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 » Wed May 04, 2022 7:14 pm

Post number 8000 for the thread and the game shows no sign of coming to terns with the diverse range of earnings and overall shared perspective of how it can be managed going forward

Rick Parry interview in the Telegraph - it signals the next round of debate as to what the Government will be asked to do re the distribution of finances - link bypasses the paywall

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fw ... undreds%2F

RVclaret
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by RVclaret » Thu May 05, 2022 4:16 pm

https://www.tifosy.com/raises/peterborough-united-bond

Peterborough United issue a Bond to fans paying 9% interest, and a 15% bonus if they are promoted to the Championship. Need to invest minimum of £500 and repaid in five years.

Pretty interesting. Their promotion record is decent.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by GodIsADeeJay81 » Thu May 05, 2022 4:48 pm

RVclaret wrote:
Thu May 05, 2022 4:16 pm
https://www.tifosy.com/raises/peterborough-united-bond

Peterborough United issue a Bond to fans paying 9% interest, and a 15% bonus if they are promoted to the Championship. Need to invest minimum of £500 and repaid in five years.

Pretty interesting. Their promotion record is decent.
Is this similar to when Burnley fans where able to buy shares in the club to raise money?

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 06, 2022 4:08 pm

This could be an interesting comparison to VSL's travails in finding investors for our club - CVC issuing a bond agains their LaLiga deal

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 1055448072

CVC obviously have a greater track record than VSL and the overall deal (even without the big name clubs) appears to be good value to CVC not the clubs involved

still be a guide to what the market is like in European football for investment

Paul Waine
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Fri May 06, 2022 8:44 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Fri May 06, 2022 4:08 pm
This could be an interesting comparison to VSL's travails in finding investors for our club - CVC issuing a bond agains their LaLiga deal

https://twitter.com/tariqpanja/status/1 ... 1055448072

CVC obviously have a greater track record than VSL and the overall deal (even without the big name clubs) appears to be good value to CVC not the clubs involved

still be a guide to what the market is like in European football for investment
Interesting. However, also a big difference between a bond and equity. Significant differences between what ALK/VSL are looking to do and what CVC are doing.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun May 08, 2022 1:01 pm

No surprise to see this but still we see that everyone is missing the issue of UEFA monies - This season Liverpool are likely to earn more form their champions League participation - Prize/tv money and match day revenue (lets forget the commercial side uplift it provides) than we are from all our activities (and we play more Premier League games and cup games). UEFA co-efficient payments alone will provide them more than we earn from all our commercial activities (possibly throw in Matchday revenues too) - they will also earn more from Premier League central distribution alone than we will on all fronts not forgetting that their commercial income alone will smash our earnings to smithereens, but then that will be more than at least 10 other clubs will earn from all income in the Premier League and more likely 12 or 13. Liverpool will be earning 3 times more than us, more than likely it will be 4 - 5 times more than Norwich and Watford.

This is the club who are currently benefitting from great success but who were in the second division when we last won the title. They have been the thought providers behind Project Big Picture and the Super League (they were also key in all the other financial changes in the game, all the way back tot he introduction of the Maximum wage. It is all well and good talking about unreasonable distribution of Premier League monies, but luck at what the rest in the Premier League are fighting against and consider that every cycle that UEFA has increased it's revenues 32 clubs have seen a greater share of those revenues - why? because UEFA needs those clubs to earn the revenues it does. No English/UK independent regulator of football is going to change that - even the 49 European Leagues combined with the support of the European Fans groups cannot change UEFA's approach. FIFA are just busy looking at how they can get on on the act.

The Grimsby owner Jason Stockwood in the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... re-is-hope

Football is an unfair playing field for smaller clubs but there is hope
Jason Stockwood
Money is the competitive advantage in football so a better flow of funding throughout the football pyramid is essential

Sun 8 May 2022 08.00 BST

The “free market” is a dangerous lie. All systems are bounded by the choices we make on both a societal and individual basis. Seeing Fulham and Bournemouth promoted to the Premier League confirmed this idea and embeds the narrative that money is the competitive advantage in football. That they are beneficiaries of “parachute payments”, in a league where most clubs rely on the support of wealthy benefactors to underwrite their losses, further confirms that change is necessary if the game has any chance to retain any semblance of moral authority.

There is, of course, no suggestion that Fulham or Bournemouth are corrupt or immoral. It’s the dangerous narrative of the “free market” that needs changing and the people to change it are not those currently in power as it is a narrative that serves the “elites” in both society and sport.

The current mythology presupposes that we live in a meritocracy and those at the top in terms of sporting success, wealth or business are there because of hard work and ability alone. Whilst these are undoubtedly necessary conditions of success they are not sufficient. More important is how we benefit from embedded advantages of the systems we operate in. In football terms, that would be those who happen to have been around the Premier League at the time of its inception and for the last 20 years. On an individual basis, that is those who benefit from the accidents of birth across gender, ethnicity or wealth.

In his book A Theory of Justice, the philosopher John Rawls asks, what principles would we choose to govern our society if we had to choose from behind a “veil of ignorance”. Rawls’ thought experiment asks us to think about how we would treat all people in our society if we had cognition prior to birth but knew nothing about the life we will be born into across any dimension of class, race, sex etc. It seems obvious that when we take into consideration the randomness of our birth that we would only permit social and economic inequalities as long as they were to the advantage of the least well off because that could just as easily be any of us. The fact I was born white and male in Grimsby and not otherwise is completely arbitrary.

I have been thinking about Rawls in relation to the health of our society or our football leagues. For the system to be fair, it has to be judged on how we treat everyone in the system rather than the winner takes all mentality we are seeing in both broader society and our sport. Rawls also had something to say on intuition as a guide to moral choices and surely no one can think that it is fair that Fulham can pay their top striker Aleksander Mitrovic a reported £3m per year while Peterborough have to sell their top striker, Siriki Dembélé, to survive.

In all of this, there is hope. The government has declared it is supportive of the recommendations from the fan led review authored by Tracey Crouch MP. The most important items in that review are the need for an independent regulator, someone who can enforce a better flow of funding throughout the football pyramid, for a broader definition of who can be owners and directors of football clubs and for greater fan involvement in decisions that affect the future viability of clubs. It seems clear from statements by both the government and EFL that the Premier League have no interest in updating the financial arrangements to support lower leagues further. The arguments the Premier League makes are symptomatic of the inequality in broader society, where you can easily compare the Premier League with the “elites” in our society.

The Premier League and the top earners in our country both believe that the success and wealth they create is entirely down to their own brilliance and personal endeavour. I see this again and again when I meet wealthy people who often feel like they have earned their wealth through hard work and ingenuity alone and see no need to offer up further support through more progressive taxation. The issue about inequality is how people disregard the benefits of being part of historically robust systems and years of investment in making those systems work. Jeff Bezos didn’t invent the internet his business is built on, pay for the schools his employees are educated in or tarmac the roads that delivery trucks drive on but his wealth is built on all of them.

Likewise, those who now sit at the top of the football tree derive their success at least partially on the 100 plus years of organised football in our country and the contributions made by the Grimsbys, Port Vales and Stockports as much as the Arsenals, Manchester Uniteds and Liverpools. When the arguments are being made most disregard the fact that football clubs sit in such lofty positions today because of all that has gone before them or that people are often successful at least in part due to the advantages of their birth and the systems they are born into.

The other argument I see being made against greater solidarity across football or society is that existing systems are wasteful or too bureaucratic. In football terms, so many clubs are loss making because the current incentives reward overspending. Gary Neville and the team at Salford were pilloried for losing £91,000 a week but they are obviously only trying to do what is best for their club. The problem is not that owners will spend, it is that the system is unbounded and drives up wage demands across the board. If we made it a precondition of ownership that clubs cannot run up such losses then the system can police itself.

A mentor of mine used to tell me “deals only really work if they work for everyone”. I think this is true in all parts of life. It’s time to rethink the narratives we tell ourselves if we want our game and our society to flourish. We need to take a longer view of what football clubs mean to our communities and create ethical boundaries that serve all stakeholders and not just those who hold the money today. These decisions are too important to leave solely to those in boardrooms or in the higher tax brackets.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Sun May 08, 2022 5:09 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 1:01 pm

The Grimsby owner Jason Stockwood in the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... re-is-hope

The “free market” is a dangerous lie. All systems are bounded by the choices we make on both a societal and individual basis. Seeing Fulham and Bournemouth promoted to the Premier League confirmed this idea and embeds the narrative that money is the competitive advantage in football. That they are beneficiaries of “parachute payments”, in a league where most clubs rely on the support of wealthy benefactors to underwrite their losses, further confirms that change is necessary if the game has any chance to retain any semblance of moral authority.

In his book A Theory of Justice, the philosopher John Rawls asks, what principles would we choose to govern our society if we had to choose from behind a “veil of ignorance”. Rawls’ thought experiment asks us to think about how we would treat all people in our society if we had cognition prior to birth but knew nothing about the life we will be born into across any dimension of class, race, sex etc.

A mentor of mine used to tell me “deals only really work if they work for everyone”. I think this is true in all parts of life. It’s time to rethink the narratives we tell ourselves if we want our game and our society to flourish. We need to take a longer view of what football clubs mean to our communities and create ethical boundaries that serve all stakeholders and not just those who hold the money today. These decisions are too important to leave solely to those in boardrooms or in the higher tax brackets.
Hi CP, of course, I've edited lots of your post to save space.

