The Finances of Football

Specific references to off-the-field stuff here. Nasty, Brutish and Short, Ismael Klata, Chris, anyone else I've missed- get into as much nitty-gritty as you like on our own dedicated football financing discussion thread.

Good, short article prompted by Arsenal's healthy results and C Purslow's frank responses to LFC fans' mails in the past few days

And one of the comments was interesting too imo-

mike_christie

"Good article! What isn't acknowledged often enough is that there are, to my reckoning, four types of football debt.

First of all there is the pre-Abramovich Chelsea/Leeds type of debt coming from years of spending more than income in a doomed attempt to compete with the big dogs.

Second is the hidden 'sugar daddy' debt, which (no matter what City or Chelsea fans tell you) IS damaging foorball by inflating prices and making it impossible for all but the biggest clubs to compete and stay within their means.

Third is the enforced debt brought on by leveraged buy-outs. Manchester United and Liverpool were, for many years, well-run, debt free clubs. United in particular had a self-supporting business second to none in football, both clubs are saddled with hundreds of millions of debt with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Finally, there is the 'speculate to accumulate' investment debt taken on by Arsenal (and most likely other clubs who have built a new stadium in recent years) to build a new state of the art stadium that will last for decades.

A big worry of mine is that the likes of Platini rumble on about debt without differentiating between different types. Clubs like Chelsea and City are using their massive financial injections to improve their competitiveness, whereas Liverpool and Manchester United are hampered on the pitch by their debts which are leveraged against the clubs because they are in good financial health and able to meet the payments, not because they are mis-managed like Ridsdale era Leeds."

Good work. I tend to the view that that there's only one kind of debt - money you owe to someone else - and what counts is what you do with it. But type (2) is the outlier here, where you're getting money for cheap from essentially a sap lender who can't screw you by demanding it back because of his conflict of interests*.

Much as I admire what Arsenal have done, there are circumstances where their plan could've gone wrong too - huge construction overruns, a different kind of recession where the consumer got walloped and stopped going to matches, a proper property crash. Debt is risky, but it's a matter of managing that risk and they've done a superb job. It's hard to see circumstances that would've left them worse off than every other club.

You could equally argue that there are circumstances where types (1) and (3) would've worked out alright - CL football every year for Leeds, borrowing remaining insanely cheap for another decade - but those going wrong were hardly unforeseeable. They managed their risk differently from Arsenal and got caught out.

* what does 'turning debt into equity' even mean? If Abramovich already owned 100% of the club, how can he have got any more equity out of the swap? aiui equity is just what's left when liabilities are taken away from assets, so the only way it makes sense if he's basically written off the loan

Rangers might be an example of type (2) gone wrong, actually - I have a vague understanding that Murray's other financial woes have turned him from sap lender into predatory shark, so he needs to get his cash from Rangers to protect his real businesses. Not such a big issue if you own lakes of oil or Siberia, I imagine.

Does he own 100% of Chelsea? Even in those cases you can theoretically issue more shares and either buy them yourself or sell them.

It means Chelsea don't actually owe any money to Abramovich any more, that debt has been funnelled back into the club. Nothing stopping him pulling that money out if he doesn't fancy it and leaving them high and dry, mind, but it's not as precarious as it was.

Think Sheikh Mansour pulled the same debt-for-equity trick if I'm not mistaken? It's a way of getting round forthcoming FIFA regulations.

I don't know if he does, I'd just assumed so.

Issuing more shares doesn't increase equity in sense of the value of the business, it would just decrease the value of the existing shares proportionately. Equity would be increased by writing off the debt (thereby making the business £Xm more valuable because of money it doesn't owe) but then you can only realise it when you sell. So I suspect he must own it 100% because writing off the loan is essentially a gift to Chelsea and it's hard to imagine him doing that if he ultimately isn't 100% the beneficiary. Whatever else he may be, he's shrewd.

It's probably impossible for type (1) to work, thinking about it. The spending would have to be of a nature to lift the club permanently up a rung and I don't think you can do that by buying better players. It might be masked by the league getting richer as a whole - but that doesn't lift you a rung, it lifts the whole ladder and you have to spend even more to stay ahead of the pack. In any case, eventually the players get old or tired or have a bad day and incomes drop and the gap in spending becomes an unbridgeable chasm.

There's maybe not a great deal of difference between types (1) and (4) looking at it that way - they're both an attempt to expand the business, it's just that (4) is a sensible way to do it, while (1) is insane.

Type (3) I don't understand at all. I need to look these things up. I'd never've dreamed it up as a type of debt if it hadn't actually happened.

It seems to be nothing more than a case of identifying a business which has enough spare capacity that it can afford to throw off spare cash at the top - some goes to pay borrowings, the rest goes to the guy who's spotted the scheme in the first place and taken on the risk. On that view, United deserve to be in trouble more than Liverpool do. You can run a business conservatively if it's a private business because it's yours and you can do what you like - you can't really blame the Moores for cashing in when they got an offer too good to be true.

But to run a plc like that seems to me like pure complacency. The club was up for sale every day since it was first listed, it was only a matter of time before someone identified the opportunity to insert themselves and take a slice. The board must've been trying to take the advantages of being listed without ever being hard-nosed enough to protect their position.

1 also accounts for teams like Fulham going through the divisions imo. That worked out p well but then you also get the Derbys and Hulls.

oh i guess the fulham that went through the divisions are a mix of 1 & 2.

On that view, United deserve to be in trouble more than Liverpool do.

would argue that they are tbf, just that liverpool's deadlines are closer.

Seriously? Then I haven't got to grips with the scale of United's problems at all.

I'd say Rangers were a mixture of (1) and (2), btw. They started flinging money around like there was no tomorrow, assuming some magical reward would come from being the biggest fish in the tiny wee pond of Scottish football, and then started shuffling it around various arms of Murray International Holdings which control different parts of Rangers, so that basically David Murray owes money to himself (which he then owes to the bank).

There's a decent article about it here:
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.com/murray-international-holdings/

Dunno why Rangers would have to do that considering they were already the big dawg?

I'm presuming 750m >>> 250m no? Liverpool can make that up by say selling their whole squad - Utd can't. Also 250m debt + 250m stadium cost + 100m for new players >>> still cheaper to buy than Utd.

* what does 'turning debt into equity' even mean? If Abramovich already owned 100% of the club, how can he have got any more equity out of the swap? aiui equity is just what's left when liabilities are taken away from assets, so the only way it makes sense if he's basically written off the loan

But if the creditor company (or individual) doesn't own 100% of the shares of Calumerio FC Limited, then it gets a bit more complicated.

Dunno why Rangers would have to do that considering they were already the big dawg?

Assuming this isn't a "lol Celtic" attempt to get a rise out of me, Scottish football in the 80s saw Aberdeen and Dundee United get to European finals, and the title ending up in one side of Glasgow or the other was in no way the foregone conclusion it is now.

ok but at some point the past 20 years he could have thought - hmm, maybe we have spent enough and/or use it 'sensibly'

and no, it wasn't to get a rise. y'all the barca to their real - one couldn't work without the other anymore.

a hoy hoy, yes, you would think. It's just been teetering about precariously for some time now, and it's only over the last few years when things have gone badly wrong (recession hitting MIH hard, Rangers failing to qualify for the Champions League) that they've had to rein it in (see no new players for two whole years while getting rid of everything that moves and isn't Kenny Miller).

He bought over an ascendant Rangers (if history had panned out in an alternate universe, this could have been happening to Ayr United!) and flung money at them to make them enormous. It sort of worked for a bit, but bubbles have a habit of bursting.

