UEFA - seems that CAS found City's initial defence reliable and credible on first glance

https://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_ ... rnet__.pdf

if that is the case it will be difficult for the Premier League to find differently, even though they are not bound by the same time constraints

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by GodIsADeeJay81 » Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:37 pm

Bournemouth's finances look scary when laid out like that.

People on here have the nerve to complain about our transfer policy etc but it's a damned sight better than Bournemouths.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Royboyclaret » Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:04 pm

GodIsADeeJay81 wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:37 pm
Bournemouth's finances look scary when laid out like that.

People on here have the nerve to complain about our transfer policy etc but it's a damned sight better than Bournemouths.
Some scary numbers indeed, Sid, none moreso than the Net £76m in transfer fees owed at the end of the financial year. May well be the correct decision to stick with Eddie next season, as the most likely person to lead them back to the PL, but that said, they have massive off-field problems to address for a newly relegated club. Best of luck with that.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by GodIsADeeJay81 » Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:37 pm

Royboyclaret wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:04 pm
Some scary numbers indeed, Sid, none moreso than the Net £76m in transfer fees owed at the end of the financial year. May well be the correct decision to stick with Eddie next season, as the most likely person to lead them back to the PL, but that said, they have massive off-field problems to address for a newly relegated club. Best of luck with that.
They're about £100 million in debt last I saw, an immediate bounce back up is going to be needed or they're gonna be up a creek without a paddle.

They don't own their ground or training ground either do they?

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:02 pm

GodIsADeeJay81 wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:37 pm
They're about £100 million in debt last I saw, an immediate bounce back up is going to be needed or they're gonna be up a creek without a paddle.

They don't own their ground or training ground either do they?
No they don't which is why they were looking to build new ones - they have 1 chance before FFP gets them I think so they look like they are going to go for it - Who will be their Joey Barton to drive them on the pitch though, far from convinced that Eddie could manage such a personality

Maxim Demin released this statement on the club website today

AFC Bournemouth owner Maxim Demin has released the following statement to the club's supporters:

On Sunday, our five-year stay in the Premier League came to an end.

We cannot hide from the fact that this has been a strange, difficult and bitterly disappointing season.

Relegation hurts and the pain that you, our loyal supporters, are feeling is also being felt throughout the club.

But this is not the end of the journey.

The Premier League broke new ground for this club; it gave us incredible moments and created history along the way.

But I do not want the past five years to merely be memories that fade over time. I want to create new memories that match and better the ones that have gone before.

I am committed to taking this club back to the Premier League as soon as possible, to a level I believe we belong at.

Over the past five seasons we have built and developed a young, talented, squad with international experience.

These players are the future of this football club; ones I believe can thrive in the Championship and help us achieve our goal.

And that is what we are now fully focused on. While it is important to analyse and assess the past 12 months, we are looking to the future and ensuring that we are a stronger and better club for this experience.

AFC Bournemouth is built on unity. Whatever challenges this club has faced historically, togetherness has always been its greatest strength.

And so thank you for your unwavering support of the club, particularly during such uncertain recent months. I know you will be there with us again next season, behind us every week, either from home or in the stadium when it is safe to do so.

Together, anything is possible.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by GodIsADeeJay81 » Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:04 pm

Good statement, but it would be interesting to see how long his support lasts if they don't come back up soon and start drowning financially.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:10 pm

GodIsADeeJay81 wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:04 pm
Good statement, but it would be interesting to see how long his support lasts if they don't come back up soon and start drowning financially.
indeed

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:35 pm

Greg Clarke has done some back-tracking on his letter this morning about diversity on the FA board - from the Guardian


FA's Greg Clarke backtracks over claim racial diversity plans were blocked
Clarke had said some members declined to back options raised
Now he accepts FA Board is committed to a review

Paul MacInnes - @PaulMac - Tue 28 Jul 2020 20.14 BSTFirst published on Tue 28 Jul 2020 10.46 BST

The Football Association chairman, Greg Clarke, has been forced into an embarrassing climbdown after having claimed representatives of the Premier League and EFL had blocked plans to increase racial diversity on the FA Board.

On Tuesday, Clarke published an open letter to the FA council, which decides policy for the governing body, in which he said plans to review the makeup of the FA board had been thwarted by directors from the “professional game”. The plans would have led to the chair of the FA’s Inclusion Advisory Board, Paul Elliott, given a seat on the board.

Later in the day, however, Clarke issued an update to his remarks, accepting that the board was committed to a review.

“Following high-level talks between all parties today, I recognise now that the views held by the members of the board were not as they first appeared, and that all parties do support a review of FA Board diversity,” he said.

The Premier League and the EFL quickly welcomed Clarke’s updated remarks. “We wholeheartedly support the objective of improving diversity at every level of the game – including the FA Board – and are engaging with the FA on the options to achieve this,” the leagues said in a joint statement.

“It was agreed at last week’s FA Board meeting to undertake an evaluation of diversity and inclusion within the FA in a consultative but efficient manner.”

There had been widespread disquiet at Clarke’s letter, coming as it did at a time when the subject of equality and inclusion is at the forefront of all forms of professional sport.

The FA has previously sought to be proactive on the matter, announcing Elliott would lead the development of a voluntary code for “Equality In Football Leadership” to help correct the long-standing imbalance in black, Asian and minority ethnic representation at the top of the game.

The voluntary code is being devised in consultation with leaders across football and is expected to be delivered in October. Elliott holds the role of an observer on the FA board.

Alongside Elliott’s appointment as a director, the FA’s proposals included the addition of two further board members which, Clarke wrote in his letter, “could provide the flexibility to allow appointment of diverse candidates should they be the best qualified person for the role”.

The letter suggested these proposals had been rejected by the three board members representing the professional game – Peter McCormick, Rupinder Bains and the chairman of the EFL, Rick Parry. Clarke wrote that directors from the non-league “national game” had subsequently rejected the proposals too.

The letter prompted accusations of power politics being played and suggestions that the professional game was not prepared to dilute its power on the FA board. One board member told the Guardian on Tuesday morning that the letter was bizarre and did not accurately reflect the nature of the discussions at the board meeting.

In his clarification, Clarke said his original letter was not intended to be divisive. “It was intended to highlight an issue that we all care deeply about across both the FA Board and the FA Council,” he wrote.

“I have never doubted the commitment across both the professional game and the national game to do everything in our power to address inequality in our game.

“We all share the same desire to see English football take a lead role in ensuring our game is inclusive – most notably in leadership positions in football. The FA, Premier League and EFL are all committed to making further significant progress on diversity and inclusion.”

A day of such confusion and discord comes at an inopportune moment for the FA. The governing body is already facing a cash crisis because of the Covid-19 pandemic, with anticipated losses over the coming years of up to £300m. It is also in the process of consulting over redundancies with as many as 124 roles going across the organisation.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:28 am

@SwissRamble looks at the financial implications for the 3 teams relegated from the Premier League

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/ ... 4096404480

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 12:11 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 6:30 pm
I have posted it elsewhere but given the volume of posts about the case on this thread it needs to be here too - CAS have finally released the full decision report on the Man City appeal against UEFA - seems that CAS found City's initial defence reliable and credible on first glance

https://www.tas-cas.org/fileadmin/user_ ... rnet__.pdf

if that is the case it will be difficult for the Premier League to find differently, even though they are not bound by the same time constraints
If you do not want to read the 90 plus page document from CAS on the Manchester City appeal- I empathise. However, there is some real nuggets in there that tell you quite about about Man City did and UEFA should have done - UEFA come out of it badly for not following their own rules and Manchester City appear to be every inch the nasty enterprise we suspected.

Much, though not all is summed up in threads from
@SportingIntel https://twitter.com/sportingintel/statu ... 3694051329
and
@TariqPanja https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 1082681346

David Conn (a life long City fan) in the Guardian was particularly struck by the fact that City's nominee for the panel ended up being chair (final decision looks like a 2-1 to City) and appeared to be far from independent given his law firm has done million and millions of Euros/dollars worth of work for State owned Abu Dhabi businesses over the years

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... -cas-rules

in his 2nd report he emphasises that the club still has questions hanging over them despite their claim of being exonerated

https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... s-judgment

The Independent chooses to focus on the complete has of things made by UEFA (Aleksander Ceferin must be furious - he is a lawyer by profession)

https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 43511.html

I will post some legal observations from the regular sources at a later date

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:33 pm

I posted yesterday an opinion article about personal player data and GDPR - it transpires that his is an area that a growing group of players are looking to fight for as Betting companies in particular are exploiting such data for their own significant gains - a "class-action" type legal case is building fronted by current and former English players - from SportsProMedia.com

Report: Premier League stars suing betting companies over use of personal data
‘More than 400’ UK-based soccer players signed up to Project Red Card.

Posted: July 29 2020 - By: Sam Carp

- EFL, National League and Scottish Premiership players also involved in lawsuit
- Successful claim could be worth ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’
- Project being spearheaded by Russell Slade’s Global Sports Data and Technology Group

Top-flight Premier League stars are among a group of UK-based soccer players seeking ‘hundreds of millions of pounds’ for the use of their personal statistics, according to the Athletic.

The subscription-based digital sports outlet says ‘more than 400’ current and former players plan to take legal action against companies such as computer game manufacturers and betting firms who have used their performance and tracking data without consent or compensation.

The players hope to recover six years’ worth of lost income, the Athletic said, adding that individual settlements could be worth as much as ‘tens of thousands of pounds’ if the claim is successful, although payments will vary depending on what level the player competed at and the amount of exposure they received.

Players from the English Football League (EFL), which oversees the three divisions below the Premier League, the semi-professional National League and the Scottish Premiership have also reportedly signed up to Project Red Card, which is being spearheaded by a company called Global Sports Data and Technology Group.