Rawls, a US philosopher, published "Theory of Justice" in 1971. I'd not heard of Rawls or his book before. Google is useful for looking things up. (Founders of Google could be cited by Stockwood alongside Jeff Bezos and Amazon. They've earned their money). I'm unsure to what extent Grimsby's owner is quoting Rawls' argument accurately. I find it puzzling that the owner of any professional football club would argue for fairer distribution of football wealth by reference to Rawls and "Theory of Justice." Professional footballers, whether playing Premier League (or other elite clubs) or playing League 2 all earn fantastically more than those of us who kick a football in a park or anywhere in the amateur game. They are professional footballers because they have the talent and have had the opportunity to spend time as a professional footballer. They earn a lot because the football watching public, both those who attend the games in person and those who watch the games on tv around the world are prepared to pay to make the professional footballers wealthy. Yes, of course, the football pyramid also requires others with wealth to contribute to the pyramid.

Football is a competitive sport, i.e. the purpose of the game is to have winners and losers. Every season leagues exist to determine the top and the bottom of the league. Ditto, cup competitions will always conclude with a winner and everyone else is, along the way, a loser. Without these processes, no one would be interested - even though losing brings disappointment.

Maybe Rawls should have written a companion book, "Life's not Fair, Get Over It." Subtitle: "How Not to Be Envious and Jealous of Someone who has more than you." I'd argue that LNF would be a better philosophy for the majority and result in an enormous increase in our sense of personal worth and happiness.

Re Stockwood's deals. I think he's misunderstood his mentor. "Deals only really work if they work for everyone" is true, but it's referring to everyone in the deal, the buyer and the seller, or the buying football club, the selling football club and the footballer who is being transferred.

As for "ethical boundaries" around football clubs and their communities, we'd either have to carve up the football pyramid so that all the large cities were in the top division, then the medium sized cities, then the large towns and so on down to the small villages perhaps playing in regional competitions. Or, we could carve up the country by population and draw lots for every population unit, let's say 100,000 (across all age groups etc) and place them into football leagues. Fairness might argue that no account should be taken of footballing ability, or maybe leave that to each 100,000 unit to decide who makes it into their team. At a guess, the ones who picked good footballers for their team would do better than those that didn't. However, they may be frustrated if having won their division one season, they start the next season lower down because their lot was drawn for a lower division. Of course, winners and also losers would always receive the same prize money. Anything else would be "unfair" and not sit well with "Theory of Justice."

Interesting stuff to think about. Thanks for posting, CP.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by ClaretPete001 » Sun May 08, 2022 6:28 pm

Paul Waine wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 5:09 pm
Hi CP, of course, I've edited lots of your post to save space.

Rawls, a US philosopher, published "Theory of Justice" in 1971. I'd not heard of Rawls or his book before. Google is useful for looking things up. (Founders of Google could be cited by Stockwood alongside Jeff Bezos and Amazon. They've earned their money). I'm unsure to what extent Grimsby's owner is quoting Rawls' argument accurately. I find it puzzling that the owner of any professional football club would argue for fairer distribution of football wealth by reference to Rawls and "Theory of Justice." Professional footballers, whether playing Premier League (or other elite clubs) or playing League 2 all earn fantastically more than those of us who kick a football in a park or anywhere in the amateur game. They are professional footballers because they have the talent and have had the opportunity to spend time as a professional footballer. They earn a lot because the football watching public, both those who attend the games in person and those who watch the games on tv around the world are prepared to pay to make the professional footballers wealthy. Yes, of course, the football pyramid also requires others with wealth to contribute to the pyramid.

Football is a competitive sport, i.e. the purpose of the game is to have winners and losers. Every season leagues exist to determine the top and the bottom of the league. Ditto, cup competitions will always conclude with a winner and everyone else is, along the way, a loser. Without these processes, no one would be interested - even though losing brings disappointment.
(edited)
I think his central point is that if a group of people sat down with a piece of paper without pre-conception (or a veil of ignorance) and drew up a central tenet of fairness - would money be the single most influential variable that most fair minded people would choose?

Is it fair for a Russian billionaire to be able to disrupt genuine competition to make Bournemouth successful?

I can't remember who gave the example below but it's a good one:

When the pyramid was fairer with a maximum wage Liverpool was a second division club and Burnley won the equivalent of the Premier League. Once money became the central variable to success bigger clubs dominated to the point where those with the most money bought the biggest clubs such that Russian oligarchs and Arab billionaires have invariably dominated.

So, not only do clubs like Liverpool generate more income, as a consequence of its geographical location in an urban conurbation, but it gets bigger handouts from "social structures" like UEFA. This also does not seem to be fair.

Rawls was influenced by Hegel and Kant. Hegel's dialectic suggested that social structure exist through time and space (also a Kantian theme) to create a discourse that accepts this unfairness as the norm and fair.

For example, and with all due respect, how would a billionaire like Jeff Bezos maintain his position unless he can persuade good people like yourself that his contribution to Amazon is worth exponentially more than even those who created the internet?

Because the dialectic is so successful at persuading people like your good self that your contribution is in relative terms worthless (compared to Bezos anyway) you have to throw a veil of ignorance over historical views and try to arrive at a notion of fairness such that it is impartial and unaffected by prevailing views.

In other words, the veil of ignorance is a ahistorical reasoning device, which is used to ascertain fairness in the most impartial way possible.

And if a group of fair minded people set out to determine, which variable was central to competition they would invariably not choose money..!

I hope that helps....!

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Sun May 08, 2022 7:03 pm

ClaretPete001 wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 6:28 pm
(1) I think his central point is that if a group of people sat down with a piece of paper without pre-conception (or a veil of ignorance) and drew up a central tenet of fairness - would money be the single most influential variable that most fair minded people would choose?

(2) Is it fair for a Russian billionaire to be able to disrupt genuine competition to make Bournemouth successful?

I can't remember who gave the example below but it's a good one:

(3) When the pyramid was fairer with a maximum wage Liverpool was a second division club and Burnley won the equivalent of the Premier League. Once money became the central variable to success bigger clubs dominated to the point where those with the most money bought the biggest clubs such that Russian oligarchs and Arab billionaires have invariably dominated.

(4) So, not only do clubs like Liverpool generate more income, as a consequence of its geographical location in an urban conurbation, but it gets bigger handouts from "social structures" like UEFA. This also does not seem to be fair.

(5) Rawls was influenced by Hegel and Kant. Hegel's dialectic suggested that social structure exist through time and space (also a Kantian theme) to create a discourse that accepts this unfairness as the norm and fair.

(6) For example, and with all due respect, how would a billionaire like Jeff Bezos maintain his position unless he can persuade good people like yourself that his contribution to Amazon is worth exponentially more than even those who created the internet?

(7) Because the dialectic is so successful at persuading people like your good self that your contribution is in relative terms worthless (compared to Bezos anyway) you have to throw a veil of ignorance over historical views and try to arrive at a notion of fairness such that it is impartial and unaffected by prevailing views.

(8) In other words, the veil of ignorance is a ahistorical reasoning device, which is used to ascertain fairness in the most impartial way possible.

(9) And if a group of fair minded people set out to determine, which variable was central to competition they would invariably not choose money..!

I hope that helps....!
Hi Pete, do you mind if I ask a few questions/make a few comments on what you've posted?

I've added numbers to your quote above and will use these numbers to reference my questions/comments below.

(1) Who is "his" in your statement? Are you speaking of Rawls or Stockwood? I'd guess at Rawls, but it begs the question what fairness are you looking for.

(2) Do you mean, is it fair that billionaires can own football clubs? Would I be following a dialectic argument if I asked is it fair that professional footballers get paid so much, which results in billionaires needing to be the owners of football clubs?

(3) What is the significance of 1959/60 season for your position? I'm sure the maximum wage existed at other times when Burnley didn't win Division 1 and Liverpool weren't in Division 2. Does you reasoning require a specific time period, or has i got more general and philosophical applicability?

(I'll continue this later).

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Sun May 08, 2022 8:12 pm

ClaretPete001 wrote:
Sun May 08, 2022 6:28 pm
(1) I think his central point is that if a group of people sat down with a piece of paper without pre-conception (or a veil of ignorance) and drew up a central tenet of fairness - would money be the single most influential variable that most fair minded people would choose?

(2) Is it fair for a Russian billionaire to be able to disrupt genuine competition to make Bournemouth successful?

I can't remember who gave the example below but it's a good one:

(3) When the pyramid was fairer with a maximum wage Liverpool was a second division club and Burnley won the equivalent of the Premier League. Once money became the central variable to success bigger clubs dominated to the point where those with the most money bought the biggest clubs such that Russian oligarchs and Arab billionaires have invariably dominated.

(4) So, not only do clubs like Liverpool generate more income, as a consequence of its geographical location in an urban conurbation, but it gets bigger handouts from "social structures" like UEFA. This also does not seem to be fair.

(5) Rawls was influenced by Hegel and Kant. Hegel's dialectic suggested that social structure exist through time and space (also a Kantian theme) to create a discourse that accepts this unfairness as the norm and fair.

(6) For example, and with all due respect, how would a billionaire like Jeff Bezos maintain his position unless he can persuade good people like yourself that his contribution to Amazon is worth exponentially more than even those who created the internet?

(7) Because the dialectic is so successful at persuading people like your good self that your contribution is in relative terms worthless (compared to Bezos anyway) you have to throw a veil of ignorance over historical views and try to arrive at a notion of fairness such that it is impartial and unaffected by prevailing views.

(8) In other words, the veil of ignorance is a ahistorical reasoning device, which is used to ascertain fairness in the most impartial way possible.

(9) And if a group of fair minded people set out to determine, which variable was central to competition they would invariably not choose money..!

I hope that helps....!
continuing from above...

(4) Can you explain why you describe UEFA as a "social structure" and why you describe the money received by participating in UEFA competitions as "handouts?"

(5) Which "unfairness" are you referencing here? Also, what do you mean by "space" in this context?

(6) Isn't Jeff Bezos the founder of Amazon? Hasn't he derived his wealth from the success of this business? Why do you make a connection between Amazon and Bezos on the one hand and the creators of the internet? Yes, Amazon requires the world wide web to exist? Isn't that also true of a lot of other very large businesses? Isn't it also true that there have been many failed dot.com businesses.