He has been trying to get out, but it's not working. Mysterious buyers keep appearing then disappearing (Murray has claimed that potential buyers' visions for what they want to do with Rangers when they buy it off him doesn't square with his therefore Not For Sale signs go up even with offers apparently on the table).

It's also because throughout the nineties it wasn't inevitable that we were going to end up with the structure we've got now. It's only in retrospect that it looks laughable - the incredible wealth of the Premiership, the dominance in the CL of the big leagues, gargantuan wages, etc all might've panned out differently. Remember that Red Star, Ajax, Steaua, Benfica, Marseille were big, big fish in one way or another over the period. In that context, a side from Glasgow spending big just looked ambitious, rather than insane.

(have an article in gestation about this right now btw, this stuff is manna for me)

would read this article

^^^^^^

Me too. Get writing!

if you have any questions about sheffield united finances then feel free to post them to ☰☰☭☰☰ SHEFFIELD UNITED ☰☰☭☰☰ THE OFFICIAL THREAD ☰☰☭☰☰

new board not as yet proving a boon to productivity tbh

I've done work experience and some temp work at a football club. I did a degree in International Business, and was all geared up for pursuing a career in the football industry. After recent events at Liverpool and a conversation with someone in the know, I no longer want anything to do with football. I'll stick to being a fan.

Crikey. Without saying too much, what in particular puts you off?

Oh nothing sinister, I've not been told anything groundbreaking or anything. The people I've worked with were amazing. I just came to the conclusion that I don't think I want to get that close after all.

the same thing happened to me, but with socks instead of football

also thks for running with thread, hope to be able to contribute more to it than sad sock stories (lol ilx)

Multiple xp to Ismael (re: 'type 3 debt'):

The thing is if you load ALL the debt onto the club then you have ZERO personal exposure, so it's a risk-free venture. It doesn't matter if the business "has enough spare capacity that it can afford to throw off spare cash at the top" - maybe it can't. Maybe it can't meet the interest payments. But you still lose nothing, because you've put nothing in. The club can go bust, but you're not hurt, you just shrug and say "Maybe next time it'll work out better" then move onto the next club.

essentially the club income is paying off your own personal debt, like, say, yr typical small business startup loan?

It's more like 'here's a business that can afford a parasite, come and join me in the endeavour'. I'd be surprised it's legal if it didn't actually happen, seeing as the whole scheme is essentially irrelevant to the business and interests of the company. I can only assume the principle is that you can do what you like with it once it's yours, but it's just surprising that you can act that way in capacity as an office-holder of it.

I can't think of a business better-suited to harbouring such a parasite than Man Utd btw - generating huge amounts of cash in a conservative business, with a massively-protected competitive position, against a background of industry-wide growth.

Schumpeterian Creative Destruction going on imo, these yanks are tearing up the old game and bringing something new and fresh to the market.

http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/8072 a quick and easy guide to the figures arsenal released. its quite different to the situations of our immediate rivals.

This book's released on 9th November. Looks like it'll be a good'un.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0955925339

Synopsis

As billionaire ‘super-benefactors’ fight for the right to own English football clubs, Pay As You Play takes a detailed look at the correlation between success and transfer spending.

Tactics, motivation, fitness and luck play a part; but is an expensive squad increasingly essential for success?

Which managers have excelled in the transfer market? And who blew their budgets on bad buys? Which clubs punched above their financial weight, and which ones punched well below theirs? What players proved to be great value for their price tag, and who ended up as a shocking waste of money?

By converting all Premier League transfer fees since 1992 to current-day prices – using our specially devised Transfer Price Index (TPI) system to give precise ‘football inflation’ figures – teams could be accurately assessed against one another, whether from 1993 or 2010. How would the prices paid for Dean Saunders, Roy Keane or Frank Lampard compare with Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney or Robinho?

All 43 clubs to have played in the Premier League up to May 2010 are analysed, with noted writers and journalists – including Jonathan Wilson, Gabriele Marcotti and Oliver Kay – also providing their views on the club they support or report on.

All in all, it makes for an entertaining and revealing read on the world’s most popular game, and its most appealing league.

yes!

ooooh would read. and then act even more smug.

^ cosign

United still trying to flog season tickets to all and sundry, now on a pro rata basis two months into the season:
Dear Supporter

The 2010/11 season is well and truly underway and the Theatre of Dreams has already seen some great football with plenty of goals and moments to remember. We have just released some fantastic seats in the South Stand at pro-rata pricesand we also have limited numbers of seats available in alternative areas within the stadium. Don't miss this opportunity to secure your own seat for the remainder of the season and support the Reds in their campaign to reclaim the Barclays Premier League.

All Season Tickets sold over the next 2 weeks will be effective from (and including) our home game vs.Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday 30 October. Please see below for a list of areas where we have seats available, complete with re-calculated prices. Don't forget that we have Season Tickets available for juniors in North Stand tier 3 for just £150.

New pro-rata (adult) prices as follows:

North Stand Tier 3 - £495.00 (Over 65s - £247.50) (Juniors - £150.00)
East Stand Tier 2 - £540.00 (Over 65s - £270)
North East / North West Quad T1 - £555.00 (Over 65s - £277.50)
North East / North West Quad T2 - £615.00 (Over 65s - £300)
South Stand Lower - £645.00 (Over 65s - £300)
North / South Wings - £690.00 (Over 65s - £300)
North/ South Stands Centre - £735.00 (Over 65s - £300)

If you're interested in purchasing a Season Ticket, call 0161 868 8000(Option 1)from 8am to 8pm weekdays, or 9am to 5pm on Saturdays and Sundays.

This won't stop know-nothing journalists still referring to the fabled 'waiting list' tens of thousands long.

Meanwhile they've decided to close two sections of the ground for the Carling Cup match against Wolves due to low ticket sales.

That sounds worryingly like Celtic who have been half-season tickets and five-game packages and the like for a couple of years now, and closed the top tier of all stands for the recent cup game against SPL opposition (OK, only Caley Thistle, but the game was only £10 for season ticket holders, and was still pretty empty).

The Celtic website has been showing photos taken from various parts of the season and going "Seat of the Day! This could be your view!"

Various parts of the season?

stadium. it's late.

Why are attendances at United down? Beyond just Ronaldo being gone? I can see that financially things may not be rosy but the on-field product is still really pretty good?

Ailsa, just out of interest:
1) Do Celtic fill the ground for most/all home league games?
2) What proportion of the crowd are season ticket holders?

Is it? 10 years ago they were undoubtably watching the best team in the world, now they are watching Owen and Macheda up front not being able to break down a defence with Titus Bramble in it.

xpost

Like no offense to the Utd fans here but we can establish many are glory hunters, right? And the only way for Utd is seemingly down for the near future. That and protesting by not spending money to pay off the debts of people they don't want owning the club.

Also if you gave up yr season ticket its not like you are going to be struggling for decades to get one back atm or post-glazer mess.

1) not any more, but they used to. Last season was the first time in a very VERY long time that there was a public sale of tickets for the Rangers game
2) no idea off the top of my head, tbh. Don't think there's a huge walk-up crowd, hence empty seats all over the place.

I'll see if I can google up some stats for you.

some xposts

Why are attendances at United down? Beyond just Ronaldo being gone? I can see that financially things may not be rosy but the on-field product is still really pretty good?