Co-founded by Russell Slade, who has managed several clubs in the EFL, and technology expert Jason Dunlop, Global Sports Data and Technology Group says it is ‘helping sport to understand and benefit from’ the incomes associated with data.

Speaking to the BBC, Slade said: "Players need to be signing [consent] if their data is going to travel.

“One or two clubs are seeing it now, we want to help them get this right. Obviously data in clubs is there for players to improve but they should be signing their consent for it to be used.

“We have found that the accuracy of data is staggering, most players on board have wrong data stored.”

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:38 pm

Great news for the Premier League as they get ready for the tendering of rights in the USA - audiences are up - even pre-covid - from SportsProMedia

Premier League on NBC averages 462k viewers for 2019/20
TAD is US broadcaster's best figures for English soccer league in four years.

Posted: July 29 2020By: Tom Bassam

- Viewership was up 4% on 2018/19 prior to Covid-19 lockdown
- Man Utd's derby win over City in March is most-watched Premier League game in US history
- NBC digital platforms deliver 925.3m live streaming minutes during 2019/20 season

US broadcast giant NBC recorded the highest average viewership per game for its coverage of English soccer’s top-flight Premier League in four years during the 2019/20 season.

Based on national data from Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics, although not including Spanish language broadcasts or streaming data from NBC Sports Gold and Peacock Sports Group, NBC averaged a total audience delivery (TAD) of 462,000 viewers per match window during the campaign - the highest average Premier League viewership since 2015/16. Viewership was pacing at four per cent ahead of the previous season before the coronavirus pandemic lockdown shifted the Premier League’s distribution schedule, eventually finishing one per cent up.

The five matches broadcast on linear television for the Premier League’s final matchday registered a combined TAD of 1.7 million viewers, again not including the five matches streamed on NBC Sports Gold or Peacock.

Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Manchester City on 8th March posted a TAD average of 1.76 million viewers across all platforms to rank as the most-watched live Premier League match in US history.

The 2019/20 season saw NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app deliver 925.3 million live streaming minutes – the most of all time. In addition, the season accounted for four of the ten most-streamed Premier League matches of all time in the US.

The NBCSN pay-TV network’s weekday afternoon matches after the Premier League’s restart averaged 315,000 viewers – up 32 per cent from weekday matches this season prior to the March shutdown (239,000), and 45 per cent above the full 2018/19 season weekday afternoon average.

Since 17th June, NBCSN televised four of the six most-watched working weekday Premier League matches since 2014.

Premier League 2019/20 season highlights across NBC’s various digital platforms and social channels generated more than 200 million views – doubling last season’s total.

In addition, downloads of The 2 Robbies podcast in 2020 increased 57 per cent from last year, and from 20th to 26th July, NBC Sports’ Pro Soccer Talk delivered its highest weekly traffic in four years.

The top five local audience markets for NBC and NBCSN’s Premier League coverage for 2019/20 were Washington DC, Philadelphia, Tampa, Seattle and Baltimore.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 2:53 pm

No doubt you will remember the furore kicked up by Darragh MacAnthony (owner/chairman of Peterborough United) over the the ending of the League 1 season and how clubs should have sucked up the cost of playing on so his club could try and win promotion. Now his club are asking for skilled tradesmen to volunteer their services to get their ground ready for the new season - you know the people that are frantically trying to claw back the income lost in lockdown, meanwhile he is still demanding a 8 figure sum for Ivan Toney having turned down a 7 figure one from Celtic. I must say I am not surprised by the chancers approach it just reaffirms an opion already held,

That appeal for "volunteers"

The Club Needs Your Help!
Can you help us in getting the Weston Homes Stadium ready?

4 Hours ago

The football club are looking for skilled tradespeople that are willing to volunteer their time to help us get the Weston Homes Stadium ready for the return of football.

After the announcement last week that competitive football is back in early September the football club is searching for local tradespeople to volunteer their time and skillset to help us make sure the Weston Homes Stadium is ready to host football once again.

We are looking for painters, sweepers, cleaners, plumbers, carpenters, and those of you who are very handy when it comes to general maintenance.

If this sounds like you, and you are willing to volunteer some time over the next couple of weeks, then please email the football club with your skills and availability by Tuesday 4th August.

Please send all emails to helpers@theposh.com

meanwhile he continues to push his ego out to the world advising on the right type of club to invest in

https://twitter.com/dmac102

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:00 pm

Having brought all the properties and club under a single owner (not necessarily single company) Sheffield United continue to us Burnley FC as an Inspiration and commit to a redevelopment of their training ground - how Bournemouth must weep at their Premier League legacy

https://fcbusiness.co.uk/news/7301/

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:04 pm

The BBC are also reporting that Player data legal case

Russell Slade: Ex-manager leads lawsuit over use of players' personal data
By Nick Hartley & Philip Marsh

A major lawsuit signed by over 400 professional footballers, spearheaded by Russell Slade, could rewrite how personal data is handled in the game.

Footballers from the highest levels of the game are preparing to sue companies using their personal playing data.

The move could revolutionise how information is traded and could see players in line for compensation.

"Players need to be signing [consent] if their data is going to travel," said former Cardiff City manager Slade.

"One or two clubs are seeing it now, we want to help them get this right. Obviously data in clubs is there for players to improve but they should be signing their consent for it to be used.

"We have found that the accuracy of data is staggering, most players on board have wrong data stored.

"I've had a centre-back where on one platform his height was down as 5ft 7in (1.70m).

"That wouldn't be an issue over here as people would know who he is, but that could have been an issue getting a job abroad."

The group action brought by the players will target companies such as computer games manufacturers and betting companies who use players' personal data for their products.

The trading of player data has been a staple product within professional football for almost as long as the game itself but its value has risen dramatically as the game has grown its commercial appeal.

Take betting, for example. A multi-billion pound industry where companies have long looked to player data - from average goals to number of clean sheets and everything in between - as the basis from which they set their odds.

And then there is computer games, built on the appeal of officially licensed, replicated avatars of the game's top stars and journeyman players alike.

Millions of people worldwide play football simulation computer games

While this is a well-established and officially licensed route that sees companies pay millions of pounds themselves for access to the information via clubs or leagues, this new lawsuit will assert that the one group of people who have never given consent are the players themselves. Moreover, they are not reimbursed for their data either.

Putting the players back in control is the driving force behind the involvement of former Cardiff City, Leyton Orient and Yeovil manager Slade, who has seen both the highs and lows of the professional game.

The lawsuit is being led by Slade and the sports data and technology firm Global Sports Data and Technology Group, which he co-founded with Cardiff-based technology expert Jason Dunlop.

"I took Jason to a company to have an insight into how data works in sport. In that meeting he simply asked, 'who does the data belong to?'" said Slade.

"The guy at the company said, 'we do', and as we left we were going down the stairs and Jason was straight on me, saying the players should own the data as it's personal data.

"That was the light-bulb moment."

Dunlop added: "We have no issue with football clubs using the data, nor do the players involved in this case.

"Our issue is where data goes thereafter. We believe it goes into betting companies, gaming companies."

This is the basis from which the legal challenge, headed by Dean Armstrong QC, who can count the Leveson Inquiry amongst his recent actions, will be put.

Using the requirements placed by the General Data Protection Regulations brought in in 2018, players will claim that they have neither given consent, nor received the chance to change data they feel misrepresents them, nor have they been given the chance to be either reimbursed for their use or taken out of it entirely - all staples of the GDPR rules.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by huw.Y.WattfromWare » Wed Jul 29, 2020 5:29 pm

PL transfers net figures for last season. Villa survive because of goal line technology but topped the spending here. Some might think on that.
Congrats to Liverpool who played magnificent football and made a £22m profit
3AA32044-768F-4B87-8A74-F8A7F213E356.jpeg
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:19 pm

It is that time again the Brand Finance Football 50 - the 50 most valuable football brands in the world

you have to pay for the full report (tells you all the reasons for the valuations) but there is a preview version here

https://brandirectory.com/download-repo ... review.pdf

there is an introduction here https://brandirectory.com/rankings/football

we come in at 31 squeezed between Napoli, Olympic Lyonais, Sevilla and Eintract Frankfurt (i included the 1st and last becasue of the history we have with them)

This is the strength we have, with our current approach and Dyche we have a very clear identity to take to the marketplace, let's hope whoever takes up the recently advertised global relationship still has this all in place to work with

For those who want to understand more about how this works the people behind it talked to the Tifo Football podcast last year (it was referred to in the Tifo podcast about Burnley this week

- you can listen to the Brand Finance one here: https://tifo-football-podcast.simplecas ... d-EUAEMv42

- or watch it here on you tube https://tifo-football-podcast.simplecas ... d-EUAEMv42

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:04 pm

An intriguing theory as to why haveing 5 subs in a game does not advantage the bigger clubs with deeper squads - from the Guardian

Football's five substitutes rule doesn't benefit the big clubs – and here's why
The academic and former Athletic Bilbao head of talent ID explains why the issue is not as simple as it appears

Ignacio Palacios-Huerta

Wed 29 Jul 2020 11.56 BST - Last modified on Wed 29 Jul 2020 20.09 BST

Last month I was chatting to my friend Ernesto Valverde, the former Athletic Bilbao and Barcelona coach who I got to know well when I was Athletic’s head of talent ID. For once we were disagreeing. He, like many in football, thought that the temporary rule change to allow five substitutions from an extended bench of nine players favoured the big clubs. I insisted it wouldn’t.

At the time it felt like the debate didn’t matter much either way, given the rule was only expected to last until the end of the season. Now, however, Ifab has agreed to extend it, to the dismay of many. Burnley’s manager, Sean Dyche, and Aston Villa’s Dean Smith are prominent critics – and one well-regarded journalist recently claimed it “really does not take the brains of Lloyd George to work out that it is a rule which will favour richer clubs who have squads packed with larger numbers of higher-quality players”. However, this issue really is not as simple as it appears on the surface. Let me explain why.