I'm not sure what you are suggesting Bezos has persuaded me to do? I guess you are suggesting that Bezos has persuaded the shareholders of Amazon that shares in that company are worth more than shares in a theoretical entity called "the internet?" Where do the telecommunications businesses fit in in your "value world?"

(7) I'm totally befuddled by this paragraph. What is "the dialectic" you refer to? Why are you making comparisons between my worth and Jeff Bezos? Yes, you are correct that I don't have as much wealth as Bezos, but that's not how I measure my worth or compare myself with Bezos. Personally, I don't differentiate or segregate people by wealth. See my suggestion of a book subtitled: "How Not to Be Envious and Jealous of Someone who has more than you."

(8) Can you tell me more about your "veil of ignorance," what do you mean - this also appears in your para (7). Are you saying your "veil of ignorance" is ascertaining "fairness?"

(9) Then, you've got me here, again. What do you mean by "fair minded" people? Are they "cloaking" themselves with your "veil of ignorance" or are they "peeping through the veil" and reaching "fair" conclusions regardless of your "veil of ignorance?"

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by ClaretPete001 » Mon May 09, 2022 9:26 am

I'm not sure I can answer all these question, I am just trying to explain Rawls and the philosophy underpinning the article Chester posted. Philosophy concerns itself with ethics and the fundamental question of how you arrive at an ethical position when it is subjective and power seeks to subvert ethics to its own end. Power can be in the form of the individual or groups of individuals. So, if we go back to the enlightenment the power philosophers sought to resolve was the emerging state. So, you had Rousseau's concept of the social contract between the individual and the state.

Then Hegel and his dialectic and finally Marx with his view that capitalism is a dialectic between capital and labour. And finally, Kant with his very enlightenment view that the only way to arrive at an ethical viewpoint is through reason and we are born reasonable ( we know reason apriori - think Plato, Descartes etc = idealism).

Rawls disagreed with Kant because of the dialectic - "we are born free but everywhere people are in chains" type of argument. In other words, once we become part of the dialectic our views are not derived solely from individual reasoning but are shaped by the dialectic (it is experiential - think Aristotle and Hume). So, Rawls' proposition was that to achieve reason we have to throw a veil of ignorance over the dialectic and try to seek reason collectively with a blank piece of paper unsullied by prejudice and bias).

So, think of football as a metaphor for these struggles. You have capital - the owners, and labour - the players, you have the state in the form of UEFA and FIFA and finally you have the communities in which these battles are being played out - in our case Burnley / East Lancashire.

I'll try to answer some of your questions shortly but that is the context in which the article seems to be place and make the argument that philosophy perfectly maps out the struggle that we see happening in football.
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Newcastleclaret93 » Mon May 09, 2022 10:11 am

Burnley feature on the price of money podcast today

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by GodIsADeeJay81 » Mon May 09, 2022 9:28 pm

Will Chelsea follow Todd Boehly's successful blueprint at LA Dodgers? https://mol.im/a/10797315 via https://dailym.ai/android

Interesting article as it mentions Boehly took a loan out to buy his stake in the Dodgers and used the club's own money to pay for it.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 10, 2022 2:24 am

It is very late in the day and you get the feeling that this is being done so it can be offered again down the line (though I really hope not) the Title of this Telegraph article though is a complete nonsense

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fw ... -outcry%2F

Uefa's 'Super League' plans dead after fan groups outcry
Following fierce criticism by Premier League fan groups, club powerbrokers are nearing an agreement on a Champions League compromise plan

By - Tom Morgan,
SPORTS NEWS CORRESPONDENT
9 May 2022 • 9:07pm

Uefa will finally water down controversial proposals for Champions League legacy spots on Tuesday after club powerbrokers neared agreement on a last-minute compromise plan. Amid warnings from fans of another Super League via the back door, club executives were close to slashing plans for new places based on five years' historic performance.

Instead, the most likely compromise appears to be new places handed out on "more recent sporting merit" - potentially under three years in the Europe-wide coefficient standings. The Premier League had been among competitions fiercely opposed to the coefficient places. As a result, at least two new alternatives were discussed by the European Club Association (ECA) at an ECA board meeting in Madrid on Monday. Debate then continued as club executives met for dinner.

The ECA said in a statement: “As these important proposals near final agreement to be approved at Uefa’s executive committee, the ECA committed to working with Uefa to conclude the best possible outcomes for European club football.”

Under the initial plan, a Premier League club might still secure a spot for finishing fifth or winning the FA Cup if its coefficient placed them high enough over the previous five years. That arrangement is now dead, and even Manchester United, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur, who would have benefited, did not push for it in recent weeks. Instead, several Premier League fan groups put their names to an open letter to ECA clubs on Monday, saying the increase in matches would lead to “boring” and “no stakes” matches and would make increased demands on supporters during a cost-of-living crisis.

The letter described the coefficient proposal as “fundamentally unfair” and “anti-competitive”. “They represent an obvious attempt to reward underperforming elite clubs at the expense of others and bring into question the ECA clubs’ rhetoric around the Super League,” the letter added.

It concluded: “In the end, your decision will shape the game for a generation, impacting every league, club, player, and fan in Europe. We therefore expect you to focus your attention on the serious matters at hand, not juvenile daydreams of extended half-time shows, week-long finals, and similar Super Bowl knock-offs. Moreover, we demand that you listen to the millions of match-going fans across the continent by dropping these reforms and acting in the best interests of the whole European game. The time to do so is now.”

Under the new format, the Champions League will expand from 32 to 36 teams as part of a “Swiss model”, in which all teams compete in a single league. Teams will play eight or ten matches against opponents of different ranks to decide which go through to the knockout rounds.

Telegraph Sport forecast last week that the coefficient proposals were facing a rethink, and one source close to the ECA expressed confidence that there would be a unanimous position by the time Uefa's executive committee gathers in Vienna, Austria, on Tuesday afternoon. The late talks, and potential compromise, lessens the likelihood of Aleksander Čeferin, the governing body president, being in a position to rubber stamp post-2024 reforms this week, however.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by GodIsADeeJay81 » Tue May 10, 2022 11:12 am

Sounds like Birmingham are being looked at by potential buyers, for around £35 million which would include taking back ownership of the stadium by the club.

One consortium is looking at taking out loans to help fund the purchase of the club.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by ClaretPete001 » Tue May 10, 2022 11:37 am

Just to finish off the above and apologies Paul I don't have time to answer the questions above but I've tried to apply the philosophy to current issues.

So let's go back to Marx's view that competition is the key to freedom for workers. In a competitive environment capital (football club owners) compete for labour (players) and, consequently, this causes wage inflation. This is not problematic because it just reduces the amount capital (owners) takes and increases the amount workers (players) earn.

Toxic inflation only occurs where capital introduces inflationary pressure unrelated to the profits generated by the fundamental business proposition of football. In other words, capital attempts to subvert genuine competition by introducing funds unrelated to football to buy the best players. Labour can still demand more money and capital can still pay it but it no longer correlates to the intrinsic value of either in the football marketplace (Remember Marx's central theory is related to the value of Labour).

Of course, we then have the fundamental problem that toxic inflation starts to drive competitors out of the marketplace, which then reduces competition and puts power back into the hands of owners. So, philosophically speaking this is Marx's version of Hegel's dialectic - a back and forward battle between capital and labour.

Ironically, the external capital introduced into football’s business proposition, which causes inflation also (temporarily) increases the risk to capital. Capital then seeks to subvert competition by whatever means it can. Think of the absence of relegation in the European super league and the constant pressure to reduce parachute payments etc.

Ergo, this is where Rousseau's social contract and Hegel's social structures come into play. There has to be some social structure, which prevents capital from constantly seeking to reduce competition to the point where capitalism or competition starts to fail. Hence, the calls for PL, UEFA and FIFA to regulate the market.

Hence, Chester's posted article central premise that the free market is a lie. It is; left to its own devices the market fails because of the desire of capital to reduce risk and competition.

But the social structures designed to address this also start to fail because power seeks to influence those structures, for example, Liverpool benefiting from their inherent geo-economic advantage, which is then re-enforced by the very structures designed to reduce that advantage. The constant threat of the European Super League creates pressure on those social structures (UEFA etc)

The other central point in the article is about Young's meritocracy and the mistaken view that many have that success is based upon individual merit when often it is based on background and connections (Young is the father of Toby Young btw a somewhat controversial Free speech advocate).

Rowls point, therefore, is that you have to throw a veil of ignorance over all this and look at how football should exist given a blank piece of paper and the absence of bias.

I have to say, I'd never heard of Jason Stockwood before but he writes some interesting stuff.
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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Tue May 10, 2022 12:29 pm

ClaretPete001 wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 11:37 am
Just to finish off the above and apologies Paul I don't have time to answer the questions above but I've tried to apply the philosophy to current issues.

So let's go back to Marx's view that competition is the key to freedom for workers. In a competitive environment capital (football club owners) compete for labour (players) and, consequently, this causes wage inflation. This is not problematic because it just reduces the amount capital (owners) takes and increases the amount workers (players) earn.

Toxic inflation only occurs where capital introduces inflationary pressure unrelated to the profits generated by the fundamental business proposition of football. In other words, capital attempts to subvert genuine competition by introducing funds unrelated to football to buy the best players. Labour can still demand more money and capital can still pay it but it no longer correlates to the intrinsic value of either in the football marketplace (Remember Marx's central theory is related to the value of Labour).

(chunk cut to save space)

Rawls (edited typo) point, therefore, is that you have to throw a veil of ignorance over all this and look at how football should exist given a blank piece of paper and the absence of bias.