I don't think attendances are substantially down, but demand is substantially down. If you go back maybe seven or eight years, there really was excess demand for season tickets and significant excess demand for members' tickets for individual matches. That has largely evaporated: partly due to the huge price hikes inflicted post-takeover (on top of the huge inflation-busting price rises at *all* football grounds from the late-80s onwards), and partly due to two waves of boycotting. They're now reduced to putting season tickets and matchday tickets on general sale and hawking them wherever they can, but there's still just about enough interest to more or less fill the ground for league matches.

I was a waiting list for a year before I got my first season ticket in 1998 - was sharing one with my brother before that. Waiting list would have got longer after Martin O'Neill showed up. Can't find figures, but I reckon it's dropped from about 45k season ticket holders to around 30k (home support capacity in the region of 57k, I think). There's always been a large allocation to supporters clubs so the season ticket thing isn't necessarily an indication of regular attendance.

I've seen a definite decline in the people who go anyway, from being able to sell out almost every game in the league. I've toyed with the idea of not renewing the last couple of years, but from a personal financial point of view rather than a lack of support for the club. Any evidence that others are doing the same would be purely anecdotal.

Just saying, though. Celtic were full to capacity a few years ago, it was difficult to imagine that they'd still be hawking decent seats on the halfway line seven games into the season to anyone that wanted them.

was *ON* a waiting list. fucking hell, I can't type, so don't expect any coherent points. I suspect darragh has a point about the glory hunters all fucking off again though, which can happen to just about anyone. Even Man Utd.

1) Do Celtic fill the ground for most/all home league games?
2) What proportion of the crowd are season ticket holders?

(sorry to Ailsa if she's typing something up - ah xpost she already did)

1) No, average attendances are down to something around 47000 from 58000 a couple of years back
2) Vast majority I reckon. When we were selling out 60000 we had 53000 season ticket holders.

I get season tickets for my sons for £50 each - five years ago it would have cost hundreds extra to upgrade to a parent and child seat.

It'll be interesting to see if we sell out the Rangers game at the end of the month...

lol I was about to say onimo would probably have the stats to hand, so good to see they don't vary massively from my estimates, apart from number of season tickets sold, I was reckoning on the supporters bus allocation as still being a thing separate from season tickets, but I haven't been on a supporters bus since 1992, so I have no idea if that's actually true really, I'm just going on stuff people say on the internets.

...and people coming in to pick up bundles of actual paper tickets every time I've had occasion to be in the ticket office.

The reason I was asking is that I had a theory that a lot of people got season tickets because it was the only way they could guarantee getting a ticket for the games that they *really* wanted to see (say City, Liverpool, and probably Arsenal and Chelsea for United; presumably just the Rangers matches for Celtic). So the ground might well be full every week (or at least the quoted attendance figure would indicate a full ground, as it reported seats sold as opposed to seats occupied), but that wasn't necessarily an indication of the real demand on a match-by-match basis. In some strange hypothetical world where Old Trafford was infinitely large, instead of getting circa 76,000 for every game, they would probably (pre-2005) have drawn a crowd of 150,000 for a match against Liverpool, but only 40,000 for a match against Middlesbrough (for example). The fact that 76,000 would have watched (or at least paid for seats) against Middlesbrough didn't so much reflect a desperate longing to see that particular fixture, more a case of a large number of season ticket holders having to watch that game as part of the package they'd signed up for, combined with a large number of ordinary members fighting for a small number of tickets sold on a match-by-match basis who would count themselves lucky to get into *any* match.

Once the bubble is burst, I reckon that demand falls away pretty sharpish. Many people will have swallowed the season ticket price rises on the understanding that they could still guarantee themselves a seat for the *key* matches, and flog their ticket (possibly at a reasonable profit) to other people for the matches that they don't want to go to. Once they discover that a) there isn't anyone looking to buy their season ticket off them for the games against Birmingham and Sunderland because those people could just get tickets on general sale, and b) it's easy enough to get tickets for most games anyway on a match-by-match basis, then season tickets seem a lot less attractive. Once fewer people have season tickets, then crowds fluctuate a lot more (just like they used to) depending on how attractive an individual match is.

That's almost definitely what is happening at Celtic Park. I always liked my season ticket status as allowing me the possibility of tickets for cup finals, champions league games (and, of course, I got a ticket to go to the UEFA Cup Final out of it as well). It's not a necessity any more for any of those things, but if I didn't chuck it this season, I probably never will. Also, I go to nearly every game anyway, think I've missed maybe five in the last five years or so due to holidays, illness, unbelievably bad weather and, um, forgetting to leave the pub.

Like, not just because I've already paid for them. I actually, mostly, like going.

Once the bubble is burst, I reckon that demand falls away pretty sharpish. Many people will have swallowed the season ticket price rises on the understanding that they could still guarantee themselves a seat for the *key* matches, and flog their ticket (possibly at a reasonable profit) to other people for the matches that they don't want to go to.

Getting the kids tickets so cheap is my main incentive to buy a season ticket. If I wasn't taking the kids I'd probably buy on a match by match basis, taking the risk of missing out on Rangers games and possibly Champions League games should we ever get there again.

Hence my "It'll be interesting to see if we sell out the Rangers game at the end of the month..." --- if they don't sell out derby match with both teams possibly still on 100% records then a lot more people will question the value of a season ticket.

Getting the kids tickets so cheap is my main incentive to buy a season ticket.

:-( and here was me thinking it was the guarantee of my sparkling company once a fortnight, with the kids an added bonus.

My main incentive is that, um, I give Celtic my money regardless of whether they are shite or not. It's like smack addiction without any of the highs, tbh.

Aye that as well :)

smack addiction without any of the highs

the best inside forward since Charlie Tully

This drug thing is more widespread than I thought! Nurse! Aye, even when time is actually STANDING STILL on a Saturday afternoon, it brings a warm glow to my heart to know I've paid enough upfront to cover Glenn Loovens for one whole game of standing looking confused as people run round him.

I suspect darragh has a point about the glory hunters all fucking off again though, which can happen to just about anyone

pfft i get blamed for every semi-controversial comment around here these days eh??

Whoops! As you can probably tell from my sentence construction last night, I was not entirely awake and paying attention :-)

granted, granted, i'm just trying to minimise unpopular opinions registered to my name.

well, the ones that don't actually belong to me at least.

I posted this in the SPL thread a while back - well worth a read to see how precarious Celtic's financial position could be, particularly with falling attendances.

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/09/celtic-if-you-know-history.html

58% of Celtic's income comes from matchday revenue with 17% from TV. Compare that with Juventus who bring in 7% from matches and 65% from TV and you see just how important bums on seats is to Celtic. Juventus losing 20% of their supporters gives them a manageable ~2% drop in income, whereas for Celtic it would represent a huge drop in turnover. Couple that with the £10m drop from not having European football and things look very grim indeed, good job we had an Aiden McGeady to sell.

isn't man united's average attendance this year still something stupid like 75,000?

yeah, as (I think) NBS said, the demand is still above what the staidum will hold, but not to the tune of 10x Old Traffords like it was a few years back or w/e

Yet they're punting season tickets?

The point, I think, is that excess demand gives United a lot more earning power. If there are say a thousand extra people wanting to get into games, they can raise income in all sorts of ways - directly raising prices, making entry contingent on also buying less attractive products (i.e. season tickets), charging an extra £100 for a sandwich buffet beforehand, etc etc. All they have to worry about is burning off the extra thousand punters who aren't getting to give United their cash anyway.

But if they're not selling out anymore and thereby stuck with excess supply, any attempt to raise income by doing those things then starts burning off those punters who *are* giving United their cash, either by driving them away outright or by giving them the option to buy a less expensive product.