My starting point is this: if being able to use five substitutes favoured the big clubs, you would expect them to make more changes compared with smaller teams. However, since the season resumed that hasn’t been the case. After lockdown was relaxed in the Bundesliga, for instance, the top four teams used 4.03 substitutes per game, while the bottom four teams used 4.59 substitutes per game. In the Premier League, Manchester City and Chelsea used fewer substitutes on average than Bournemouth and Norwich.

So what is going on? My argument is that the change in the number of substitutions neither harms nor benefits the teams according to their quality, but depends on other considerations.

Let me explain using a scenario I have discussed with a number of coaches, players, and analysts in the Premier League and La Liga. It is far simpler than real life, but hopefully it captures the essence of the situation.

Let’s take two hypothetical situations. In Situation A, substitutions during the game are forbidden. Teams start and end the game with 11 players. In Situation B, meanwhile, it is mandatory to replace the starting XI at half-time, and no other substitutions are allowed. Going from A (“No subs”) to B (“All subs”) means going from 0 to 11 substitutions, something undoubtedly much more drastic than going from three to five substitutions.

In Situation B, each team experiences a change in the quality of its players in the second half. The difference between the second half and the first half depends only on how good each team’s substitutes are relative to the starting XI.

In other words, whether a given team benefits depends on how its own relative change compares with the relative change of its opponent. Note that the words “strong team” or “weak team” are not used here, and therefore whether one team has a better or worse squad than another is irrelevant.

Let me put it another way. Let’s assume that every team’s first team and substitutes’ bench has a quality that is measurable and can be assigned a number from 0 to 100, with 100 being best.

Now imagine a match between a strong and a weak team, in which all the players are replaced at half-time. The strong team has 11 players of quality 100 and another 11 who are 60. On the other hand, a weak team has 22 identical players, all of quality equal to 20.

When the starting players have to be replaced at the break, the strong team plays with quality 100 in the first half and quality 60 in the second half, while the weak team plays with quality 20 in both halves. Contrary to what many might think, under these conditions, it is clear that the weaker team prefers the situation where there are more substitutions.

Of course Team B has a low chance of winning throughout. I am not disputing that. But, crucially, their chances of winning go up when 11 changes are made. The reason is that it has a more homogeneous squad, one with more similar player quality and is able to make more like-for-like substitutions.

Here is another scenario. All players in the strong team have an identical quality equal to 50, while the weak team has a quality of 20 in its first XI and of 15 in its 11 substitutes. Here again the more homogeneous team – which in this case is the strong team – benefits most from a situation where there are more substitutions allowed.

These simple exercises capture the essence of the impact of rule change. A team’s strength does not matter. Squads that can make more like-for-like substitutions are the ones that will benefit most from the possibility of a greater number of substitutions, regardless of their riches and thus overall level of quality of the squad. More uneven squads suffer from the rule change, regardless of how good their overall squad is.

At this point you are probably thinking: “Well, your theory sounds all well and good professor, but in practice the big clubs have more homogeneous squads than smaller ones?” I wouldn’t be so sure.

There is a well-known effect in football which economists refer to as the “superstar phenomenon” – whereby a small number of people earn enormous amounts and dominate the activities in which they engage. Of course it is not specific to football or even sports. There are countless examples from the world of arts and letters and showbiz where there is a strong tendency for rewards to be highly skewed toward the most talented individuals in the activity, with very large rewards at the top and a marked skewness in the distribution of salaries.

Nearly 40 years ago, Sherwin Rosen, an economist from the University of Chicago, proposed a brilliant theory to explain these general patterns. Applied to football, it means that essentially the best players reap a greater share of payroll, and this reduces the spoils available to the relatively less gifted in the squad. The superstar phenomenon, therefore, tends to increase the salary inequality both within squads and across squads.

As salaries are associated with quality and performance, this pushes richer clubs to tend to have more uneven squads than lesser – in terms of money – clubs. Richer clubs would then benefit less, not more, and tend to use fewer substitutes, which is what is happening. Of course it would make sense to go through each squad individually to make sure this is the case.

Incidentally, reports have suggested that only Aston Villa, Bournemouth and West Ham voted against the rule change. But if they have a relatively more balanced squad, they should have been among those to vote in favour.

Ignacio Palacios-Huerta is professor of management at the London School of Economics

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Duffer_ » Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:18 pm

Re. 5 subs: not exactly the point I was making but good to hear a different perspective. Perhaps I am better suited to a coaching career in La Liga.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=48401&p=1318725#p1318725

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:58 pm

I saw something about this on Twitter earlier but is was all in Arabic - Saudi Arabia is to appeal the recent WTO ruling - this situation is getting weird - from the Guardian

Saudi Arabia appeals against WTO ruling in twist to Newcastle takeover bid
WTO said Saudi Arabia helped piracy of Premier League games
Appeal unlikely to be held swiftly prolonging takeover
Sean Ingle - @seaningle - Wed 29 Jul 2020 21.37 BST Last modified on Wed 29 Jul 2020 22.36 BST

The Newcastle takeover saga has taken a fresh twist after Saudi Arabia formally appealed against a World Trade Organization ruling that it facilitated the piracy of Premier League matches.

The appeal comes as a surprise given the Saudi government initially claimed last month that the WTO ruling had been in its favour.

However that ruling, along with questions over the Saudi state’s role in piracy, have been key factors in delaying the £300m takeover at St James’ Park. The Premier League continues to investigate the links between the Saudi government and its Public Investment Fund, which is hoping to acquire a 80% stake in Newcastle. The independence of the PIF continues to be questioned, especially given its chairman, Mohammed bin Salman, is also the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia.

In a letter to the WTO’s appellate body, the Saudi government says it rejects the WTO’s conclusion that the Premier League was stopped from taking action against the pirate broadcaster BeoutQ in the Saudi courts.

It is also appealing against the WTO decision that the Qatari broadcaster beIN, which owns Premier League rights for the Middle East, was unable to obtain legal counsel to enforce its intellectual property rights in Saudi Arabia.

In the letter, seen by the Guardian, the Saudi ambassador to the WTO, Saleh Al Husseini, says the kingdom believes there are errors in the ruling which “it believes constitute serious errors of law and legal interpretation that need to be corrected”.

It is clearly a high-risk strategy given the Premier League supplied evidence directly to the WTO detailing Saudi piracy. Last month the league’s chief executive, Richard Masters, also said it had been “extremely frustrated” with Saudi Arabia’s behaviour around beoutQ.

“What we want – off the back of the WTO report and our own efforts and those of other sports – is for Saudi Arabia to respond positively to the situation and allow sports rights holders to protect their rights,” Masters told MPs at the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee.

The bad news for Newcastle fans is that the appeal is unlikely to be heard swiftly as the US has blocked appointments to the appellate body, meaning that it no longer has the minimum number of judges to convene. Saudi Arabia could have also appealed via an arbitration process to the WTO that would have been quicker but decided not to go down that route.

A spokesperson for beIN rejected the potential significance of the appeal. “Having spent the past six weeks telling the world how the WTO ruling was a ‘complete vindication of the kingdom’, curiously Saudi Arabia is now appealing a case they say they emphatically won,” he said.

“Rather than positively complying with international law, since June Saudi Arabia has lied to governments and rights-holders across world sport about the WTO ruling; it has said the Premier League, Fifa and Uefa sent their legal case to the wrong Saudi email address nine times; it has permanently banned the Premier League’s broadcast partner meaning the only way to watch premium sport is via piracy; and now it is appealing a WTO decision that they said they won.

“All the while, Saudi Arabia is essentially trying to pass an honesty and an anti-piracy test under the Premier League’s rules and gain the trust of the international sports community.”

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:05 pm

Barry Glendenning writing in the Guardian invokes up the spirit of John Nicholson and urges fans to boycott the return to matches until the game is returned to them

Imagine if fans wielded their power by staying away when grounds reopen
Without supporters, Saturday’s FA Cup final will likely be the worst of all time. Never before have fans held such influence – just consider the change they could enact if they used it

Barry Glendenning @bglendenning - Wed 29 Jul 2020 22.00 BST Last modified on Wed 29 Jul 2020 22.36 BST

As implausible and preposterous as it may be, let’s imagine a post Covid-19 world where football fans are finally allowed back into Premier League grounds but elect en masse not to go. Not because home drinking, tedious family Zoom quizzes and banana bread baking have eclipsed the sport in popularity, but because after months spent locked out of stadiums match-going supporters have realised the importance of their role cannot be overstated and unilaterally opt to stay away until certain conditions are met.

Even before a ball has been kicked it is reasonably safe to assume that Saturday’s FA Cup final will be the worst of all time. A traditionally grand occasion that will be memorable for all the wrong and weirdest of reasons, the Football Association’s showpiece event has been reduced to little more than a surreal meander through the motions this season, in order to fulfil contractual obligations and keep the financial and football record books up to date.

Carnations may well adorn lapels, there will be half-hearted pre-match smoke and mirrors, and Arsenal or Chelsea will prevail. The trophy will be handed over and hoisted skywards following an awkward presentation soundtracked by a pyrotechnic display designed to divert global attention from the depressingly bare look of the cavernous empty and iconic stadium in which one of the most famous games in world football has just been played.

Contested to the sound of no hands clapping or fans chanting, the game itself may well be a classic but the occasion will be uncharacteristically desolate and grim. It will still matter; of course it will. For all its neatness as a soundbite, the notion that football without fans is nothing is just not true and a Cup final played with nobody in attendance is, at least for those on the pitch, marginally better than no Cup final at all.