I have to say, I'd never heard of Jason Stockwood before but he writes some interesting stuff.
Hi Pete, thanks for both posts. I've enjoyed reading them. My knowledge of philosophy is not so deep as your's appears. Of course, for anyone not familiar with the writings of Karl Marx, he didn't write about professional footballers and football club owners. It was more mill owners (and other factory owners) v the workers. A lot of this was derived from Engels' observations over conditions in Manchester. Marx's workers were also not distinguished by their skills, they wouldn't be subject to bidding between competing mill owners in the way that individual footballers are competed for by the clubs with money to spend.

Is "toxic" necessary in your description of inflation? Isn't that simply a term that has been applied by politicians and political media in recent years? (I don't recall inflation being described as "toxic" in economic or history textbooks).

I'd suggest that "capital" isn't the only source of inflation. I'd also question what you mean by "the intrinsic value" whether we are discussing the "football marketplace" or any other economic venue.

Anyway, enough. Thanks.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 10, 2022 2:52 pm

Disappointing from UEFA who have both given a little and held back some so they can give again in the future

from the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... ry-success

Champions League: Uefa settles on new coefficient plan for places
  • Two places to be awarded on basis of countries’ success

  • Group phase to involve eight games per team, not 10


Paul MacInnes in Vienna - Tue 10 May 2022 14.04 BST

Uefa will allow two clubs to enter the Champions League from 2024 based on historical performance, it has been agreed, but with the rankings determined by country and not club.

The deal, struck at a meeting of Uefa’s executive committee on Tuesday, is a compromise which will also see the number of fixtures in the revamped Champions League reduced to eight matches per club in the ‘league stage’, down from a proposed 10.

Under previous plans, two clubs who failed to reach the Champions League by league qualification would have still made the tournament based on their coefficient, a rating determined by performance in Europe over the previous five years.

The new approach will also see two places determined by coefficient, but that of the country as a whole, and only over the past year. If the new rules were applied this season, the two extra places would go to clubs from England and the Netherlands.

The numbers are based on points obtained by all a country’s clubs in a given season in the Champions League, Europa League and Europa Conference League.

In four of the past five seasons – and six of the past 10 – England would have got one of the places. The Conference League has not existed across those periods.

A decrease in fixtures is a clearer victory for fan groups and representatives of national league competitions. Under the original plans for reform, there would have been 10 guaranteed matches for each of the 36 clubs in the “Swiss League” system, a total increase of 100 fixtures per season. Under the compromise, the total number of fixtures would increase by 64.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 10, 2022 3:01 pm

Yesterday Miguel Delaney wrote this about the decisions UEFA have made today - it highlights a number of the issues I have been banging on about for some time now
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 73177.html

What next for European football at Uefa’s moment of truth?
The Uefa executive committee meeting in Vienna could spark drastic changes to the Champions League and football calendar

Miguel Delaney - Chief Football Writer
1 day ago

To get a proper sense of just how distorted European football is, you only have to consider the consequences from the final day of last season’s Premier League. It had seemed a straight race between Leicester City and Chelsea for that fourth Champions League spot. It really wasn’t so simple.

Had Leicester managed to qualify, they would have been guaranteed at least €1.5m (£1.28m). Chelsea’s qualification, however, guaranteed them at least €30m.

That difference is so instructive on how football has got to this point, and where it is going. It is all based on the way Uefa’s prize money works, which has a cumulative effect depending on recent performance in Europe. These are the notorious “coefficients”, on which many clubs want to base qualification.

It obviously affords an inherent structural advantage for the big clubs. It also poses a structural question for the whole game.

How is any club supposed to catch up when that is the chasm? How are we ever supposed to return to anything like competitive balance?

These are the discussions weighing over everything, as the Uefa executive committee meet in Vienna on Tuesday.

Those very words may sound like the sort of thing football fans readily discard. These aren’t muddy boots and white lines, to quote Sir Matt Busby.

It’s understandable, but these issues also precisely explain what happens on the pitch, and why so much of European football is becoming so predictable. This is how Bayern Munich win 10 leagues in a row. This is how a small group of clubs become so wealthy that they consider themselves bigger than the rest of the game, and try to form their own European Super League.

The fall-out from that venture influences so much in Vienna, and where football will go next.

It also provokes one of the biggest questions of all: what does Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin actually want from his role, and of the game?

The decisions taken on Tuesday will start to tell us.

Among the primary debates are whether two of the four extra Champions League places from 2024 will go to the mid-tier leagues or the “coefficient places” and whether the group stage will increase from six matchweeks to eight or 10.

It all sounds so dry, but will change the flow of European football.

The coefficient places would in essence mean the big clubs are almost always guaranteed to qualify. More games, meanwhile, influence future prize money, while further eroding the strength of the domestic competitions. They may also play havoc with the calendar. Even with eight group-stage matchweeks, rather than 10, the Premier League will have to have a proper discussion about its size and the future of the League Cup. The schedule is already at bursting point.

Once those decisions are taken, the path will be set for much more controversial and complicated discussion, which is where all that prize money goes. The big clubs naturally want more for the Champions League qualification, and more of the arrangement that governs the current situation.

That agreement came from August 2016, when Bayern Munich’s Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Juventus’s Andrea Agnelli – at that time on the same side of a divide – pushed for 30 per cent of all Champions League money to go to the 32 qualified clubs based on their performance in the competition over 10 years. That’s why there could be such a difference between Chelsea’s qualification and Leicester’s. It was loading the dice. It was also significant in terms of timing, because that was when there was a power vacuum in Uefa. Michel Platini had just been suspended as president, and it was a month before Ceferin’s election.

The timing now is just as significant. All of this follows last year’s agreement that the Champions League would press ahead with this unpopular new “Swiss system”, where there is just one big group but all fixtures are dependent on seedings.

That decision, notoriously now, came days before the Super League plot was announced.

Despite the failure of that plan, though, and the big clubs wasting the most powerful weapon that they have, it is like little has changed in European football.

There has been no row back, let alone any kind of revolution. It is still the big clubs pushing for what they want, constantly shifting discussions so that the least selfish option looks like it is serviceable to the wider game. Hence six pre-Christmas matchweeks being taken off the table, but eight being presented as a “reduction”. This has been the history of modern football, after all.

It has been a series of subtle changes and decisions so no one notices as the nature of the game gradually changes to something very different.

This points to the danger of what the new Champions League might become. It might just further institutionalise some of the Super League plans. More of the biggest clubs will have more guarantees of qualification, and consequently more money, ensuring they will continue to outgrow their domestic competition.

That’s the inevitable end product of this, which no one can brief away or explain away. It is just not good for the wider game.

The sporting director of one top Premier League club last week described the whole thing to The Independent as “a mess”.

The biggest question is: why hasn’t football taken this rare opportunity to row back?

Some sources point to the “very rushed deal” to get nine of the 12 Super League clubs back into the fold in the immediate aftermath of the plan. There has been a quick rearranging of deckchairs in that regard, with the European Club Association’s new leadership still insisting that two of the new places go to the highest-ranking coefficients. It is conspicuous that, despite constantly indicating that this idea would be taken off the table, Ceferin has not yet done so.

Sources on the Uefa side, meanwhile, insist that this just indicates no decision has yet been taken, and the political process will prevail.

There have even been a lot of murmurs in the build-up to Vienna that Ceferin will indeed ditch the coefficient places, while also increasing the matchdays to just eight, rather than 10.

Much will depend on his vision. This is why so much of this cuts to the question of what Ceferin actually wants; what sort of leader he wants to be.

His supporters insist that he has to navigate so many different forces. He must continue to keep the Champions League fresh in order to preserve its primacy as Fifa seeks to get into the club game, while also sustaining the wider game and keeping the big clubs on side, all while trying to get re-elected. They similarly insist that he is listening to supporters, and deeply understands the concerns of the game’s wider base. The challenge with the big clubs is nevertheless that he needs to get them to think Uefa – and, by extension, the wider game – first, which means certain sops as regards the Champions League.

His critics would point to the fact he has a rare opportunity in the wake of the Super League, but isn’t exactly forging down the path. There is also some concern over the exact meaning of past comments, where he has boasted about Uefa being the biggest sports organisation in the world by revenues and audience size. That’s bigger than NFL, NBA, the IOC, the Premier League and – most importantly of all – Fifa. Supporters would say that’s just about the health of European football, but critics have a growing belief he wants the glamour and prestige of the role without the aggravation. Hence, in relation to the UK, he thanked Boris Johnson and Oliver Dowden after the Super League but not the Premier League’s Richard Masters or the FA’s Mark Bullingham.

Either way, the game has been offered a few visions of the future over the last few months. One is the danger that the new “Swiss” group system just brings yet more fixtures that just serve as “content” but have no real consequence, further diluting the meaning and value of it all.

This is a genuine worry.

By contrast, the last few weeks of the Champions League have again emphasised the invigorating and everlasting energy of true jeopardy.

It all depends on what Ceferin’s vision is.

There is certainly an opening now for a visionary leader in football. The gap is there. The potential is there.

“A figure who understands that competitiveness and heritage are the major drivers of interest in football,” one connected source says. “And one who can figure out how to help the game thrive at the top while creating the conditions for clubs to come through the ranks, then get that money down into grassroots initiatives and pressure governments.”

Tuesday will start to tell us exactly what kind of leader Ceferin is.

He showed both sides in the Super League crisis. There was the strength of his initial response, but the superficiality of everything that has happened since.

The game now has to pick a path again. Things can get worse or maybe, just for once, they can start to get a little better.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by ClaretPete001 » Tue May 10, 2022 4:55 pm

Paul Waine wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 12:29 pm
Hi Pete, thanks for both posts. I've enjoyed reading them. My knowledge of philosophy is not so deep as your's appears. Of course, for anyone not familiar with the writings of Karl Marx, he didn't write about professional footballers and football club owners. It was more mill owners (and other factory owners) v the workers. A lot of this was derived from Engels' observations over conditions in Manchester. Marx's workers were also not distinguished by their skills, they wouldn't be subject to bidding between competing mill owners in the way that individual footballers are competed for by the clubs with money to spend.