It'd even be possible to make more money by reducing capacity and charging punters more, depending on how elastic demand at various levels of capacity is.

I thought the Glazers were more interested in selling to the occasional visitor than the season ticket regular as they'd be more likely to sell merchandise to those visitors.

xpost following my own post on

http://www.emfootball.co.uk/attend.html

It takes Wigan four games to fill an Emirates. They'll be hoping that Bosman of TV Rights woman doesn't win.

Usmanov probably dug up all those he's buried, went through the pockets and took the spare change:

Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour has returned to the top of football's rich list, according to the latest figures from FourFourTwo magazine.

The 40-year-old's vast fortune is estimated to have risen by £3billion, moving him back in front of QPR shareholder Lakshmi Mittal, whose fortune has dipped to £17bn.

Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, whose wealth once dwarfed all other fortunes on the list, has now dropped as far as fourth - displaced by Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov, whose estate has exploded to rise from £1.3bn to £8bn.

Usmanov's fellow Arsenal shareholder Stanley Kroenke is eighth on the list with a fortune of £1.85bn, while Mittal's partner at QPR, Bernie Ecclestone, also makes it into the top 10 with his £1.4bn estate.

The controversial owners of Manchester United, the Glazer family, are ranked ninth with an estimated fortune of £1.53bn.

Others figuring in the top 10 are Southampton owners the Liebherr family, fifth with a fortune of £3bn, Tottenham owner Joe Lewis, sixth at £2.7bn, and Celtic's Denis O'Brien, seventh with a fortune of £1.87bn.

Tom Hicks and George Gillett, whose ownership of Liverpool could come to an end if the club's other directors are able to force through a sale, do not feature on this year's list at all. Having been listed joint 16th last year with an estimated £500million each, analysts said it was now impossible to verify their worth as the turmoil continues at Anfield.

Allegedly.

Celtic's Denis O'Brien, seventh with a fortune of £1.87bn.

^does not own Celtic, or even 5% of it iirc

does not own 1.87bn either tbf

I thought the Glazers were more interested in selling to the occasional visitor than the season ticket regular as they'd be more likely to sell merchandise to those visitors.

To some extent, yes, but only if they have a never-ending supply of such people. What they don't want are any unsold seats and season tickets guarantee that while also providing large sums of money up front (which is also very important if you're experiencing, um, 'cashflow problems').

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2010/oct/06/football-fans-tighten-wallet-merchandise

The survey of 4,000 Premier League fans reveals that 42% of supporters will spend less on goods including replica shirts, programmes, general club clothing and household goods.

Some of this doesn't sound like the bad news it's painted as e.g. "Around 34% of Tottenham fans won't buy a new kit this season despite the club launching five new shirts."

Translates as "66% of Tottenham fans will buy a new kit this season as the club launched five new shirts" which seems a pretty handy return to me. Although FIVE new shirts WTF Spurs?

"the average matchday cost (including a pint of lager, a match ticket, a replica shirt, and a match programme as well as some travel expenses)" WAHT?! People count replica shirts as a matchday cost?

Although FIVE new shirts WTF Spurs?

Is that because we've now got two sponsors, depending on whether we're in domestic or Champions League football?

xp

yeah but only one pint included let's get real here

I assumed 5 shirts = 5 different designs which seemed stupid and against the rules. I don't think having the same shirt with a different sponsor makes it a different shirt.

Possibly counting home & away goalie shirts to get to five - I don't think I've seen one of these since I was about eleven (were always quite popular with kids though for some reason)

teams have had european shirts for a few years, and teams have had 3rd shirts for a few years.

i've never got the 'teams have too many shirts out' argument tbh

It creates classmate competition for getting all the shirts and the concomitant wheedling of parents for same

kids wouldn't do any of that stuff if replica shirts didn't exist

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/10/united-we-stand-divided-we-fall.html
A very detailed account, if you've got time to read it all.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jLlqDrcSYeQ/TLQcFEoJTHI/AAAAAAAACVc/CoaSiWfIowo/s400/3+Utd+Profit

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_jLlqDrcSYeQ/TLQe3217jMI/AAAAAAAACXU/ZAlq2rKiMx4/s400/18+Utd+Player

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_jLlqDrcSYeQ/TLQfhy0-J8I/AAAAAAAACXk/0Fx4z1nr4ww/s400/19+Utd+Debt

In fact, they’re a lot worse with Barcelona’s “leading” the way last year with £224 million

this cannot be sustainable, surely? no wonder they had to get a huge loan to bail them out in the summer and rossell is taking laporta to court.

Also surprised Stoke are paying so little* on wages. If they are being well run financially they could do p well when/as everyone around them starts to crumble.

*of their % turnover compared to others in the league, obv

lots of these articles making the obvious points about koscielny costing less than smalling and vdv only costing a million more than future ilfhof star bebe, which makes me lolwtflol the more i see it.

Even after all those interest payments, the debt has not reduced. In fact, the gross debt has slightly increased this year to £522 million, though net debt has fallen to £358 million, as cash balances are higher.

utd are so boned.

However, this is nothing compared to the Payment in Kind (PIK) notes, which is the most expensive debt in the Premier League. The interest rate was already a stratospheric 14.25%, before it rose to an eye-watering 16.25 % this summer after United broke the covenant whereby debt was not allowed to go above 5 times EBITDA. Unlike with a normal loan, the club do not have to pay back the principal on the debt in instalments – all the money is due to be repaid in 2017. This makes it an even more expensive way to borrow, as the club must pay interest on the growing balance. In this way, when the PIKs are due for repayment, the debt will have snowballed to £588 million, giving total debt of £1.1 billion.

you could buy liverpool 3 times with that and still invest 200m in the team.

Thanks NBS, will read with, uh, interest. Shall I get the dedicated thread up now then, what with Liverpool's problems being all solved and everything?

could wait until shit hits the fan, like we did with LFC.

it's prob the same deal for man u, as grim as it may be, that the club is big enough for somebody to buy it and clear the debt. but like liverpool it'll have to drop to its knees financially before anyone does this.

If there are that many Sheikhs out there with money to piss up the wall, how come one of them didn't go for Liverpool? I know a fair few Man United fans who are being astonishingly complacent about this. At some point the size of the debt is going to put off any investor.

Should I move the Evil Glazer thread over here?

broughton last week said something to the effect that there just aren't that many sheikhs or abramovichs out there. i like the sound of henry so far i have to say. obv early days but he seems v measured and relaxed.

Does anyone (Ismael?) have any final numbers on what the net result of the whole Liverpool thing was for Hicks and Gillett? I read a lot to the effect that they had each lost £75m, but I'm not clear how that's calculated, or whether it includes money taken out of the club as dividends etc.

or the difference between all the loans they took out against the club vs what total remained to be paid on their behalf.

I don't, no, I was mostly going by what was reported at any point in time (and therefore frequently felt totally lost) - Chris had some good figures at one point as I recall. It was usually quoted at c£150m, though I'm not even sure if it was public knowledge come to think. There was also a 25% stake owned by Wells Fargo that was almost never written about.

Would point out though that dividends don't necessarily equate to a profit though - if you've borrowed the money in the first place they are in a sense recompense for your cost in doing so; if it's your own money they're recompense in interest foregone by not being able to e.g. lend it out.

http://www.transferleague.co.uk/data/teams/team-29.htm

That City figure is so far out there I barely saw it. And Portsmouth are massively in the black?