Every day all over the world, footballers of all ages, shapes, sizes, levels of ability and fitness gather to play their own cup finals without an audience for their own amusement and invariably have a fine time. Whether it’s on pitches, indoor and outdoor courts, gymnasiums, back gardens and yards, waste ground, scrubland, these finals are generally played wherever there’s room for one enthusiast or more to chase a rolling, bouncing ball. But for the presence of those playing, these locations would more often than not be forlorn, empty and unattended, demonstrating that football without fans is generally a very healthy, popular and largely beneficial use of the players’ time.

It is not widely known but the sum total of no spectators were in attendance to witness the best goal ever scored. An Exocet header from outside the penalty area – or where the penalty area would have been if the pitch had been marked – the ball was fumbled on to the inside of the upright by a butterfingered schoolboy nicknamed Beaver before bouncing over the goalline that also wasn’t there. The young goalkeeper’s clumsy intervention was not enough to keep the ball out but probably prevented the silence from the sidelines that greeted the stunning effort being broken by the satisfying sound of a rippling goal net. I say probably, because in the absence of anything so glamorous as an actual goal net it was impossible to tell.

In the absence of applause or pleasing sound effects, the scorer was forced to settle for the usual congratulatory pats on the head and boots up the arse from a few surprised teammates before a bell went and arguably the most insignificant kickabout in the history of the sport came to an end. Except it wasn’t completely insignificant because more than 30 years later I still recall that wonderful header I scored with fondness and crystal clarity. Far more importantly, it is finally a matter of public record.

The 15-year-old me had long since made peace with the fact he would never score in an FA Cup final but on Saturday somebody else who dreamed of doing so as a child almost certainly will. Technically, achieving such a milestone in front of 90,000 unoccupied and utterly indifferent seats will not render their accomplishment any less significant, except it almost certainly will.

Much cheaper tickets. No more paywalls. A redistribution of wealth to grassroots. And they're just for starters
Top-level football without fans is not nothing but it has become abundantly clear in recent weeks it is little more than a pale imitation of itself. The fact that this faded, facsimile, fan-free football is a sterile, anodyne and largely pointless pursuit will not have gone unnoticed by the grasping clubs, governing bodies and broadcasting companies who rely on the sport and those who watch it for their billions. Never before have football fans enjoyed such influence, although they will almost inevitably choose not to use it.

Imagine if they did. Imagine a scenario where they mobilised and decided enough is enough. One in which, upon being welcomed back into their vast and long-vacant enormo-domes in the coming months, they chose instead to stay away subject to a list of not entirely unreasonable demands being met.

Much cheaper tickets. No more paywalls, or at the very least a significant reduction in TV subscriptions, which would then be capped. An end to club gouging, the disturbing recent proliferation of gambling advertising and the rescheduling of matches for the benefit of armchair viewers at the expense of matchgoing fans. A guaranteed and substantial trickle-down redistribution of wealth from the top of the game to grassroots that, if needs be, comes out of the pockets of players, agents and owners who earn more money than any one person could possibly need. And they’re just a few off the top of the collective head for starters.

In his illuminating book Can We Have Our Football Back?, published long before lockdown, John Nicholson, the world’s most idealistic football writer, insists repeatedly that fans have always had the power. There may never be a better time to wield it.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:14 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:34 am
Another Middle Eastern state has "invested" in football to promote itself - though as yet not at the stratospheric cost we are used to - Bahrain buy 20% of Paris FC and immediately use the tourist authority to sponsor the shirt

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 3582597120
Tariq Panja now has a little more detail on the Bahrain state Investment in Paris FC, this article comes from the New York Times

Bahrain Buys Into Paris F.C., Moving In on P.S.G.’s Turf
JULY 27, 2020
Paris F.C. plays in France’s second tier. For now.

For years, soccer in Paris has been the hub of Qatar’s global ambitions. Through its ownership of the city’s biggest team, Paris St.-Germain, Qatar has dreamed big, spent big and won big. In doing so, the country has also used the sport’s popularity to enhance its profile on the world stage.

It may soon have some competition.

On Monday, a second Gulf dynasty entered the city’s soccer scene. Paris F.C., a team that plays in France’s second tier, announced that the Kingdom of Bahrain had bought a minority stake in the club.

The purchase price and the investors’ ambitions appear, for now, to be more modest than Qatari’s cash-soaked efforts, which have turned P.S.G. into a perennial French champion and one of Europe’s most formidable teams. But Paris F.C.’s immediate goal is clear: to reach France’s top division, Ligue 1, in the next three years and to lift its women’s side “as high as possible” in the top tier.

Team officials also left little doubt about Bahrain’s goal: As at P.S.G., the owners hope the soccer team will act as a billboard for the Gulf state, and attract tourists to a nation that is still reeling from the reputational damage it sustained when the country’s monarchy put down pro-democracy uprisings during the height of the Arab Spring.

“I think they saw a fantastic opportunity for investment, and Paris F.C. is a good tool of communication to promote the country,” Fabrice Herrault, the director general of the team, said in an interview. As part of the agreement in which Bahrain’s sovereign wealth fund took a 20 percent stake in the club, Paris F.C. will, starting next season, have the words “Explore Bahrain” emblazoned on its uniforms.

The National Communication Centre in Bahrain did not respond to requests for comment, sent through its embassy in the United Kingdom, about the kingdom’s investment in Paris F.C. or about claims by multiple groups and even its citizens that it has engaged in human rights abuses in crushing antigovernment protests.

By investing in soccer, Bahrain is following its Gulf neighbors down a well-trodden path. Qatar has owned P.S.G. since 2011, and the billionaire brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates has spent lavishly to assemble one of the best teams in the world at Manchester City in England. A Saudi Arabian prince owns another Premier League club, Sheffield United, and that kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund has bid to buy a third, Newcastle United. Gulf owners also control teams in Spain and Belgium.

Those direct investments, and related ones over the pirating of television rights controlled by Qatar’s beIN Media Group, have at times made European soccer a battleground in the diplomatic war between Qatar and several of its neighbors, including Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

“They join us for many objectives — mainly to help them to spread the image of Bahrain in France and Europe,” Herrault said.

That image has yet to recover since the 2011 uprisings by members of the country’s Shiite Muslim majority against the Sunni Muslim ruling family. To put it down, the authorities were accused of torturing hundreds of people taken into custody during the crackdown, among them protest leaders but also professionals, like doctors and athletes, who had sympathized with the demonstrators. The country’s action even became an issue for FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, when a powerful official from Bahrain ran for the organization’s presidency in 2016.

In 2019, the fate of the former national team player Hakeem al-Araibi drew global headlines when Bahrain attempted to have him extradited from Thailand, where he had been detained while on his honeymoon. Araibi had fled to Australia after the Arab Spring protests but was jailed, at Bahrain’s urging, when he arrived in Thailand; he was eventually released and returned to Australia only after an international outcry.

Paris F.C. officials said some of Bahrain’s millions would be invested in developing the club’s youth academy.
Bahrain, a key ally of the United States in the Persian Gulf, had pledged to carry out reforms in the wake of the violence, but since then, most of the country’s leading dissidents have been forced into exile or sent to prisons where, human rights groups say, torture and other abuse are common.

“My first thought was this is another attempt by Bahrain to whitewash its horrific rights record and another way of buying influence in Europe,” said Sayed Ahmed Alwadaei, the director of advocacy for the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy.

Alwadaei was jailed after taking part in antidemocracy protests and fled to the United Kingdom after his release. Bahraini authorities revoked his citizenship in 2015.

Herrault, the Paris F.C. executive, declined to discuss the allegations of human rights abuses.

The soccer investment is not Bahrain’s first foray into international sports. The country has hosted 15 Formula One Grand Prix races, the first in 2004, and has a professional cycling team that competes in the Tour de France. It has also naturalized some elite foreign athletes, notably middle-distance runners from Africa, to compete in its colors at Olympic Games and world championships. Campaign groups like Amnesty International have long argued that these actions were designed to change public opinion of Bahrain.

In Paris F.C., Bahrain has invested in a team with a curious history. The club was born in 1969 before splitting in two three years later, with the other half becoming Paris St.-Germain. Paris F.C. languished in the amateur ranks for years until the owner Pierre Ferracci, a businessman with close links to President Emmanuel Macron of France, oversaw its most recent rise through the professional ranks.

Ferracci’s plan, now buttressed by Bahrain’s millions, is to establish the team as one of the best proving grounds in France and beyond. Half of all domestic players in France’s top two divisions come from the Paris region, as did a third of France’s 2018 World Cup-winning team. But until two years ago, when Paris F.C. received a coveted license to run an academy, P.S.G. had the only accredited youth development program in the region.

“This region is like a gold mine,” Herrault said, though he added that the club was not looking to rival P.S.G., which he described as “an ocean away.”

While P. S.G. has spent heavily on established stars like the Brazilian Neymar, the Paris-born Kylian Mbappé and others, Paris F.C.’s means mean it will have to temper its aspirations, even as it announced that the new investment would allow it to increase its budget by 30 percent.

“Our objective is not to win the Champions League,” Herrault said. “It is to be promoted to Ligue 1 and stay there for many, many years and to have one of the best academies in France and in Europe.”

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed Jul 29, 2020 11:19 pm

FIFA has finally ratified it's $1.5 billion fund to help the game back following the pandemic. includes how they will be distributed - there is a significant potion reserved specifically for the women's game. Of course the key is keeping it out of the clutches of those greasy palms

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 0655852546

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:04 pm

This is very interesting from the German Monopolies Commission and possibly an indication as to where the European competition authorities may take football rights in the future - needless to say it could be used by the big clubs to their advantage - from SportsBusiness.com

German monopoly commission criticises cartel office for DFL tender approval
David Svenson - July 30, 2020

Germany’s federal monopoly commission has criticised the decision of the country’s federal cartel office, the Bundeskartellamt, to allow the German Football League (DFL) to sell exclusive live media-rights packages for the Bundesliga in the 2021-22 to 2024-25 cycle.