Is "toxic" necessary in your description of inflation? Isn't that simply a term that has been applied by politicians and political media in recent years? (I don't recall inflation being described as "toxic" in economic or history textbooks).

I'd suggest that "capital" isn't the only source of inflation. I'd also question what you mean by "the intrinsic value" whether we are discussing the "football marketplace" or any other economic venue.

Anyway, enough. Thanks.
Thanks Paul.

Marx was primarily an economist who wrote about the value of labour. Have a look at his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital I think he is a bit more of a serious thinker than you give him credit for -addressing many of the arguments about commoditisation we still have today.

A new independent regulator was announced today in the Queen's speech. Sad, but clearly essential the football authorities have simply not shown any leadership on the issue of football finance.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by ClaretPete001 » Tue May 10, 2022 5:01 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 3:01 pm
Yesterday Miguel Delaney wrote this about the decisions UEFA have made today - it highlights a number of the issues I have been banging on about for some time now
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foo ... 73177.html

What next for European football at Uefa’s moment of truth?
The Uefa executive committee meeting in Vienna could spark drastic changes to the Champions League and football calendar

Miguel Delaney - Chief Football Writer
1 day ago

To get a proper sense of just how distorted European football is, you only have to consider the consequences from the final day of last season’s Premier League. It had seemed a straight race between Leicester City and Chelsea for that fourth Champions League spot. It really wasn’t so simple.

Had Leicester managed to qualify, they would have been guaranteed at least €1.5m (£1.28m). Chelsea’s qualification, however, guaranteed them at least €30m.

That difference is so instructive on how football has got to this point, and where it is going. It is all based on the way Uefa’s prize money works, which has a cumulative effect depending on recent performance in Europe. These are the notorious “coefficients”, on which many clubs want to base qualification.

It obviously affords an inherent structural advantage for the big clubs. It also poses a structural question for the whole game.

How is any club supposed to catch up when that is the chasm? How are we ever supposed to return to anything like competitive balance?
This is all very predictable and a classic example of how badly regulated markets begin to work. The essential flaw in the free market concept is that competition becomes its first victim.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 10, 2022 5:13 pm

ClaretPete001 wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 4:55 pm

A new independent regulator was announced today in the Queen's speech. Sad, but clearly essential the football authorities have simply not shown any leadership on the issue of football finance.
to be precise just a paper for a proposal for a new regulator - some are quite angry about the time this will take though it has been signalled for a few months now - it will be a couple of years at least before a regulator is appointed it would seem

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by aggi » Tue May 10, 2022 5:30 pm

RVclaret wrote:
Thu May 05, 2022 4:16 pm
https://www.tifosy.com/raises/peterborough-united-bond

Peterborough United issue a Bond to fans paying 9% interest, and a 15% bonus if they are promoted to the Championship. Need to invest minimum of £500 and repaid in five years.

Pretty interesting. Their promotion record is decent.
I saw this. The big question is obviously what happens if they can't afford to repay when it matures? 9% is a decent rate but not great for quite a high risk investment.

Interesting to see that Norwich and QPR both did similar, I wonder how theirs panned out.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Tue May 10, 2022 6:53 pm

ClaretPete001 wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 4:55 pm
Thanks Paul.

Marx was primarily an economist who wrote about the value of labour. Have a look at his book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Kapital I think he is a bit more of a serious thinker than you give him credit for -addressing many of the arguments about commoditisation we still have today.

A new independent regulator was announced today in the Queen's speech. Sad, but clearly essential the football authorities have simply not shown any leadership on the issue of football finance.
Hi Pete, I've never been convinced by Marx. His "economics" always seemed to want to be the vanguard of revolution and that's exactly how Marx was taken up by Lenin and all the revolutionaries that have followed. I have read Das Kapital and some of his other works.

Equally, I don't have "high hopes" for a football regulator. It's hardly as if many of the other UK's regulators have "covered themselves in glory." However, it's a minor thing.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Tue May 10, 2022 7:04 pm

aggi wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 5:30 pm
I saw this. The big question is obviously what happens if they can't afford to repay when it matures? 9% is a decent rate but not great for quite a high risk investment.

Interesting to see that Norwich and QPR both did similar, I wonder how theirs panned out.
There are FAQs on a sub-link of the tifosy-posh link.

The FAQs include:

Is my investment protected by a compensation scheme?

No. An investment in the Peterborough United Bond is not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or any other such scheme. All obligations arising out of or in connection with the Peterborough United Bond will be the sole responsibility of the Issuer. If the Issuer goes out of business or becomes insolvent, you may lose some or all of your investment in the Peterborough United Bond.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by aggi » Tue May 10, 2022 9:01 pm

Paul Waine wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 7:04 pm
There are FAQs on a sub-link of the tifosy-posh link.

The FAQs include:

Is my investment protected by a compensation scheme?

No. An investment in the Peterborough United Bond is not protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme or any other such scheme. All obligations arising out of or in connection with the Peterborough United Bond will be the sole responsibility of the Issuer. If the Issuer goes out of business or becomes insolvent, you may lose some or all of your investment in the Peterborough United Bond.
Yes, I was more thinking of the obligations if they're still in business but can't afford to repay it. Would it end up with someone forcing them into administration?

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by ClaretPete001 » Wed May 11, 2022 12:39 am

Paul Waine wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 6:53 pm
Hi Pete, I've never been convinced by Marx. His "economics" always seemed to want to be the vanguard of revolution and that's exactly how Marx was taken up by Lenin and all the revolutionaries that have followed. I have read Das Kapital and some of his other works.

Equally, I don't have "high hopes" for a football regulator. It's hardly as if many of the other UK's regulators have "covered themselves in glory." However, it's a minor thing.

Yes, the communist manifesto is not of much value but his fundamental point is that eventually technology will diminish the value of Labour to such an extent that Labour will not able to exist within the capitalist system and will revolt.

The revolution has not come to pass because technology has always created new jobs. Or as David Graeber argues capital just creates "bullsh*t" ones simply to keep people in work. It will be interesting to see how the value of labour changes as AI and robotics start to impact on the workplace.

The problem of regulation, as with any form of governance, is that it becomes under pressure from capital to decrease competition. Ultimately, regulators exist to try and maintain the integrity of the markets and competition. Capital loves hegemony and monopoly because it reduces risk and competition and that is the central flaw in capitalism, which Gov'ts, market regulators and economists grapple with.

But the football pyramid is an excellent example of capital-labour relations as competition drives wage inflation and owners seek to mitigate the risk by reducing competition; or as it is known in football parlance: "The Super League".

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Wed May 11, 2022 2:04 pm

aggi wrote:
Tue May 10, 2022 9:01 pm
Yes, I was more thinking of the obligations if they're still in business but can't afford to repay it. Would it end up with someone forcing them into administration?
I'd assume "standard" default remedies will apply. Though the minimum amount for a bond is £500, Peterborough's website appears to indicate they'd welcome investments of over £100,000.

However, I'd ask the question how could Peterborough still be in business if they can't afford to honour their bond obligations.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Paul Waine » Wed May 11, 2022 2:20 pm

ClaretPete001 wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 12:39 am
Yes, the communist manifesto is not of much value but his fundamental point is that eventually technology will diminish the value of Labour to such an extent that Labour will not able to exist within the capitalist system and will revolt.

The revolution has not come to pass because technology has always created new jobs. Or as David Graeber argues capital just creates "bullsh*t" ones simply to keep people in work. It will be interesting to see how the value of labour changes as AI and robotics start to impact on the workplace.

The problem of regulation, as with any form of governance, is that it becomes under pressure from capital to decrease competition. Ultimately, regulators exist to try and maintain the integrity of the markets and competition. Capital loves hegemony and monopoly because it reduces risk and competition and that is the central flaw in capitalism, which Gov'ts, market regulators and economists grapple with.

But the football pyramid is an excellent example of capital-labour relations as competition drives wage inflation and owners seek to mitigate the risk by reducing competition; or as it is known in football parlance: "The Super League".
Let's be fair to Marx and say that he was writing in the mid-19th century and couldn't see that "technology" in it's broadest sense was only starting out when he was writing. Of course, many have said that "when this comes along" or "that comes along" there will be jobs any more. It will be the same in the future, just as it has been in the past, people will adjust and learn new skills and earn their living in different ways. Yes, there's always friction when these changes are happening. On a general basis, I think the development of "information technology" and "data science" and all the things tagged "AI" just demonstrate that Marx was wrong with his competing forces of capital and labour.

So far as football is concerned, I don't think it has anything to say about "capital-labour relations." It's a sport and the sports people are always dominant, (i.e. hold the upper hand) between club owners, sports authorities, the organisers of competitions and media that broadcast the sports and the advertisers who use the sporting platform to promote their, usually commercial, offering. This is another world from the one Marx was writing about.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by ClaretPete001 » Wed May 11, 2022 7:34 pm

Paul Waine wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 2:20 pm
Let's be fair to Marx and say that he was writing in the mid-19th century and couldn't see that "technology" in it's broadest sense was only starting out when he was writing. Of course, many have said that "when this comes along" or "that comes along" there will be jobs any more. It will be the same in the future, just as it has been in the past, people will adjust and learn new skills and earn their living in different ways. Yes, there's always friction when these changes are happening. On a general basis, I think the development of "information technology" and "data science" and all the things tagged "AI" just demonstrate that Marx was wrong with his competing forces of capital and labour.

So far as football is concerned, I don't think it has anything to say about "capital-labour relations." It's a sport and the sports people are always dominant, (i.e. hold the upper hand) between club owners, sports authorities, the organisers of competitions and media that broadcast the sports and the advertisers who use the sporting platform to promote their, usually commercial, offering. This is another world from the one Marx was writing about.
I think football is a perfect example of "capital-labour" relations. The value of labour is based upon upon position within a competitive hierarchical structure with those at the top paid the most and those at the bottom paid the least.