Yeah they made a profit selling players they couldn't afford to buy or pay.

Weird how everyone thinks Man U are fucked as they aren't investing in the team (~£2m a year) yet Arsenal are very well managed etc when they're investing £7.5m less every season than United. The selling of Rooney should put Man U approx level with Arsenal.

Net spends don't really paint enough of a picture really, though it shows how much City, Spurs and Villa had to spend to join the big four (and how much Liverpool spent leaving it).

There's a difference between being well-managed as a business and well-managed as a football team looking to win things. On the latter, Man United and Arsenal are roughly even at the moment (although I'd argue United are in rapid descendency there). On the former, Arsenal ARE well-managed whereas United are a basket case.

Indeed, that's why net spend doesn't mean anything. Like Wolves = Chelsea

It does kind of give away which teams are spending their cash on things that aren't the team though - the big turnovers have to go somewhere, and in Utd and Arsenal's case it's not on top players (really need to take wages into account here too I guess)

I think Arsenal fans know its not going on top players and are ok with it (by and large).

wtf did spurs spend so much on?

also just buy selling bentley and rsc, blackburn have done terrific in the market

by*

wtf did spurs spend so much on?

Nine million of your English pounds iirc
http://www.givemefootball.com/GMF/files/dd/ddada7a2-8f1b-4bcb-9983-393d3a0dd028.jpg

bentley, modric, bent- 50 million right there

10m+ plus each to brinng robbie and defoe back

11m for crouch, thereabouts for corluka, woodgate, 14m pav

we dont get too many bargains. vdv, bale, lennon, thudd. dont make us arsenal. but most of the time we sell high, it's a useful rep for levy to have given us.

you spent 11m on woodgate? lols.

Also, RIP Pompey?

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/49625000/jpg/_49625888_frattonpark466.jpg

Nice photo. Don't see it now myself - did at the time, but the point of greatest danger was months ago, and surely liquidation is in nobody's interests now?

Hope it works out.

Pompey out of administration and safely sold

http://www.fcbusiness.co.uk/news/article/newsitem=724/title=footballers+using+tax+loophole+to+save+millions

pity dave b doesn't post anymore else we could have a football coops/communities thread

I'm sure he could be persuaded to make a special appearance for that thread.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/nov/03/jeremy-hunt-premier-league-debt-rules

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-15/manchester-united-to-pay-off-353-million-of-soccer-team-s-corporate-debt.html

The PIKs are reportedly about to be paid off, which suggests either another refinancing job or possibly a stake in the club sold to a third party.

Refinancing at a better rate I'd guess - the last refinancing was at about the worst possible time iirc, getting finance is a lot easier now aiui

rumours that 150-200m to come out of club funds just scaremongering?

The club still has funds? Or enough players to make that much in the Market?

As I understand it, they aren't taking the money out of the club's bank account, which (as I said) points to another refinancing (i.e. borrowing new money to pay off these debts) or perhaps some kind of partial sale.

I suspect it's a refinancing, so a lot depends on the interest rate on that new debt, but getting the PIK's off the books can only be a good thing surely?

(Very busy at work so can't write much)

If we accept that the PIK debt was the club's responsibility then refinancing it to avoid the savage >16% interest rates is a good thing. But Gill has repeatedly sworn blind that the PIKs are nothing to do with the club and are solely the Glazers' responsibility (though virtually no one believes him). If this is the result of a refinancing and the end result is that the PIK debt (albeit no longer in the form of PIKs) *is* saddled onto the club, that is a bad thing and reveals the lie.

best case is this comes out of club, and is returned promptly when new financing is sourced at a lower rate

It can't *all* come out of the club, because the club doesn't have that much cash

ah, misread you above, was wonderin tbh

Why Bolton have so much debt - terrific, straightforward article envisaging tough times for trotter

1. they have gone backwards to the tune of 3.7m in gate receipts within five years? because people miss allardyce's total football compared to what they see now?

2. 20+m a year on "other expenses"?

3. how about you stop complaining about high wages and just fucking pay within your limits?

4. i'm surprised that a team like bolton hasn't gone to the big 10 european clubs and said 'hi guys want a feeder club at the highest level' yet. think about bolton - have had dealings with real before, need quality players, could have given guys like granero and mata essential playing time early in their career in a top level league.

http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2010/11/milans-age-of-austerity.html?utm_source=BP_recent is also fascinating; it seems selling kaka etc. didn't even put a dent in their losses

juve+ac+inter+roma still make less in gate receipts than arsenal

Will read. I tackled the Ajax one at lunchtime. The inescapable conclusion of that and all sorts of other stuff I've been pondering, is that club football all over Europe is going to be dead within the decade outside the top five leagues, and maybe only Russia and Turkey have a chance of avoiding that fate.

I dunno I just think clubs need to wake tf up and learn to run themselves properly.

...and learn to run themselves properly so that they can they fall prey to hostile takeovers

Clubs pay £67m to Agents. I presume there are a couple of super-agents raking in £66m, and all the others share the rest between them for telling their pet feckless idiot what car to buy.

Liverpool - £9,032,528.49

good job all involved

apropos of hughton's sacking
http://transferpriceindex.com/sample-chapter/

lol just posted that in the other thread.

ha "When that approach ‘inevitably’ failed (and I say inevitably purely because it’s Newcastle)..."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/06/wikileaks-burma-manchester-united-takeover

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jan/11/uefa-footballpolitics

It will be interesting to see how on earth City comply with this, given that their wage bill is actually higher than their entire turnover.

£300m season ticket for the Sheikh, sorted.

something like that, yeah. New jersey bought for everyone in qatar or w/e

Hahaha. I was trying to think up some sort of wage-low-turnover-heavy subsidiary for them to open up and skew it that way - Citeh Property Trading and Gold Mines Inc or something - but that's a much better plan.

Hmmmmmmm. It's difficult to see how Platini could get round that.

course it is, football authorities arent any cleverer than internal revenue and 1/3 of britain's 700 biggest companied pay no tax at all (readasundaytimesarticleLAD)

I'm not sure Platini minds too much about "benefactors" gifting large sums of cash to fund footballing success. Irritating, perhaps, but not ruinous, and that's money coming into football from outside. I reckon they figure that there simply aren't enough people who are rich enough and mad enough to want to spend half a billion quid on buying some trophies for a football club to warp the competition beyond recognition.

I think they're trying to dissuade people from running up huge debt trying to compete with benefactees: fewer mad spenders will reduce the inflationary pressure on wages and fees.

If that works, of course, it will lower the cash requirements for entry into the benefactor game, but they'd still need to best what the biggest clubs actually earn, so that's still quite a lot of money.

I don't think this will solve all of football's problems but it is a move, and a start. I wish the FA / Premier League / Football League / Conference would do something similar.

Yes, it's a step in the right direction

I never knew that it was officially 'break even for the three years before 2013... give or take 30m'

According to the Guardian the rules "will also take into account any sponsorship or marketing deals not deemed to be at market rates." So yes, I agree with y'al above that it will be v hard to police that. Still suspect that's the bit the authorities care least about mind.

anyone see last night's panorama on the notts county fiasco? holy shit.

I saw it, amazing how far a brass neck and nothing else can get you.

Mostly it just made me realise how different the mentality of guys like that is. The whole time I was thinking 'How can they possibly have thought they'd get away with it? How could they think this was going to turn out well?' It was only when the door opened at the end that I realised that he had got away with it and it had turned out well - sending some cash out to Bahrain and living there in a decent flat was probably the point all along. Wouldn't it just be easier to get a regular job?