The Monopolkommission has said that the Bundeskartellamt’s decision to approve the latest DFL tender “does not sufficiently address the issue of limited price competition”.

It believes that there is no competition for the individual live matches, which harms the consumer, and that they would benefit if live rights were no longer sold exclusively.

The DFL awarded rights to the top-tier Bundesliga and second-tier 2. Bundesliga in June. The key live rights packages of the top-tier Bundesliga have been shared between pay-television broadcaster Sky and OTT streaming service DAZN.

Sky has acquired rights to 200 live matches per season, including all matches on Saturdays and midweek on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. DAZN has acquired 106 live Bundesliga matches per season, including all matches on Fridays and Sundays.

The DFL did sell non-exclusive free-to-air rights to nine matches in the 2021-25 cycle to commercial broadcasting group ProSiebenSat.1, and also non-exclusive digital rights to 33 matches per season from the 2. Bundesliga to sports broadcaster Sport1.

The DFL sent out the 2021-25 tender document on March 17, and was given the green light to proceed with the sales process by the Bundeskartellamt, Germany’s federal cartel office, on March 20.

The awarding of exclusive rights, especially for premium properties, is common practice, with subscription-based broadcasters such as Sky and DAZN unlikely to pay rights fees to the same level if the matches were non-exclusive.

This years recently-published DFL Economic report, outlined that in the in 2018-19 season, media rights accounted for the highest proportion of the Bundesliga clubs’ turnover, contributing €1.48bn and just under 37 per cent of the total.

Revenue from its domestic broadcasters for the forthcoming 2021-25 rights cycle will be €1.1bn per season, slightly down from the €1.16bn per season it currently receives.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:23 pm

I have recently posted about how the Premier League are the best in the world at managing their relationships with broadcasting rights holders, working with them as genuine partners to build the success of each others enterprise. Here is an example of why that is important. In the US Turner last season started a 3 year UEFA club competition rights deal, UEFA have given them little help in promoting it, so Turner Sport put a lot of effort in and grew the competitions profile in the US market. What UEFA did do though was sell the rights for the next cycle in this season to CBS and made a splash about it in the US Media during football's lockdown, while demanding Turner pay them in full and on original schedules.

Naturally TurnerSport were angry with the approach and finding themselves with an asset devalued by the pandemic and which they believe UEFA had further devalued with an early cycle sale and announcement. TurnerSport gave up their contract refusing to pay what UEFA were asking. CBS have now picked up the remainder of Turner's contract at a significant discount - effectively meaning UEFA will now be earning less from the deal.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:27 pm

I am not sure I entirely agree with this opinion piece at SportsProMedia.com though I understand some of the advantages - the true winner from what I see is the the company delivering the service (and the opinion).

Why the National League shows smaller rights holders need OTT more than ever
Rainer Geier, managing director of OTT and advertising solutions at Sportradar, on why the company is helping English soccer's semi-professional National League connect with its fans via a new digital solution.

Posted: July 30 2020By: Rainer Geier


As with most sectors, the sports industry has felt the impact of Covid-19 from top to bottom, and the world of soccer is no different.

In the UK, while some clubs in the top-flight Premier League spoke of their own financial troubles as lockdown first started, the huge global TV demand for their games to return meant, safety permitting, things were always likely to get back on track.

Yet lower down the English pyramid, where very little soccer has been played below the second tier, it is not so simple for the respective clubs, leagues and bodies who do not have the same global reach and TV revenues to fall back on. For these smaller clubs in particular, the matchday experience has always been the key to connecting with supporters and generating income.

This problem is not unique to English soccer's landscape. It is a concern for leagues and clubs that sit outside of Europe’s top leagues in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain.

The limited matches that are taking place are being played behind closed doors, so it is more important than ever to secure broadcast rights deals that help these clubs reconnect with their fans and deliver some much needed incomes.

This is the approach that Sportradar took with its new relationship with the Vanarama National League. In partnership, we launched an over-the-top (OTT) subscription streaming platform providing live and exclusive coverage from all ten playoff matches currently being played in the semi-professional National League North and South regional sixth tier.

With fans unable to attend matches in person, the National League required an additional platform to reach its target audience. Those loyal supporters were in danger of being overlooked given the volume of elite soccer that has been played out across the UK’s traditional broadcast networks recently.

OTT provides rights holders, such as the National League, with the tools needed to control their content, enabling them to create personalised and targeted programming to engage their specific audience. It also provides them with a platform to connect directly with their fans – domestically or globally – and, in this case, through live video content they would not otherwise have been able to access.

From a commercial point of view, OTT enables rights holders to monetise their rights and creates multiple opportunities in the form of advertising, subscription, retail and sponsorship. Additionally, OTT provides a deeper understanding of their fanbase, particularly their online habits. This insight is valuable as clubs seek to drive further commercial opportunities.

The OTT subscription costs compared to what fans typically pay when they go to a match are to the advantage of the fan wallet. The platform can be accessed on multiple devices, providing fans with the flexibility of how to watch their team in action, while they can access more than one game at once and so can see all the action unfold in real-time.

Covid-19 restrictions have changed how fans experience live sport, for the time being at least, and leagues and governing bodies are looking at how to connect with their fans throughout lockdown and beyond.

In Australia, Sportradar launched an OTT service in March dedicated to the country’s second-tier National Premier Leagues in New South Wales and Queensland. The platform went live as planned but was hit by the pandemic and the ensuing cancellation of live sport. But through our OTT platform, the National Premier Leagues was able to upload archive games and a series of podcasts to maintain and enhance engagement with its fans during lockdown.

Since the National Premier Leagues recently resumed its campaigns two weeks ago, Sportradar has seen positive increases in viewership for streams of both the men’s and women’s competitions.

At a time when top-tier competition is being widely played out across traditional and mainstream broadcast media, particularly in the UK, OTT has a pivotal role to play in the future of long tail sport. It is about empowering these leagues and clubs so they are able to control their own content and engage with supporters, while ensuring they have the commercial opportunities available to monetise their rights.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:30 pm

A bit of not so light reading for you

FOOTBALL, DIPLOMACY AND IDENTITY POLITICS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

JUNE 2020
GEOSTRATEGIC SPORTS OBSERVATORY
Interview with Dr Mahfoud AMARA / Director of Sport Science Program and Associate Professor in Sport Management and Policy at Qatar University

https://www.iris-france.org/wp-content/ ... n-2020.pdf

All of which is very interesting when you consider the recent moves by Bahrain and it's involvement with Paris FC that I posted about last night and remember that Saudi Arabia is still being linked with Olympic Marseille (a club with a huge connections/affiliations to North Africa) a move PSG are reportedly deeply concerned about and are said to be monitoring closely

https://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2 ... y-closely/

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 2:56 pm

If you want to get a feel as to how importantly the Gulf states view football and their image try this from the FT talking about that MAn City appeal win at CAS

Etihad executives played crucial role in overturning Man City sanction
MURAD AHMED JULY 28, 2020

Etihad Airways played a decisive role in overturning Manchester City’s two-year ban from the Champions League football tournament, with the United Arab Emirates-based carrier leaping to the defence of the Premier League club owned by a member of the country's ruling family.

On Tuesday, the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland, the body considered the final arbiter of global sports disputes, released the full ruling on its decision to lift the unprecedented sanction imposed on Man City by Uefa, European football’s governing body.

Uefa had sought to punish the club after concluding that more than £200m of sponsorship deals with two Abu-Dhabi-based groups — the carrier Etihad and telecommunications company Etisalat — had been provided by a company controlled by Man City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the billionaire who is also deputy prime minister of the UAE.

Uefa based its case around leaked internal emails obtained by an alleged computer hacker that appeared to show club executives had discussed ways to skirt so-called “financial fair play” rules intended to ensure clubs do not overspend on players in the pursuit of success.

The CAS panel found these emails did not provide enough evidence to substantiate Uefa’s findings, especially after Etihad’s top executives, such as chief executive Tony Douglas, provided witness statements to argue the sponsorship deals were genuine.

It added that Uefa’s arguments would “require a conclusion that the evidence of several high-ranking officials of large international commercial enterprises such as . . . Mr Douglas were false . . . This conclusion is not warranted based on the evidence available.”

A majority on the CAS panel was not “comfortably satisfied” that “arrangements discussed in the leaked emails were in fact executed”, and there was not enough evidence to show that Sheikh Mansour “directly” took on any of Etihad’s sponsorship obligations.

The case highlights how Abu Dhabi’s biggest companies have supported the ambitions of Manchester City since Sheikh Mansour acquired the team in 2008.

Critics alleged the owner, the brother of Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the de facto ruler of the UAE, has used the club to burnish the Middle Eastern country’s soft power through dominating the world’s favourite sport.

Etihad agreed to pay sponsorship and bonuses of more than £220m over three seasons to the end of 2015-16, making it one of the biggest endorsement deals in football history.

CAS determined that the charges brought in relation to the sponsorship contracts with Etisalat were “time barred”, meaning that Uefa had not brought its case within the required five-year time period for the sanctions to apply even if there had been wrongdoing.