The more competition there is the higher the pay to labour and the higher the risk to capital. Capitals only resolution is to reduce wages by reducing competition. And because sport's fundamental premise is competition they can't do that so they have to find other ways of reducing pay or failing that reducing risk like the European Super League

In the States, it's often salary caps, no relegation and franchises.

It's almost as though Marx had a crystal ball and could gaze into the future.

You see the irony of politics - I sit here quoting Marx arguing for a beautiful capitalism that transcends greed and rewards talent, while you argue for phoney capitalism, hegemony and the risk free reward of leveraged buyouts.

I stand on the moral high ground but still offer the olive branch of enlightenment.

Just kidding - we'll have to agree to disagree. And yes it is quite possible even when robots replace us there will be new jobs because let's be honest if no one has any money who will buy the products capital produces?

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 11, 2022 10:12 pm

Not sure this is really going to be possible given that it is a legitimate business practice - from the Telegraph

Glazer-style leveraged buyouts at Premier League clubs face crackdown under football reforms
FA chief executive has been working with England's top tier and EFL on new limits that could be enforced by incoming independent regulator

Tom Morgan,
SPORTS NEWS CORRESPONDENT, IN VIENNA
11 May 2022 • 6:00pm

Glazer-style leveraged buyouts of top clubs in the Premier League face tougher curbs under future takeover reforms being discussed by football authorities.

Mark Bullingham, the Football Association chief executive, said he had been working with England's top tier and the Football League on new limits that could be enforced by the incoming independent regulator.

Most of the capital used by the Glazer family to purchase Manchester United in 2005 came in the form of loans, the majority of which were secured against the club’s assets, prompting widespread protests from fans at the time. Supporter discontent against the owners has resurfaced in the last year, with demonstrations being held before United’s final three home games of this season.

However, the leveraged buy-out that transferred ownership of Burnley to Alan Pace’s ALK Capital group illustrates the scheme's potential dangers as the Clarets battle relegation.

A drop to the Championship would automatically force Burnley to pay back much of a £65million loan taken out under a repayment clause. Despite one of the league's lowest spenders on players over the past decade, the club’s cash reserves reduced from £80m to £50m, while Burnley have collected £102m of debt, in the latest accounts.

Bullingham revealed in a press briefing that he and the leagues would looking at controls as part of new system on ownership checks. The football chief, who expressed hope that the Chelsea takeover would be waved through by May 31, suggested he had no issue, in theory, with the involvement of venture capitalists in club purchases. However, he added that there needed to be "security" over how much debt a club can be loaded with during deals.

"I think the thing to look at in future ownership structures is the way in which the debt is structured to purchase a club and making sure there's enough security around that," he said.

The FA is hoping the new independent regulator, put forward as a result of a fan-led review last year, will fall under its umbrella. Two non-executive directors have been added recently and there is hope a change in their own governance will allow it to be considered by Government.

"We've been quite consistent in terms of agreeing with a lot of the issues identified in the fan-led review," he said.

Curbs on leveraged buyouts is an area that could be enforced by the new regulator, he added. "I think that absolutely is something that will be explored," Bullingham said. "I didn't say get rid of them completely. It's the extent to which the buyer has leveraged it is important."

ALK Capital took out the loan at Burnley from MSD Holdings to finance the buy out and currently pay only interest at eight per cent. The full amount is due to be repaid in 2025.

Bullingham had been speaking at the Uefa Congress in Vienna. Earlier, Aleksander Ceferin, president of the European football authority, revealed he had spoken to Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp following the German’s criticism over how Champions League final tickets are allocated. Klopp gave his backing to Liverpool fans’ group Spirit of Shankly last week after the organisation accused Uefa of “ripping off” supporters wishing to attend the showpiece match against Real Madrid in Paris later this month.

However, Ceferin said of their subsequent call: “I explained it to him a bit more and took much more time because I went through every single number. From the revenues from the finals, Uefa gets 6.5 per cent and 93.5 per cent goes to the clubs. From the other matches 100 per cent of the revenues goes to the clubs."

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by ClaretPete001 » Thu May 12, 2022 12:15 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 10:12 pm
Not sure this is really going to be possible given that it is a legitimate business practice - from the Telegraph

Glazer-style leveraged buyouts at Premier League clubs face crackdown under football reforms
FA chief executive has been working with England's top tier and EFL on new limits that could be enforced by incoming independent regulator

Tom Morgan,
SPORTS NEWS CORRESPONDENT, IN VIENNA
11 May 2022 • 6:00pm

Glazer-style leveraged buyouts of top clubs in the Premier League face tougher curbs under future takeover reforms being discussed by football authorities.

Mark Bullingham, the Football Association chief executive, said he had been working with England's top tier and the Football League on new limits that could be enforced by the incoming independent regulator.

Most of the capital used by the Glazer family to purchase Manchester United in 2005 came in the form of loans, the majority of which were secured against the club’s assets, prompting widespread protests from fans at the time. Supporter discontent against the owners has resurfaced in the last year, with demonstrations being held before United’s final three home games of this season.

However, the leveraged buy-out that transferred ownership of Burnley to Alan Pace’s ALK Capital group illustrates the scheme's potential dangers as the Clarets battle relegation.

A drop to the Championship would automatically force Burnley to pay back much of a £65million loan taken out under a repayment clause. Despite one of the league's lowest spenders on players over the past decade, the club’s cash reserves reduced from £80m to £50m, while Burnley have collected £102m of debt, in the latest accounts.
I would think that Mark Bullingham and the FA will feel quite exposed by the Burnley deal; particularly, if we go down because it's quite possible it will become a symbol of poor financial governance on the part of the authorities.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu May 12, 2022 3:48 pm

]An interesting if a little flawed piece in the Athletic about Premier League Merit Payments this season - no mention of the second part of the rebate payment last season for instance

Also when talking about how a club can use the money it doesn't look at the issue of what happens if you commit to spending the bonus (that is effectively what it is) on players - what if like Leicester you are suddenly down on your fortunes year on year - that is not sustainable. This is why our club has had the approach it has, football fortune was either saved and spent on infrastructure (ideally used to grow revenues with greater certainty) or or more economically used on staff over the whole terms of the contract

The link circumvents the paywall by going to an archive
Premier League prize money is £2.2m a place: in the boardroom, every game still counts

https://archive.ph/t4Ccx

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Thu May 12, 2022 4:43 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Wed May 11, 2022 10:12 pm
Not sure this is really going to be possible given that it is a legitimate business practice - from the Telegraph

Glazer-style leveraged buyouts at Premier League clubs face crackdown under football reforms
FA chief executive has been working with England's top tier and EFL on new limits that could be enforced by incoming independent regulator

Tom Morgan,
SPORTS NEWS CORRESPONDENT, IN VIENNA
11 May 2022 • 6:00pm

Glazer-style leveraged buyouts of top clubs in the Premier League face tougher curbs under future takeover reforms being discussed by football authorities.

Mark Bullingham, the Football Association chief executive, said he had been working with England's top tier and the Football League on new limits that could be enforced by the incoming independent regulator.

Most of the capital used by the Glazer family to purchase Manchester United in 2005 came in the form of loans, the majority of which were secured against the club’s assets, prompting widespread protests from fans at the time. Supporter discontent against the owners has resurfaced in the last year, with demonstrations being held before United’s final three home games of this season.

However, the leveraged buy-out that transferred ownership of Burnley to Alan Pace’s ALK Capital group illustrates the scheme's potential dangers as the Clarets battle relegation.

A drop to the Championship would automatically force Burnley to pay back much of a £65million loan taken out under a repayment clause. Despite one of the league's lowest spenders on players over the past decade, the club’s cash reserves reduced from £80m to £50m, while Burnley have collected £102m of debt, in the latest accounts.

Bullingham revealed in a press briefing that he and the leagues would looking at controls as part of new system on ownership checks. The football chief, who expressed hope that the Chelsea takeover would be waved through by May 31, suggested he had no issue, in theory, with the involvement of venture capitalists in club purchases. However, he added that there needed to be "security" over how much debt a club can be loaded with during deals.

"I think the thing to look at in future ownership structures is the way in which the debt is structured to purchase a club and making sure there's enough security around that," he said.

The FA is hoping the new independent regulator, put forward as a result of a fan-led review last year, will fall under its umbrella. Two non-executive directors have been added recently and there is hope a change in their own governance will allow it to be considered by Government.

"We've been quite consistent in terms of agreeing with a lot of the issues identified in the fan-led review," he said.

Curbs on leveraged buyouts is an area that could be enforced by the new regulator, he added. "I think that absolutely is something that will be explored," Bullingham said. "I didn't say get rid of them completely. It's the extent to which the buyer has leveraged it is important."

ALK Capital took out the loan at Burnley from MSD Holdings to finance the buy out and currently pay only interest at eight per cent. The full amount is due to be repaid in 2025.

Bullingham had been speaking at the Uefa Congress in Vienna. Earlier, Aleksander Ceferin, president of the European football authority, revealed he had spoken to Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp following the German’s criticism over how Champions League final tickets are allocated. Klopp gave his backing to Liverpool fans’ group Spirit of Shankly last week after the organisation accused Uefa of “ripping off” supporters wishing to attend the showpiece match against Real Madrid in Paris later this month.