I missed it, what was the general thrust?

A couple of guys, one posing as a prince, convinced people that they were managing a fund for the Bahraini royal family and hence had access to billions, managed to acquire Notts County, half an investment bank and exclusive rights to exploit North Korea's mineral and coal reserves. The method used seems to have been a mix of charm and signed statements (not bank statements or anything like that, just the guys signing letters basically), then once the club was on board Sven & co being paraded around to convince the bank & nk that these guys were major players. Sven recounting being wined & banquetted in Pyongyang, while worthless share certificates were being written out to pay the koreans, was pretty wtf.

yeah, i'd only add that the mineral rights in n. korea were valued at over $1 trillion! and sven said at the time he was being told that notts county couldn't even afford to pay the milkman. it's really worth watching the whole thing, half an hour well spent imo.

that's pretty much how we ran an entire country tbf

sounds amazing. is that available anywhere online?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b010p00r

Available in UK only, I think.

wow...totally crazy.

can't help but feel it's no coincidence sven was involved here. not suggesting he did anything untoward but followed the money as usual.

We like David Conn but this article on the Arsenal takeover really bugs me. Attacking the owners for selling their shares and not a penny 'going back into the club' - it's just basic lack of understanding, money went into the club at some point when the shares were issued, and they've been free to trade ever since, the money that Kroenke's paid is not coming out of the club in any way. It's not an obscure technicality, it's how every company in the world works and you'd think the foremost footy finance journalist would know that.

I don't know what he's arguing for anymore, unless it's for a business based on pure altruism.

Yeah that article is really poor. What does he suggest the shareholders do?

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=6354899

176	Middlesbrough	England (D2)	$1,376,640	$26,474

Relegation then getting wee Gordon to hoover up overpaid SPL players really hitting home.

lol at Kimi Raikkonnen being the world's third-highest earning athlete

athlete?

ESPN's nomenclature but seems fair, it's not like he's a dartist, snookerite or chesser. Top earners by sport and country here.

No idea how they got the figures or how accurate they are, but loads to see - Chamakh earning the same as Pandev just caught my eye.

free transfer lol

Wait where is that dude

orgy in Vegas iirc

Sounds like Arshavin, except I bet he doesn't pray:

Mariano Rivera - New York Yankees

"I get a lot of ideas thrown my way. Some people will even come to the stadium or find me when I'm at home in Panama. One time, I was going to a CVS when some guy said, 'I have this idea.' I listened to him; it doesn't cost me anything to listen. After that, I take their business card, and then I pray about it. Most of the time, I don't do anything else."

David Conn picks apart the financial horrorshow that is the EPL

Or: move along, nothing to see here. Except well done Wolves. I could barely be bothered posting this tbh, it's been heading towards oblivion forever now. It occurred this morning that the Premiership is basically a casino for guys too loaded to get any kicks from a real one.

of course it's only a matter of time before Wolves fans start moaning that Morgan's taking profit out of the club, so in some senses it's hard for even responsible owners and chairmen to get a square deal. i kinda think that clubs end up with the financial management that the bulk of their fans deserve, sort of?

Sign of a dysfunctional system I suppose - with no real risk of going under, being reckless and being prudent are likely to end you up in the same place eventually but only being reckless gets you a shot at trophies, so no reason not to decry fatcats like Morgan.

I dunno, I think being reckless is eventually going to end up with a team being fucked, with those being sane is going to be pushed up the table. Utd are still going to make heavy losses even if they win the CL as well as the league, right? Unless Qataris buy EVERY club, it just cannot hold. Sure it may be 10 years before shit goes down but I'm going to be watching football, hopefully, for anohter 70 years so I'm trying not to think with the immediacy of 24 hour news cycles.

Sure it may be 10 years before shit goes down

Depressing thought

football clubs are ridiculous, thread synopsis

This is staggering - Man U have lost the equivalent of five CRon7s in five years just in Glazer loans/fees/interest.

The Glazer family's ownership has cost United around £350m in interest, fees, loans to the family themselves and bank charges since 2005, and they have never put money into the club. In the year to June 30 2010, United paid £42m interest on the £500m loans the Glazer family originally took out to buy the club in the first place, and just refinancing that debt, replacing the loans with a bond, cost United an eyewatering £65m, cash.

wish I'd had the Glazers' idea tbh

Yeah, buy a £1bn football club for fuck all, take all its money, laugh at the fans changing their scarf colours while still giving you £750 a year each.

ok but eventually utd aren't going to be able to continue paying off their purchase of the club and are going to start focussing on their loses instead? i dunno, like unless someone starts putting something in, utd are going to die sometime soon? No other business can consistently lose £80m a year.

eventually utd aren't going to be able to continue paying off their purchase of the club

i thought this would have happened by now, but they keep refarming their debt and carrying on

Debt:
http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/visualizations/net-debt-by-premier-league-club-m#LFC

David Conn's churning things out almost daily at the moment, but with almost no content. It's most unlike him. The Birmingham one today could basically just be a hyperlink to any number of previous articles by him re Carsten Yeung.

is it along the lines of Yeung is just a front man but with nothing behind him? which is the story i've heard since he's been there more or less

I think so, basically. It goes something like this: Yeung started off making big promises of £80m investment, they have since been denied, he needs to tap the Hong Kong stock exchange for continued funding, is unlikely to get it in the amount sought, big hole appearing in Birmingham's finances due to drop to Championship, likely unable to operate within bank facilities available at present, auditors have raised doubts as to club's continuing as a going concern.

All good points to be sure. Conn seems most rankled by the unfulfilled £80m promise though, which is surely the least important thing there and like it's the first time an owner's money and mouth are in different places anyway.

That's what I don't get about Conn, really - he amasses the evidence forensically, then argues his case like a punter on the terraces.

fuckin a, it worked in rocky iii didn't it

Ishmael you're exaggerating a bit, from what I can see he mentions the non-existent £80m once, in the first paragraph. Most of the column is about how the club will survive in the Championship.

by kicking their opponents to death, same as every season

hey it's the national modus operandi tbf

Will Big Eck stay, I wonder?

he will til he's paid not to

Hm yes that's fair xp, apologies for that - I'm pretty sure he brings it up every time he writes about them though, when really it's nothing to give any heed to.. Promises of investment are the fluttery eyelashes of football finance imo.

There's a lengthy summary of Liverpool's situation on the Andersred blog today. I haven't read it, but it might interest some of you. Will link later.

Not read the Andersred piece yet but here it is:
http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/05/liverpools-200910-results-underline.html

Good write-up on Swiss Ramble which includes some thoughts as to what FSG's strategy may be, in the form of a 15-point plan:
http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2011/05/liverpools-future-strategy.html

Good piece, even if the 15-point plan is a bit of a no-brainer.

Further progress from this level will depend on the new management team's ability to sign secondary sponsors. This is the area where United has proved so adept in recent years. United's secondary deals (Turkish Airlines, EPSON, DHL etc) will bring in around £44m in the current year, equivalent to all Arsenal's commercial revenue.

blimey

http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/wenger-city-deal-is-platini-s-biggest-test?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arsenal-news+%28News+Feed%29

We always knew that this would happen. But Platini is powerless, right? No way Uefa are actually going to stand up to billionaires of any kind.

not sure what they could do that wouldn't run into EU legislative difficulties, but i may be underestimating the power of footballing bodies to implement a sectoral agreement type inhibition

Now i'm writing like it's an exam and i'll stop

idk ffp seems pretty hardline so far tbf?

i think rather than finding big blatant loopholes clubs will be looking to find enough small grey areas to dispute long enough to gum up the legal works until it collapses; in this case it'll be an argument about how "market price" of sponsorship is deemed

then it'll be a holding company buying 2 million shirts, etc

that was half laughable half terrifying, but can't help but feel that eejit sim was just a bluffer on an ego ride.