However, CAS rejected City’s argument that the financial implications of the pandemic, which has forced clubs to shut fans out of stadiums, should have resulted in a reduction in the size of €10m fine that was imposed for a lack of co-operation with Uefa’s investigators.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of course both City and Etihad are believed to be owned/controlled by the state and there are much bigger stakes at play than just the economics of single business - as Simon Chadwick points out (again)

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 2219851777

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:03 pm

Keeping in the Gulf region, last night I posted the surprising news that Saudi Arabia were to appeal the recent WTO ruling on the Piracy of Bien Media product. As ever there is much much more going on there than immediately meets again - once again Simon Chadwick gives us an insight into what may be playing out, and once again it is regional and geo politics

https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 6964767746

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:35 pm

Following last weeks news that Switzerland's Attorney General was being investigated by Swiss Authorities (following a private meeting with Gianni Infantino who was being investigated by the Swiss Authorities at the time) - he did not tell the investigation team about the meeting, didn't take any notes at the meeting (he is a lawyer that is what they do) and didn't remember anything at all about what was said at the meeting (neither did Infantino curiously) - Gianni Infantino himself is not facing criminal charges. from the Associated Press


Criminal case opened against FIFA president Gianni Infantino
20 minutes ago

GENEVA (AP) — A criminal case against FIFA president Gianni Infantino was opened Thursday by a Swiss special prosecutor, plunging world soccer’s governing body in a new scandal.

Special prosecutor Stefan Keller has concluded there is enough evidence to take the case to court after investigating the circumstances a meeting Infantino had with Swiss attorney general Michael Lauber, who offered his resignation last week.

Keller has uncovered “elements that make up reprehensible behavior,” according to a statement from the Swiss authority overseeing the federal prosecutors office.

Keller opened a criminal case against Infantino as well as Valais prosecutor Rinaldo Arnold, and has sought authorization to open a legal case against Lauber, too, according to a statement from the Swiss authority.

Keller, a legal expert named to the post of special prosecutor on June 29, found possible infractions included abuse of public office, breach of official secrecy, “assisting offenders” and “incitement to these acts,” the supervisory authority for the office of the attorney general said in its statement, adding other criminal acts and proceedings could also be considered.

Suspects in such cases benefit from a presumption of innocence in Switzerland until legal proceedings are completed.

FIFA declined to comment but Infantino said last month “this whole thing is quite absurd.”

“To meet with the head prosecutor or attorney general of Switzerland is perfectly legitimate and it’s perfectly legal,” the FIFA president said on June 25 during a news conference held online.

Lauber offered to resign Friday only minutes before a federal court upheld allegations that he lied about a meeting he had with Infantino during a sprawling investigation into soccer corruption. It came in response to Lauber’s appeal against being disciplined in March for misconduct.

The internal disciplinary case against Lauber focused on a meeting he had with Infantino in June 2017 at a hotel in Bern, at which the prosecutor took no notes. They later both said they could not recall their discussion at what was their third meeting in a 15-month period.

“On the basis of general life experience, such a case of collective amnesia is an aberration,” the federal court ruling said last week.

Infantino gained the FIFA presidency in the fallout from the investigations that erupted around the governing body in 2015. FIFA President Sepp Blatter, who had already announced plans to resign in the wake of arrests of dozens of soccer officials, was banned from world football.

Michel Platini, the favorite to succeed Blatter and then serving as UEFA president, was also suspended, which ended his chances of leading FIFA.

In the void, Infantino, who led the UEFA administration as general secretary, saw a route to leading FIFA. The Swiss-Italian was elected in 2016, beating Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman.

The Bahraini is senior vice president of FIFA so would be in line to replace Infantino temporarily if he was suspended due to the criminal case.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by claretburns » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:51 pm

Saudi's pull the plug on Newcastle takeover - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53598846

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:58 pm

claretburns wrote:
Thu Jul 30, 2020 3:51 pm
Saudi's pull the plug on Newcastle takeover - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53598846
I refer you back to my posts this morning and last night on the WTO appeal it kind felt it was heading in this direction, but as we know things can change - a fair few Geordies are going to get miserable about this, Ashley banks his £17m deposit and moves on to someone who apparently wants to pay £50m more.

Simon Chadwick has given this initial response https://twitter.com/Prof_Chadwick/statu ... 2875937793

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 7:43 pm

An interesting article with dramatic title in the South China Morning Post today - and the content covers our Shirt sponsor too

Asia-facing betting sponsors putting European football at risk: report
Global Lottery Management System warns of dangers to integrity from widespread links to betting companies targeting Asian markets
In English Premier League, half of the clubs had a betting sponsor on shirts, while six included Chinese characters, despite ban on online gambling in China

Jonathan White - Published: 10:00am, 30 Jul, 2020

Rumours of a giant bet on Wigan Athletic’s relegation placed in the Philippines as a reason for the club’s plummet into administration put football’s relationship with Asian gambling markets back in the headlines last month, but a new report warns of a different danger.

Asia-facing gambling companies are a potential threat to the integrity of European football, according to a new report by the Global Lottery Management System (GLMS).The report aims to “illustrate how some betting operators exploit these partnerships with sports teams to market to customers in jurisdictions (particularly in Asia) where most online betting is illegal or where the national jurisdiction practices prohibition”.

A majority of the 188 teams have betting sponsors, while a quarter have company logos on their shirts. The report also says that almost one third of clubs have deals with companies operating in black or grey markets.

The transnational alliance of lotteries against sporting competition manipulation released A Study of Betting Operators and their Sponsorship of Sport to raise awareness on the “scope and scale of betting sponsorships”.

Clubs in the English Premier League and second-tier Championship in particular have developed strong ties with gambling companies as partners and sponsors in recent years. The scope of these deals ranges from league-wide to individual deals with clubs as main shirt and sleeves sponsor, advertising hoardings and matchday programmes to being official betting partners.

However, betting sponsorship has increased across the continent in the leagues they looked at, including the top flights in France, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands.

The report aims to “illustrate how some betting operators exploit these partnerships with sports teams to market to customers in jurisdictions (particularly in Asia) where most online betting is illegal or where the national jurisdiction practices prohibition”.

A majority of the 188 teams have betting sponsors, while a quarter have company logos on their shirts. The report also says that almost one third of clubs have deals with companies operating in black or grey markets.

In the English Premier League, 10 of the 20 clubs had a betting sponsor on their shirts, while six included Chinese characters. ManBetX sponsors two clubs: Crystal Palace and Wolves.

Multiple sponsorships by one company in the same league is not unusual, with Betway the shirt sponsors of three Spanish La Liga sides: Alaves, Leganes and Levante.

Even outside the companies sponsoring shirts, many offer services in languages from countries where online gambling is illegal, such as Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian and Korean. The vast majority offers simplified Chinese targeted at mainland China, while mirror websites, allowing users to access where they would otherwise be blocked, were also found to be common.

GLMS flagged concerns over Asia-facing companies that operate in the UK through so-called “white label” companies that allow them to operate under their licence and a number of the English Premier League teams fall into such a category.

“Under such white-label agreements, operators agree deals with already-licensed operators to operate under their licence, generally using the same trading capabilities, customer management software and other back-end technology.”

The report found that many such white-label companies existed solely for the duration of the contract before disappearing, citing OPE at Huddersfield Town.

“While some brand names remain, there have been some new companies which, with little or no discoverable past, are able to afford EPL shirt sponsorship and once the sponsorship period has ended, these brands no longer exist,” GLMS said.

As the Daily Mail reported, these deals are attractive to clubs as betting sponsors can often offer double what another sponsor might pay.

Not all of these relationships have run smoothly. English Premier League clubs have had run-ins with betting sponsors. Manchester United and Watford were both seeking monies from their former betting partner, MoPlay, an Asia-facing company registered in Armenia. Last September, the Old Trafford club were seeking US$11 million via a US payday lender who had guaranteed the deal on behalf of MoPlay after their deal was terminated following missed payments.

More recently, Bournemouth announced last month that they had ended their association with Asia-facing M88 around the same time as the Great Britain Gambling Commission announced an investigation into the company. Everton, meanwhile, ditched SportsPesa two years early, after the Kenya-facing TGP Europe-licenced company saw its Kenyan licence revoked by the government.

Yabo, which “operates betting websites through Isle of Man-registered, UKGC-licensed TGP Europe Limited”, according to the report, has also signed a league-wide deal with Italy’s Serie A, alongside several European clubs.

“Its websites and services are Asia-facing, in simplified Chinese only targeting customers in China and Asia,” the report said. “On top of the main website yabo.com, a number of mirror sites and alternative apps are available for customers in Asia, plus a wide range of payment solutions such as Alipay and WeChat Pay which are also available in China.”

Philippines-based multi-language site LeTou, which sponsored Swansea City shirts in 2017, also operates under TGP Europe, offers white label services to betting companies that sponsor many sports.

Manchester United subsequently signed a deal with Yabo, another Asia-facing betting company operating under a white label.

“Gaming industry reports claim that TGP’s ultimate owner is casino VIP room operator Suncity, which is operationally based in Macau and listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange,” the report said.

Meanwhile, Suncity, which operates casinos and VIP rooms in Macau while expanding into the Philippines, had its own company, 138.com, as sponsors of Watford in 2013. Earlier this year 138.com ceased to exist.

As Reuters reported last July, Suncity had been targeted by mainland media because of its junket group’s operations in Macau and facilitating online gaming in the Philippines. The group’s junket was unrelated to its Hong Kong-listed business, while they denied operating online gaming in a statement.

The most worrying concerns for GLMS were the potential for illegal activity as raised by connections to Macau, where the “casino industry has long been accused of being heavily linked to local Asian-organised criminal groups”, it wrote. Other reports have flagged the Philippines as similarly at risk.

“The huge Asian betting markets facilitate illegal betting, match-fixing and corrupting sport – this clearly leaves sports and teams who profess to cherish sports integrity open to accusations of hypocrisy,” the report said.

“Asia-facing betting operators leverage on their association with respected sports teams to legitimise their products and target customers in Asia, where both European football and betting are hugely popular,” the GLMS continued.