However, Ceferin said of their subsequent call: “I explained it to him a bit more and took much more time because I went through every single number. From the revenues from the finals, Uefa gets 6.5 per cent and 93.5 per cent goes to the clubs. From the other matches 100 per cent of the revenues goes to the clubs."
This edition of the business of sport podcast from The Athletic is rather interesting, particularly given that this thread started with Manchester United
couple of interesting remarks -
I most enjoy following my club has a purpose (irrespective of whether it is successful

The Glaser takeover is the most successful leveraged buyout of a sports organisation ever (but that should not be about making money

https://play.acast.com/s/the-ornstein-a ... 9342895bf8

Red Knight Jim O'Neill on Glazers & value of Man Utd
Mark Chapman & The Athletic's Matt Slater speak to Lord Jim O’Neill, about his role leading the Red Knights campaign in 2010 - an attempt to prise Manchester United from the Glazer family's control a decade ago.
Jim also shares details of his time as non-executive director of Manchester United before it returned to private ownership in 2005. Plus we hear his thoughts on the sale of Chelsea and what that could mean in terms of the value of other clubs including Manchester United.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Fri May 13, 2022 4:23 pm

This should be a interesting listen tomorrow lunch time or on the BBC Sounds playback later

The Documentary — Billionaire Ball Game, or how the super-rich took over English football — airs Saturday, 12 noon GMT.
https://twitter.com/JamesPiotr/status/1 ... 0960608260

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat May 14, 2022 5:02 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Fri May 13, 2022 4:23 pm
This should be a interesting listen tomorrow lunch time or on the BBC Sounds playback later

The Documentary — Billionaire Ball Game, or how the super-rich took over English football — airs Saturday, 12 noon GMT.
https://twitter.com/JamesPiotr/status/1 ... 0960608260
This is quite good - you can listen to the playback here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct41wd

I found this quote from Peter, a Newcastle fan who has been a long time season ticket holder but now will have nothing to do with the club under the new ownership, particularly profound. very familiar to myself and extremely depressing.

"I don't matter, none of us really matter...we are just pawns in a big and really quite dirty game"

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat May 14, 2022 11:06 pm

This piece in the New York Times by Rory Smith provides a perfect example, possibly the definitive example of its type, of Football's Magic Money Tree

Manchester City Had the Money. Haaland’s Team Had the Plan.
A carefully crafted strategy for a young striker’s career paid off handsomely for him and his agents. But will everyone get what they want out of the deal?


By Rory Smith - May 11, 2022

A few days before last summer’s transfer window drew to a close, a handful of Manchester City’s most senior executives gathered in a conference room at the club’s sprawling campus to pick through what had gone right, and what had gone wrong, over the previous couple of months.

Though City, the Premier League champion, had succeeded in persuading Aston Villa to relinquish Jack Grealish, the impish playmaker who had emerged as England’s breakout star during the European Championship — making him the most expensive player in English history in the process — it had failed to land its other priority target, the Tottenham striker Harry Kane.

What had always been a complex, fraught pursuit had descended, instead, into a squabble over who was to blame. Kane had, at one point, refused to train with Tottenham, the club he supported as a child, in the hope of forcing Spurs’ hand, but his act of brinkmanship failed. Tottenham claimed City had failed to present an offer that might act as a starting point for negotiation.

That afternoon, City’s executives reflected on their strategy, contemplated why a deal had not materialized and considered how they would proceed. As the meeting wound up and his colleagues stood to leave, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, the club’s chairman, made one final remark. It amounted to only two words, an ambition and an instruction. “Erling Haaland,” he said.

A little more than nine months later, that objective has been achieved. On Tuesday afternoon, City confirmed it had reached an “agreement in principle” with Haaland’s current club, the German side Borussia Dortmund, to acquire the striker, one of the two most coveted forwards in world soccer this summer — the scorer of 85 goals in 88 games for Dortmund, and regarded alongside Kylian Mbappé as one of the twin standard-bearers for soccer’s first post-Messi, post-Ronaldo generation.

In reality, of course, it had not taken nine months to strike any sort of agreement with Dortmund. Haaland’s contract contained a buyout clause, somewhere in the region of $75 million, that gave Dortmund little to no say over where he might play next season. All City, all anyone, had to do was to inform Dortmund of an intention to pay it. Haaland’s employer was in no position to haggle.

Far more convoluted was the process of persuading Haaland that City was the correct next step in his meticulously planned career. Haaland, 21, might have an emotional bond to the club: His father, Alfie, played for City at the turn of the century, and though his son has no memory of his time in Manchester, he told the Times in 2019 that he has some affection for all his former teams.

But, as City would have known, there has been precious little room for romance in Erling Haaland’s inexorable rise. Every stage of his journey has been mapped out with surgical — possibly cynical — precision by his twin sherpas: his longstanding representative, Mino Raiola, the divisive Dutch-Italian agent who died last month; and his father.

When Haaland left Norway as a teenager, he rejected the overtures of the English and German teams pursuing him in favor of Austria’s Red Bull Salzburg, home to both a reliable production line of talent for Europe’s major leagues and the prospect of matches in the Champions League. When he left Salzburg, it was not for England but for Dortmund, a club with a track record of developing and selling players and a willingness to set a reasonable buyout clause.

That meant, of course, that not only was Haaland recession-proof — $75 million is, by modern standards, pretty good value for a player who appears to have been designed and engineered to score as many goals as possible — but that, when the inevitable auction started, the bar would not be who could pay Dortmund the most, but who could put together the most attractive package for the player and his advisers.

To ensure the best possible outcome, Raiola and Alfie Haaland traveled around to Europe’s superclubs, stoking interest and fanning flames. There were visits to Real Madrid and Barcelona. There were eyelashes fluttered in the vague direction of Chelsea and Manchester United. There was even, for a time, a flirtation with Bayern Munich.

That, of course, was their job. It is exactly what Raiola, in particular, was paid to do. He did it with startling effectiveness: not only because current estimates suggest the deal, in total, will be worth somewhere north of $200 million, once Haaland’s salary and sundry fees to agents are taken into account, but because in the course of doing so he may have invented a whole new paradigm for how agents shape their players’ careers.

Received wisdom, in soccer, has always had it that players should — to be blunt — always take the money, the big break, as soon as they can. It takes only one injury, after all, to explode the finest-laid plans; one summer’s passion may be an afterthought by the next. Clubs are fickle, and everything has an expiration date.

Raiola overturned that for Haaland, preferring instead a policy of delayed gratification. He did not chase the eye-watering transfer fee — as he had done, perhaps, for another of his clients, Paul Pogba — but rather built his client’s appeal a little more slowly, gradually ensuring he was in a position not only to make the leap to one of Europe’s elite teams, but to do so in a way that favored the player (and his representatives) rather than the club that happened to own his contract at that point.

City’s offer is the reward. It is not a move without its caveats: Manager Pep Guardiola has worked with some of the finest strikers of the modern era, but not always successfully. He has spent six years painstakingly fine-tuning his system at City, only to have to refit it completely to suit Haaland. Sometimes, though, soccer is a startlingly simple game. A player who scores lots of goals joining a team that creates lots of chances should really have only one outcome.

Whether it is the final reward, though, is a different matter. At roughly the same time City was preparing its announcement, Mbappé was busy being pictured having lunch in Madrid. His contract at Paris St.-Germain expires in a few weeks and despite an impossibly large offer to stay, he seems set to move to Real Madrid this summer. The financing of that deal will, most likely, dwarf what City has offered Haaland.

This is the logical next step in the model that Raiola and the Haaland family has pioneered. It is a reflection of soccer’s financial reality. There is no price point at which City, or P.S.G., feel compelled to sell a player. That leaves only one option: running down a contract and stepping out on to the free market.

That is the challenge that awaits City, somewhere down the line. It has won out, this time, by convincing Haaland — its first true, plug-and-play superstar, someone who will be thought of but never referred to as a franchise player — this was his best next step. The question, for a player whose career has been planned out so coolly, so ruthlessly, is whether it is also his last one.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sun May 15, 2022 2:20 am

How many of you recognised that the last week or so has seen further Americanisation of English Football, particularly of the Premier League and I am not just talking about the pending takeover of Chelsea

American involvement in clubs is as follows
Control
- Arsenal
- Burnley
- Chelsea
- Crystal Palace
- Liverpool
- Manchester United

Shareholding
- Leeds
- Manchester City
- West Ham
- Wolves

of course Americans own newly promoted Fulham and may yet own Sheffield United who are reportedly up for sale for over £115m thanks to their parachute payments

Americans also own domestic broadcast holders Sky, Amazon and now have a partnership with BT Sport Warner Bros/Discovery) that includes an option to takeover BT Sport.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by RammyClaret61 » Sun May 15, 2022 2:26 am

Get ready for the demand of 20 minute quarters.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Mon May 16, 2022 5:51 pm

and on that US owned Football Clubs theme

54 clubs in Europe now owned by US interests - no surprise to see that England leads the way

28 in the last two years and 7 (25% of that number) this year

https://twitter.com/CIESsportsintel/sta ... mM960qAAAA

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by clarethomer » Tue May 17, 2022 3:12 pm


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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by GodIsADeeJay81 » Tue May 17, 2022 3:14 pm

Is that 5 different claims just from Spurs alone?

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Tue May 17, 2022 3:45 pm

GodIsADeeJay81 wrote:
Tue May 17, 2022 3:14 pm
Is that 5 different claims just from Spurs alone?
that sounds so Daniel Levy

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 18, 2022 5:23 pm

Chester Perry wrote:
Mon May 16, 2022 5:51 pm
and on that US owned Football Clubs theme

54 clubs in Europe now owned by US interests - no surprise to see that England leads the way

28 in the last two years and 7 (25% of that number) this year

https://twitter.com/CIESsportsintel/sta ... mM960qAAAA
No surprise that the largest shareholder in the proposed new Chelsea owners is a Private Equity firm (I said quite some time ago now that the vultures were at the door), the only surprise is this is their first dabble at sport - Liam Twomey and Matt Slater in the Athletic with the details - link is to an archived copy of the article

What Chelsea fans need to know about Clearlake Capital

https://archive.ph/6UPQP

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by aggi » Wed May 18, 2022 5:49 pm

I've had some brief involvement in this (not football clubs but Covid insurance claims) and the test case definitely did suggest that the insurance companies would have to pay out.