Huh what? What are you talking about?

panorama investigation into the sale of english clubs to unknown/shady/foreign consortiums.

Light on exactly what was wrong with any of it, tbh, just came across as v little england imo.

But the dude liaising as the front for this consortium was a real blowhard. Though tbf there was a lot of pics and evidence of a reasonably close relationship with jason ferguson's dad, which obviously raises questions

This was the Bryan Robson thing, right? I dunno, these programmes should set about uncovering real actual criminality or not bother imo. Breaking football-specific rules, why would anyone who isn't a footballer care about that? Might as well run a splash on breaches of solicitors' accounting protocols or something.

That programme a few years back that failed to uncover bungs and ended up with Harry admitting, casually in ordinary conversation like, that he'd be interested in signing a player who was under contract to another club was the worst.

'these clubs have hundreds of thousands of dedicated fans but are bought and sold like *playthings*'

smh

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14490740.stm

^^^ This is important.

There will always be loopholes. I understand the desire to link spending to turnover etc but surely someone with a bottomless pit of cash should be allowed to spend it? If this sponsorship deal falls foul of the rules they can just do a "buy a brick" sale and sell Sheikh Mansour a brick for £400m.

In a free market? Fair enough. In a closed system like a professional sport? Maybe not.

I can't find the link just now, but Swiss Ramble analysed the deal recently and basically okay'ed it as not especially outlandish in a footy context.

It's here. It *is* outlandish in a footy context simply because it's so big, although maybe not in a global sports context. That said I'm not sure why Etihad would part with hundreds of millions more than they need to just because Sheikh Mansour was calling in a favour.

That's why the piece was an interesting read - the deal's so obviously a scam, I thought, that I was amazed to *almost* be convinced otherwise.

http://e-comlaw.com/sportslawblog/template_permalink.asp?id=448

In the 2009-10 season, the most recent for which accounts are available, Stoke's turnover was £58.98m, the Premier League's 14th highest. Yet Stoke are afforded many luxuries unavailable to their peers, thanks to being a subsidiary of an organisation with a turnover of £5.4bn a year. Stoke belong to bet365, and in the 2009-10 season were given a parent-company subsidy of £15.42m, serving as bet365's tax write-off – the company has been applauded, however, for keeping its entire betting operation in the UK, whereas most of its competitors' online and telephone-betting departments are offshore to avoid all tax.

It means Pulis was able to invest £20.58m, net, in new players in 2009-10 as the Potters spent £12.2m more than they earned that season, making their total subsidised expenditure £71.2m. Indeed, Stoke's parent-company structure gives them another great advantage: access to interest-free finance. That season Stoke's bank debt was a negligible £175,000, costing them £6,000 in interest fees. Everton, by contrast, must foot an annual interest bill of close to £4.5m – equivalent to two players earning £43,000 a week.

TV rights, anyone?

ta

it's coming to something when man utd and chelsea look askance at our greed

I'd be interested to know if Liverpool's proposal is defensible from any POV whatsoever besides "let the big dogs eat"

i think fergie was broadly - all the clubs in epl should get way more for overseas tv rights
LFC- Us, Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal should get way more for overseas tv rights.

I'm ignoring any nuance that underlies this i know.

yeah fuck that pool shit. 'can we plz have a monopoly - look at how well spanish clubs do!'

I think Ayre tried to frame it as part of 'competing' with European clubs who sell their rights differently. But don't think he came up with any plausible reason as to how this wouldn't make the epl even less competitive than it is now.

It's not about a monopoly though - it's about a European league sometime in the next decade.

The likes of Dave Whelan are right when they say this will kill half the Premier League, but their mistake is to think the big clubs care - they'd rather be playing among themselves every week, not spending time playing filler like Wigan. And anyway, he's not proposing everyone go back to the pre-1992 arrangements is he?

If Stoke get in on that league we can finally see what Messi's really worth on a rainy Tuesday evening in Stoke.

spurs are a big club

I think Messi will have to sign for Wolves before he and Stoke are in the same division of it.

i can't remember if this is true or if i made it up but were liverpool not also at the forefront of the 92 premier league breakaway?

getting a bit sick and tired of this myth that the epl is competitive unlike spain. Been the same 2 teams for the last 6 or 7 years winning the league. Short of a billionaire who can flush millions down the toilet with nary a pause buying a club that's not going to change.
Wonder if malaga finish top 3 this year.

The big 5 as it was then - Utd, LFC, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton?

xp

Overseas rights have always been shared equally, and while in 1992 they were almost nonexistent, the current deal, reflecting the game's global popularity, especially in the Middle and Far East, is worth £1.4bn over the next three years. So last season Blackpool received the same as United: £17.9m.

^ tbh i can sympathise with ayre a teensy bit when you see it like that. fuck it tho

Spain is in a pretty sick condition though by any standards xps. It just seems to me that most other leagues heading the same way, it's totally obvious that the elites in each will band together in one really good competition, rather than put up with half-a-dozen dysfunctional ones.

That said, Serie A's opening this year has been old-school.

I've really enjoyed Serie A this year after ignoring it for a decade.

spain sick as anything, only world champions, euro champions, current world #1, champion's league holders, yadda yadda

Nothing would be more boring than the top clubs from Europe in a top competition. I'm already half bored once the Champion's League qf are on because it's basically the same 8 clubs all the time. Bring back the 90s Champions League where you'd get IFK Goteborg and AEK Athens and Galatasaray and so on actually being competitive.

getting a bit sick and tired of this myth that the epl is competitive unlike spain. Been the same 2 teams for the last 6 or 7 years winning the league. Short of a billionaire who can flush millions down the toilet with nary a pause buying a club that's not going to change.
Wonder if malaga finish top 3 this year.

― pandemic, Thursday, 13 October 2011 13:55 (50 minutes ago)

I don't think anyone said the whole league was competitive. But in the premiership the tv rights are collectively bought and shared amongst the teams, so all the clubs are on a kind of equal footing when it comes to the money they receive, meaning there is more of a chance for a well run club to be competitive. In Spain where Real and Barca gobble up all that money and no-one else sees a dime compared, it is impossible to compete - look at the past couple years, any team that looked good enough just had those two teams buy their best players, essentially nullifying them (Alves, Villa, Albiol etc.) In theory, that shouldn't happen here considering the only real difference is sponsership, gate receipts and the money you receive for how well your team does and hopefully FFP can kick the billionaire system out*, leaving a closer financial playing field where a team like Newcastle or whoever, if well run, could break the mould. In Spain however, stadium revenue etc. may be similar but having Barca and Real earn 200m+ more than every other team from TV rights means there is nowhere near the balance, to the point where they are looking at Malaga oil to compete!

*lol

You know Spain's situation is shit when you realise how hard it is for all the other clubs to actually find sponsorship deals. Real and Barca both get something like 30M/yr, the third highest deal is around 5M/yr iirc

I think it was Valencia to whom Ashley Madison (the online dating site for married ppl) proposed a sponsorship deal like a few M/yr + money everytime one of their players cheats on his wife

I'm already half bored once the Champion's League qf are on because it's basically the same 8 clubs all the time. Bring back the 90s Champions League where you'd get IFK Goteborg and AEK Athens and Galatasaray and so on actually being competitive

I wanted to come back to this because the national league system is EXACTLY what's killing these clubs now imo. IFK can't compete because they have fairly small crowds and Swedish telly income is negligible. Even if they did make the CL they only get the Swedish portion of the pot, not the portion that comes from selling rights to Germany or Italy.