“For sports teams and official governing bodies, this should raise concerns as Asian betting operators market to customers in jurisdictions where most online betting is illegal or unlawful.”

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:00 pm

More tails of woe from Rights holders who want to hand back their rights to the owner - This time DAZN who have been to a lot of "portfolio reshaping" want to terminate their UEFA club competition rights for South East Asia early - hardly a surprise given they never really set-up service there. Just another example of them overstretching in the hope of expansion and wasting their investors money. From SportsProMedia.com

DAZN wants early end to Champions League deal in Southeast Asia
OTT service acquired rights ahead of 2018 season but never launched in territory.

Posted: July 30 2020 By: Tom Bassam

Global digital sports media company DAZN is seeking to end its Uefa Champions League broadcast partnership in Southeast Asia a year early.

The rights to European soccer's elite club competition, and the second-tier Europa League, were acquired by DAZN for the 2018 to 2021 cycle in a contract covering Japan, as well as Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

Whilst DAZN launched one of its first over-the-top (OTT) subscription services in Japan it never went live with a platform in the other markets. As recently as March 2019 DAZN was still intent on entering those territories but ultimately did not and instead had to sublicense those soccer rights - making a loss on the investment.

Where it was not possible to air matches on DAZN, games were shown on Facebook and YouTube, as well as on Goal.com, the DAZN-owned soccer portal.

SportsPro understands that DAZN has now informed Uefa and its Team Marketing agency that it wants to exit those contracts before their final 2020/21 season.

DAZN’s growth strategy has been heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. It saw the UK-based company inform rights holders it would not pay for undelivered content and reportedly seek extra investment to strengthen its position in existing core markets.

SportsPro understands that DAZN has also abandoned its Brazilian broadcast partnership for Serie A, Italian soccer’s top flight, as part of that realignment strategy.

It was also reported that the group entered into talks with US investment firm TPG about selling the Goal.com platform as it seeks to raise funds.

However, DAZN is still developing its business. It recently expanded its domestic broadcast partnership with German soccer’s top-tier Bundesliga and announced plans to move forward with its boxing-centric global OTT service.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:06 pm

more vultures are at the door - Red Bird Capital teams up with Billy Beane and launches an IPO for a Sports "Franchise" Acquisition Fund. from SportsProMedia.com

RedBird and ‘Moneyball’ Billy Beane launch IPO for sports team acquisition firm
RedBall hopes to raise US$500m in IPO to spend on a professional franchise.

Posted: July 29 2020By: Sam Carp

- RedBall is first sports-themed SPAC
- Blank-check company to focus on businesses in sports, media and data
- Management team also includes senior sports team execs Alec Scheiner and Luke Bornn

RedBird Capital Partners, the US investment firm led by Gerry Cardinale, has teamed up with Oakland A’s executive Billy Beane to create RedBall Acquisition Corp, which is being billed as the first sports-focused special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

RedBall filed with the securities and exchange commission (SEC) on 28th July for an initial public offering (IPO), during which it plans to raise US$500 million that it then intends to spend on acquiring a professional sports team.

Though RedBall could acquire a company in any sector, its filing said it ‘intends to focus on businesses in the sports, media and data analytics sectors’, with a particular focus on professional sports franchises ‘which complement the management team’s expertise and will benefit from its strategic and hands-on operational leadership.’

According to the filing, the offering on the New York Stock Exchange will consist of 50 million units priced at US$10 each. Each unit will comprise one Class A ordinary share and one-third of one redeemable warrant.

Shareholder money will be kept in trust for 24 months until RedBall identifies an acquisition target, at which point money would also be returned if no acquisition is made.

Cardinale (pictured) and Beane, who gained fame for his data-driven, ‘Moneyball’ approach as the general manager of Major League Baseball’s (MLB) A’s, will be co-chairmen of RedBall.

The management team also includes chief executive Alec Scheiner, the former president of the National Football League’s (NFL) Cleveland Browns, and executive vice president Luke Bornn, vice president of strategy and analytics for the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Sacramento Kings.

The filing continued: ‘We believe that the experience and capabilities of our management team will make us an attractive partner to potential target businesses, enhance our ability to complete a successful business combination, and bring value to the business post-business combination.

‘Our management team represents a unique combination of operating, investing, financial and transactional experience. This group has a strong track record of creating value for shareholders in multiple sports, media and data analytics companies that we have led, managed and/or invested in.’

SPACs have already raised a record US$19.3 billion in 2020, according to SPAC Research.

Several private companies have gone public this year by merging with SPACs, including daily fantasy sports and betting operator DraftKings, which in April completed a three-way merger with gaming technology specialists SBTech and investment firm Diamond Eagle Acquisition Corp (DEAC). Sportradar, the Swiss sports data intelligence company, is reported to be considering going down the same route.

Cardinale’s RedBird has been active in recent weeks, acquiring an 85 per cent stake in French soccer club Toulouse FC. The investment firm is also an investor in the YES Network, which has local rights to New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets games.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:20 pm

It has been quite the day - Infantino facing Criminal Charges, Saudil pulling out of the Newcastle bid and Der Speigel releasing more Football Leaks emails that suggest Man City really were guilty of the UEFA charges that CAS has just released them from. The latter was actually the first big story to break but was in German and I had been looking for a translation, but not benn successful with a page translation - fortunately the Guardian have now picked up the story.

Der Spiegel claims new Manchester City emails cast doubt on Cas verdict
New ‘leaked’ emails relate to City’s sponsorship by Etihad
Club refuse to comment on emails but have denied wrongdoing

David Conn - Thu 30 Jul 2020 20.02 BST - Last modified on Thu 30 Jul 2020 20.03 BST

The German magazine Der Spiegel has published new “leaked” emails relating to Manchester City’s past sponsorships by Abu Dhabi state companies, which it claims cast doubt on the court of arbitration for sport judgment that overturned City’s ban by Uefa.

In one of the emails, a City director, Simon Pearce, who was also a senior executive in an Abu Dhabi government authority, set out that he was “forwarding” the airline £91m of £99m that Etihad owed to the club for its sponsorship, with Etihad providing only £8m.

City refused to comment on the substance of the new emails, maintaining as the club has since the first “leaks” in November 2018 that their emails were “criminally obtained”. Spiegel’s source, Rui Pinto, who is charged with computer hacking in his native Portugal, which he denies, has denied that he obtained the City emails by criminal means.

City have vehemently denied that the Etihad sponsorship was subsidised by the club’s owner, Sheikh Mansour of the Abu Dhabi ruling family, or any other Abu Dhabi entity, since Spiegel first published the emails, and throughout the subsequent investigation and ultimate guilty finding by Uefa’s Club Financial Control Body (CFCB) adjudicatory chamber (AC). Pearce and senior Etihad executives gave evidence at the Cas hearing, categorically denying the finding, largely based on the published emails, that the airline did not pay the sponsorships in full.

The emails considered by the CFCB and Cas included three from City’s then financial officers to Pearce, a City board member and senior adviser on the Executive Affairs Authority (EAA), a strategic Abu Dhabi government authority. The finance officers set out that in 2012-13, 2013-14 and 2015-16 Etihad paid only £8m of sponsorship deals City stated to be £35m, £65m and £67.5m respectively. The rest, they wrote, was being paid by Mansour’s company ownership vehicle, the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG).

City had refused requests from the CFCB for Pearce and other senior people to give evidence, and Cas severely criticised the club and imposed a €10m fine for their failure to cooperate and obstruction of the investigation. Pearce did appear before Cas, as did James Hogan, the former Etihad chief executive, and other senior figures, and based largely on their evidence, the Cas panel overturned by a 2-1 majority the CFCB conclusion that Mansour “disguised” his own funding as Etihad sponsorship.

One of the new emails was sent by Pearce in December 2013, from his Executive Affairs Authority address to Peter Baumgartner, then Etihad’s chief commercial officer, with the subject “payments”. Pearce set out that under its sponsorship agreement, Etihad had owed City £31.5m for the 2012-13 season, and £67.5m for the £2013-14 season, a total of £99m.

“So we should be receiving a total of £99m – of which you will provide £8m,” he wrote to Baumgartner. ”I therefore should have forwarded £91m and instead have sent you only £88.5m. I effectively owe you £2.5m.”

Pearce offered Baumgartner two options to reconcile the missing £2.5m. The first was for Etihad to pay only £65m of the £67.5m sponsorship for 2013-14 and pay the £2.5m the following year. The second option, Pearce wrote, was: “You pay the £65m now and I will forward the £2.5m in a couple of months – at which point you can forward it on.”

Pearce apologised to Baumgartner for the missing £2.5m he had not sent, writing: “As I am sure you knew, embarrassingly it would seem that rather than overpaying you I have underpaid you!”

The figure of £88.5m Pearce apparently sent to Etihad for forwarding to City tallies with the same figure, £88.5m, set out to Pearce in one of the previously published emails. That was sent five days earlier by Jorge Chumillas, City’s then chief financial officer, who said the breakdown of Etihad’s sponsorship of City was £88.5m from ADUG, while Etihad were paying £8m.

Pearce’s evidence to Cas about the City’s finance officers writing in their emails that only £8m was coming from Etihad, was that the arrangements had caused “some confusion among individuals at the club” and “a misunderstanding that ADUG was making funds available to Etihad”.

City declined to provide a response to the contents of the new emails, as they did publicly in 2018, so they did not explain why or in what capacity Pearce was apparently sending £91m to the chief commercial officer of Etihad for its sponsorship of City.

The club said in a statement: “The questions and matters raised by Der Spiegel appear to be a cynical attempt to publicly re-litigate and undermine a case that has been fully adjudicated, after detailed proceedings and due process, by the court of arbitration for sport.