One interesting point will be whether they are just claiming for actual losses or they'll try and roll in consequential losses too (e.g. if you had paid out when you should we'd have signed some new players and got into Europe and made another £50m). The range of COVID losses from football clubs has been very large so there will have to be a fair bit of work in quantifying it.

A little surprised to see that Everton aren't in the list of claimants.

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 18, 2022 5:57 pm

And if you are wondering what Private Equity, American Investors etc are thinking they can do with football to make money (apart from owning the leagues/competitions) this is quite an informative article again from the Athletic, part of a regular column looking at what is happening in European football - link is to an archive snapshot of the article

Barcelona, Cadiz and changing the way clubs tap into their global fanbase

https://archive.ph/faE59

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 18, 2022 6:38 pm

The latest blog from the chaps at vysyble looks at how the proposed new owners of Chelsea will get a return on value for their investment - it picks up and runs with a couple themes I have been focussed on of late and comes to a similar conclusion American owned clubs and media interests are likely to collude to their mutual benefit - I still don't see where our club fits in - particularly as there is a sense that the Premier League and it's media partners believe our current story has overrun

http://vysyble.com/blog-019

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Sat May 21, 2022 12:59 am

If this is true the the Premier League needs to be worried that the EFL are winning all the arguments with DCMS - a betting sponsorship ban in the Premier League only (it should be across the whole game and it should have happened already)- from the BBC

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61532033

Gambling sponsor shirt ban included in draft government white paper
By Alistair Magowan

Crystal Palace and West Ham are two of 10 Premier League clubs with gambling sponsors on their shirts
Premier League clubs could face a ban on having gambling sponsors on their shirts after the proposal was included in a draft white paper, sources have told BBC Sport.

Half of the Premier League's 20 teams have betting firms on their shirts, with the government set to update gambling laws next month.

Campaigners have welcomed the idea, but believe a ban would be "incoherent" if not also applicable to teams in the English Football League and for other adverts.

The move would follow a recommendation by a House of Lords select committee in 2020, which said Premier League clubs should face a shirt sponsorship ban, but Championship clubs should be given time to phase out their partnerships.

A Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) spokesperson told BBC Sport: "We are undertaking the most comprehensive review of gambling laws in 15 years to make sure they are fit for the digital age.

"We will publish a white paper which sets out our vision for the sector in the coming weeks."

Delays to the government white paper being published mean clubs might already be negotiating contracts for next season onwards.

That could mean any ban is likely to be applied for the 2023-24 season at the earliest, but there have also been discussions about whether Premier League clubs could offer to remove gambling sponsorship from shirts voluntarily.

The Premier League has previously said that "a self-regulatory approach would provide a practical and flexible alternative to legislation or outright prohibition."

The EFL, which is sponsored by Sky Bet, says a gambling sponsorship ban would cost clubs £40m a year.

James Grimes of campaign group, The Big Step, told BBC Sport: "This is welcome, but to remove gambling from shirts while allowing pitch-side advertising, league sponsorship and club partnerships to continue would be massively incoherent.

"Every young fan should be able to watch their club - in the ground and on TV - without being bombarded by ads for gambling, which we know harms millions, and takes hundreds of lives every year.

"If the government recognises gambling can be harmful, as this step suggests, then it must end all gambling advertising and sponsorship in football at all levels, not just on shirts."

A recent YouGov survey said 1.4m people in Britain are being harmed by gambling with a further 1.5m at risk.

But the Premier League and EFL believe there is no evidence to show a causal link between gambling sponsorship and problem gambling.

The Betting and Gaming Council spokesperson says that all sponsorships "must comply with strict guidelines and safer gambling messaging is regularly and prominently displayed".

It has also said it "strongly supports the gambling review as a further opportunity to raise standards".

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 25, 2022 12:00 am

A familiar story to regular readers of this thread but still worth the reminder

HOW football helped Putin start a war

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2dXvvZU77Ao

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Re: Football's Magic Money Tree

Post by Chester Perry » Wed May 25, 2022 12:03 am

This is interesting to in regard to the next hosts of the World Cup and who also have spread tentacles deep into the game

https://www.sportico.com/leagues/soccer ... 234675571/

SOCCER’S GEOPOLITICS LOSES ENERGY AS CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL NEARS

BY SIMON CHADWICK

May 24, 2022 5:55am

COURTESY SIMON CHADWICK
Today’s guest columnist is professor Simon Chadwick of the Emlyon Business School in Paris.

There is an old cliché that a week in soccer is a long time, which means that a whole season can sometimes seem like an eternity. Indeed, since Albania’s Prishtina beat Andorra’s Inter Club d’Escaldes in last June’s UEFA Champions League (UCL) preliminary round qualifying final, a lot has happened to the competition, much of it influenced by off-field geopolitics.

This season’s UCL final is almost upon us, with Liverpool of the English Premier League set to play Spanish LaLiga club Real Madrid in what, on the face of it, might seem like a conventional concluding game. The two clubs are stalwarts of the European game—indeed, they played each other in the 2018 Champions League Final (a game the Spanish club won).

However, the journey to this season’s tournament has been anything but conventional.

Shortly after Prishtina’s match with Inter Club d’Escaldes, the French club Paris Saint Germain stunned world football by signing Argentinian legend Lionel Messi from FC Barcelona of Spain. Notwithstanding Barca’s financial problems, the transfer was a statement of intent from PSG’s Qatari owners that they wanted to win the competition in 2022.

This is a big year for the small Gulf state, which is set to host the FIFA World Cup. There is a belief in Qatar that the country deserves the best and must be the best, something that signing Messi, winning the Champions League and successfully staging football’s biggest national team tournament were supposed to validate.

However, despite the huge revenues that government in Doha derives from its vast reserves of natural gas, money doesn’t necessarily buy you soccer success. PSG exited the tournament at the last-16 stage, defeated by Real Madrid. The same fate awaited European football’s other oil- and gas-powered behemoth, Manchester City; the Abu Dhabi-owned Premiership team lost its semifinal to Spain’s biggest club, as well.

Ironically, Real’s journey this season began ignominiously when, last September, it lost to the supposed Moldovan minnows Sheriff Tiraspol. At the time, some observers argued that it was the biggest shock in Champions League history. Closer scrutiny of the Moldovan club nevertheless revealed something more sinister, which served as a portent of what was to come several months later.

Tiraspol is the “capital” city of the breakaway state Transnistria, located in the east of Moldova. This is a region controlled by former Russian KGB agents, who also own and control Sheriff Tiraspol. They are strongly pro-Kremlin and have an aspiration to reunite Transnistria with Putin’s Russia. Furthermore, they are engaged with Russian state-owned gas supplier Gazprom and have been playing the same energy politics that have afflicted other countries, including Ukraine.

Adding further irony to this situation, among Real and Sheriff’s UCL group stage opponents was Shakhtar Donetsk of Ukraine. Formerly the Donbas region’s preeminent team, Shakhtar has been forced to play matches during recent years in Kyiv and Lviv (in the west of Ukraine) due to the political instabilities caused by Russian-backed separatist attacks in the country’s east.

Perhaps this should have served as a warning to the likes of UEFA about the geopolitical risks associated with staging matches or signing sponsorship deals with countries, cities and organizations from geopolitically sensitive territories. Instead, European football’s governing body agreed to a raft of sponsorships and renewals with Gazprom as recently as last year. Alongside Qatar, Russia is one of the world’s biggest producers of liquefied natural gas, and its coffers are awash with cash, a proportion of which the corporation has willingly spent on soccer.

This has helped UEFA to significantly grow its revenues, while at the same time helping the Russian energy giant to legitimize its activities, though some critics have characterized this as state-sponsored sport washing. Indeed, during his presidency, Donald Trump had started to call out Gazprom’s growing influence on European energy markets and the dependence of countries such as Germany on Russian gas.

It is finally now evident that Gazprom’s sponsorship of the Champions League was never a normal deal, though it was proving to be a beneficial one for the corporation. This season’s UEFA Champions League Final was originally scheduled to take place in Saint Petersburg, Vladimir Putin’s hometown and site of Gazprom headquarters. The arena in which the match was due to take place is owned by Gazprom, as is Zenit, the club that normally plays there.

If European football had appropriately engaged in strategic foresight, the consequences of Russia invading Ukraine may not have been so dramatic. Nevertheless, within days of the first missiles being launched by Putin’s forces in February, UEFA switched the Champions League Final to Paris and then terminated its near 10-year sponsorship deal with Gazprom.

The Stade de France, where the match is going to be staged, will therefore be a sanitized, Russia-free environment, where symbols of support for Ukraine will presumably be displayed and “safe,“ and Western-owned clubs and sponsors will be strongly evident. There’s something decidedly old-school about fan-owned Real Madrid facing Fenway Sports Group’s Liverpool, especially after last season’s gas-fueled final involving Chelsea and Manchester City.

Before anyone starts rejoicing at the normalization of European football, however, it is worth remembering that we are a year removed from the Super League debacle, of which both Liverpool and Real Madrid were part. Since then, Real Madrid has won the Spanish Super Cup, a game staged in Saudi Arabia, and rumors abound about commercial deals the Spanish club is keen to sign with the oil- and gas-rich state. The club’s president also continues to press for the Super League’s creation.

For the time being, Russia appears to have lost its energy when it comes to influencing European football. At the same time, although a lot has happened since Prishtina beat Inter Club d’Escaldes, the turbulent world of UEFA’s Champions League has not yet achieved a new normal or a position of stability. Indeed, with the competition currently in the process of restructuring, Real Madrid versus Liverpool constitutes nothing more than a brief opportunity to catch our breath amid the ongoing, energetic geopolitics of soccer.

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