“Manchester City’s policy remains not to comment on out of context materials purported to have been criminally obtained from City Football Group and Manchester City personnel.”

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu Jul 30, 2020 8:29 pm

It sounds a huge number but I suspect it could have been much worse but for it's proactive approach - Sky have announced their quarterly revenues - from the Mail

Sky suffer a £575MILLION drop in revenue as TV subscribers switch off with the suspension of Premier League football and a lack of sport to blame during the coronavirus pandemic
- Sky have reported a £575million fall in revenue amid the coronavirus crisis
- The broadcaster lost 5 per cent of its sports subscribers during the lockdown
- They cancellation of Premier League fixtures contribution to the huge plunge
By KATHRYN BATTE FOR MAILONLINE

PUBLISHED: 16:18, 30 July 2020 | UPDATED: 16:56, 30 July 2020

Sky have reported a £575million fall in revenue after their sports subscribers switched off during the coronavirus lockdown.

The broadcaster, owned by American TV company Comcast, reported a 15.5 per cent fall in revenues from $4.8billion to $4bn (£3.7m to £3m) with the pandemic impacting the sporting calendar.

Sky blamed the plunge on the cancellation of Premier League, Bundesliga and Serie A fixtures as well as a decrease in customers receiving Sky broadband and mobiles services.

The company said the total number of customer relationships to all of its services fell by 214,000 in the quarter as a result, which they also blamed on the lack of televised sporting fixtures and the suspension of sales of some services.

Sky issued payment holidays in an attempt to keep customers but 5 per cent of sports subscribers still cancelled their memberships.

Content revenue also took a hit because of the lack of sport with a 38 per cent decline to $234million (£179.5million).

The broadcaster said for the six months to the end of June adjusted profits fell by 9.4 per cent to $1.3billion (£1billion).

The Premier League was suspended in March following the outbreak of the virus.

There was a three-month gap with fixtures eventually returning mid-way through June as Sky televised 100 games in 40 days.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:14 am

Wolves repeat the factoring of their Premier League central distribution rights that they have done since they returned to the Premier League, it will cost them but helps with cash flow, I suspect that factoring so much (£50m) makes it very difficult (even without the impact of Covid) to break the cycle, it would probably take a massive outward bound, cash upfront player sale to break it most likely. - The lender is specialist Maquarie

https://twitter.com/KieranMaguire/statu ... 5192969216

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:37 am

Naturally the media is awash with reports this morning on the collapse of the Newcastle takeover - some are being rather lascivious witht he "hateful eight" type of interference led by Liverpool and Tottenham, I have been struck by this one in the Telegraph which focuses on the fact that the Premier league wanted the Stat of Saudi Arabia to be registered as an owner/director so it would be bound by Premier League rules, of specific interest would be those regarding Piracy. If true it was a powerful and clever move, which further underlines how it protects it's copyright and the interests of it's media partners - something I have been posting about recently, they will be hopeful that such a demonstration will be rewarded in the next round of rights sales.

Why the Saudi takeover at Newcastle United floundered at the final hurdle
JASON BURT JULY 31, 2020

The £300 million deal to buy Newcastle United – which was christened 'Project Zebra' by those putting it together in a nod to the club's famous striped shirts – was never black and white.

Unfortunately it was always far more complicated, emotional, political – geo-political in fact when it came to Middle Eastern relations – than that. Now almost three years after a takeover was first mooted with financier Amanda Staveley attending Newcastle’s Premier League fixture at home to Liverpool in October 2017 it is – finally it seems – off.

In the end it was not the objection raised by the Qatari-owned beIN Sports over the theft of Premier League broadcast rights or a critical World Trade Organisation report or, indeed, the protests over Saudi Arabia’s human rights record that directly scuppered it.

It was the Premier League not being satisfied that the Public Investment Fund, which was taking an 80 per cent stake in the club, was independent on the Saudi state. In fact although it has not ruled on the takeover yet the Premier League insisted the connection had to be formally established. “They wanted the state of Saudi to effectively be a director of the football club and that was impossible. The directors and owners test was written for individuals not a state,” a senior source said.

It seemed, in fact, the Premier League did not want a club to be effectively owned by a country and wanted the Saudis to sign a so-called “Form Five” which would have meant a state basically being bound to the Premier League’s rules. Maybe that was a tactic to ensure there was no further piracy?

At the same time the PIF categorically insisted that although its chairman is Mohamed bin Salman, the deputy prime minister, it was an autonomous investment vehicle and not controlled by the state. It made its own investments, it said, and that independence was enshrined in its charter.

Even the personal intervention of Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of the PIF, who spoke to Premier League chief executive Richard Masters and the new chairman Gary Hoffman, did not remove the impasse while an offer of arbitration was rejected by the buyers.

It is remarkable to think that the deal to sell was struck back in March, just before the coronavirus hit, when, finally, there was a face-to-face meeting between Mike Ashley and the PIF’s representatives in Hampstead, northwest London close to where the Newcastle owner lives.

After that there was, according to sources, a degree of so-called “back-channelling” with the Premier League to establish it would be okay with the PIF becoming the majority shareholder with 10 per cent being taken by RB Sports and Media, which is run by the Reuben Brothers, and the final 10 per cent going to PCP Capital Partners, led by Staveley who had brokered the deal.

What has stunned the bidders is that for weeks they felt they had reassurances of no so-called “red flags” before that suddenly changed more than two months into the process.

The involvement of the PIF – the Arab state's sovereign wealth fund – was huge. It was undoubtedly their highest-profile, significant and controversial attempt to move into football which is the most followed sport in Saudi. Staveley was at the Future Investment Initiative (Saudi’s ‘Davos in the Desert’ event) in October last year and held talks with the PIF which, sources say, was key in bringing them onboard.

Questions will now be asked about the PIF’s involvement given Sheikh Mansour, the deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates, was able to buy Manchester City in 2008 will little difficulty because the takeover was framed as a private transaction. Why did the Saudis not follow this model?

The plan was actually to announce a deal in January when Al-Rumayyan, who was to become Newcastle’s chairman, registered a company called NCUK Investment Limited which was designed to buy 100 per cent of the club’s shares from MASH – Mike Ashley Holdings. As revealed by Telegraph Sport it was only on March 24 that the Premier League was formally notified by Newcastle and the buyers of the intention to complete the deal with the paperwork finally submitted and subject to the owners and directors test.

The initial delay was not over price, a £340 million deal was agreed in principle some time ago, and although there has been renegotiation to just over £300m given the current economic climate, it was not a problem. There were further renegotiations with Ashley as the delay dragged on but they were not deal-breakers.

It was always complicated and not least by the fact that there were three parties, and therefore three set of lawyers, on the buying side. The pandemic also slowed matters further and maybe it was just doomed to failure although the buyers are pinning the blame firmly on the Premier League.

But undoubtedly the involvement of beIN Sports, the Qatari-owned broadcaster, who lobbied aggressively against the takeover amid accusations that the Saudis were being the piracy of sports rights, was also significant.

At one point the Premier League even employed external legal advice to try and pick its way through the claims and counter-claims with the fear that it may be sued by one of its biggest broadcast partners.

The collapse of the takeover is a severe personal blow for Staveley who has now failed in a number of attempts to buy Newcastle, and has had her credentials questioned, but has never been so close.

Above all though it is a huge disappointment for the Newcastle fans who, whatever the ethics of the club being bought by the Saudis, were desperate to leave the loveless marriage with Ashley and see some serious investment in their club. Unfortunately it does not appear it will happen through ‘Project Zebra’.

WillDanceForChocolat
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by WillDanceForChocolat » Fri Jul 31, 2020 3:44 pm

GodIsADeeJay81 wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 10:37 pm
They're about £100 million in debt last I saw, an immediate bounce back up is going to be needed or they're gonna be up a creek without a paddle.

They don't own their ground or training ground either do they?
Chester Perry wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:02 pm
No they don't which is why they were looking to build new ones
We do own the training ground as it is but it's very limited which is why a new one is being built. Building something like that in the Bournemouth cornubation is extremely challenging in a way that isn't in many other parts of the country as there's simply no land available. The same applies to the stadium issue. There are no brownfield sites like, for example, Southampton picked up as there's no history of industry and so on in the area.

In the end they had to resort to buying a golf course and going through and whole planning process in order to find space for the new training facility. That kind of thing doesn't happen overnight though and even then it was only possible because the course closed down. We got a lucky break! When (I guess that may now be a case of if but hopefully not...) it's completed we can then reclaim the land currently used for the training which is by the stadium.

The long term vision was, once the new training facilities were finished and we could knock down the old ones, there would then be a complicated land swap with the council to give us access to other land in the park where the stadium currently is in order to build a new stadium.

I know it's easy to criticise, and my word our fans do it as well, but we're only going to be able to do this once so I'd rather they take 10 years to get it right if that's what it takes than rush it through in 3-4 years, bodge it and then we're stuck.

Trying to build any facilities for the club in a town like Bournemouth where so much of the population have moved from other parts of the country and so have no affinity for the club is a very delicate balancing act. When we rebuilt the stadium last time, bearing in mind that wasn't really a huge change in footprint or capacity, some recent arrivals to the town formed up a protest group to try and stop it and even try to use some kind of sand lizards that maybe lived nearby. They couldn't give a stuff about the club, they just knew it they could drive it away it would increase their house prices. It created a lot of problems at the time as any pressure group that's noisy enough can with local councils.

So yes, we're in a very challenging situation with the facilities but progress is slowly and surely being made.

As for the ownership of the current stadium, well that's still to be resolved but we still retain ownership of about a quarter so it isn't like the owners can do a lot with the land without us on board. Some kind of accommodation would eventually be reached, it was more of a case that nothing could proceed until the training ground was completed first. When that's done then negotiations could begin in earnest.

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