If we do get a proper European league, those clubs will have to resurrect to some extent because a proper league would want to take in the Scandinavian etc. markets too. Scandinavia's rich, it wouldn't make sense to have no teams there.

surely it would make more sense to transplant a franchise that is already popular in scandinavia to a central location like stockholm? northwest england is already saturated with one global alpha level team and another that is quickly approaching that status

therefore the answer is for john henry to make that bold move

Scandinavia's rich, it wouldn't make sense to have no teams there

I think a lot of Scandinavians follow English football anyway. There's certainly a hell of a lot of Norwegian Man Utd fans.

i can't remember if this is true or if i made it up but were liverpool not also at the forefront of the 92 premier league breakaway?

Yeah, think it was a combo of Liverpool and David Dein at Arsenal.

Tons of Scandinavians at Liverpool too.

But what I mean is: what's the future for football? You'd like to think big populations would support big clubs. It can't just be the best players going to the same half-dozen lucky clubs, whom everyone watches while local clubs wither. Right now half of Europe is in the position the Irish league's always been in.

Just in case there's any doubt about this: I think a European league is a terrible idea and individual TV deals would be disastrous for all but a few clubs.

Maybe, but I can't see them not happening idc.

there'll be a deal concluded with a bigger share of the cash going to the clubs that generate it, do again in a few years

Nice of Ian Ayre to even entertain the idea that we'll be competing with the likes of Barca and Real in the near future. If we don't get top 4 this season then we're fucked.

I don't think anyone said the whole league was competitive. But in the premiership the tv rights are collectively bought and shared amongst the teams, so all the clubs are on a kind of equal footing when it comes to the money they receive, meaning there is more of a chance for a well run club to be competitive. In Spain where Real and Barca gobble up all that money and no-one else sees a dime compared, it is impossible to compete - look at the past couple years, any team that looked good enough just had those two teams buy their best players, essentially nullifying them (Alves, Villa, Albiol etc.) In theory, that shouldn't happen here considering the only real difference is sponsership, gate receipts and the money you receive for how well your team does and hopefully FFP can kick the billionaire system out*, leaving a closer financial playing field where a team like Newcastle or whoever, if well run, could break the mould. In Spain however, stadium revenue etc. may be similar but having Barca and Real earn 200m+ more than every other team from TV rights means there is nowhere near the balance, to the point where they are looking at Malaga oil to compete!

*lol

― Ravaging Rick Rude (a hoy hoy), Thursday, October 13, 2011 1:56 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest

Yes, I agree with this. Well put.

David Conn's got a series of pieces on John W Henry running at the moment. Part one; part two. I've only read the first part so far. It's good, though mostly about baseball.

Red Sox implosion continues. Should think Henry will have his hands more than full with that other the winter. Need to find new manager, new GM, and sort out a "cancerous clubhouse". Some starting pitching would be good too. Still Carl Crawford only has 6 years left on his $100m+ contract so all's well.

Sounds like they should sign Andy Carroll to give the place a lift.

Clubs don't share ticket and merchandise revenues so why should we share our TV income with everyone else?

http://i.imgur.com/IGUV2.jpg

Because a club's value is partly its value as a stand-alone business, and partly its value as 1/20th of its league. Pooling certain income raises the value of the league part, to the eventual benefit of the club itself.

Where I think everyone else has it wrong is that I believe the big clubs know this, don't give a stuff, and will happily move forward by ditching their current leagues for 1/20th share of a far more lucrative league.

Clubs don't share ticket and merchandise revenues so why should we share our TV income with everyone else?

― Chris, Friday, 14 October 2011 13:35 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Delete Undelete Ban/Thread Unban/Thread Ban User Info Yellow Card

you need another team to play! should that team not make any tv revenue from a liverpool game? if so, why play them?

think it's not that simple, IK.

A league derives value from the teams playing therein. A league of Stokes and Blackburns would not long enjoy a billion-euro television deal.

Obviously the top five or six clubs will streak away from the rest of the league if this happens, but it'll be harshest on the newly-promoted clubs. Even the Fulhams and Evertons of this world, if astutely managed, will manage to do okay out of it by virtue of being in the Premiership year in year out. They might do well by signing popular Korean or Japanese players as well, which would ramp up the value of their deals in particular markets.

This will be very very harsh on newly promoted clubs like, say, Swansea, who will struggle to sell their overseas rights for very much and will struggle to compete with teams like Bolton and Stoke let alone anyone further up. In time, you'll see the same teams yo-yoing year in year out.

I know that xp, what I mean is that a league of Utd, Barcelona, Bayern, Milan, etc would be worth so much that I simply can't see it not happening. A club like Barcelona play maybe ten top-drawer matches in a year, plus about forty middling-to-dud games. The hike in value from them switching that ratio around would be so huge that it can't not happen imo.

Stoke? Blackburn? Pah.

http://andersred.blogspot.com/2011/10/real-problem-with-liverpools-media.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAndersredBlog+%28the+andersred+blog%29

I do bang on about a European league a bit, and not sure anyone really wants it, but the numbers make it inevitable I think. Basically the idea is just that a single market must gravitate to a single league - since Bosman etc that market has changed to a European one is all.

xp to IK - would that actually be an attractive proposition? I don't mean morally - obviously it would mean the richest clubs completely screwing all the others. I mean would anyone be *that* interested in some kind of European Premier League replacing domestic leagues? Personally it doesn't capture my imagination. I generally find the group stages of the CL boring and only really get interested when it reaches the knockout stage (and often not even then). The novelty of Man Utd v Juventus and Chelsea v Real Madrid week after week, year after year, will wear off pretty rapidly.

This will be very very harsh on newly promoted clubs like, say, Swansea, who will struggle to sell their overseas rights for very much and will struggle to compete with teams like Bolton and Stoke let alone anyone further up. In time, you'll see the same teams yo-yoing year in year out.

Yeah but we deserve a bigger slice of the piece. 18 league titles, 5 European cups - we've earned our pie. It may even given the little teams a kick up the arse to get closer to us. Nothing's stopping Swansea from touring China.

why should real madrid subsidise psv just because they play in the same league? fuck them, it's time for a hyperleague with just madrid and city imo

Pretty sure it'd be much more attractive worldwide where no-one cares about Bolton or Real Zaragoza; it's hard to imagine what it'd be like for domestic fans, but I'd guess that derbies apart, it's not going to be much different as people primarily care about their own team, not the opposition.

The question is no doubt what's going to be more important, financially?

as people primarily care about their own team, not the opposition

They care about both.

How did that turn into a link? I must have gone mad.

Would PSV, Lyon, Porto, etc want to swap a chance to win the league on a regular basis with scraping 14th place in a Euro superleague, even if it meant more money? City and Real are going to outspend them, and have more lucrative rights, whatever happens.

Not all the time or all that much though, surely? How much would you really miss the games against Sunderland or Fulham? Have you missed pitting your wits against Middlesbrough these last few years.

What say you to my pie comment above, Matt?

Yeah but we deserve a bigger slice of the piece.

Oh ffs. Pie, not piece.

Yeah but we deserve a bigger slice of the piece. 18 league titles, 5 European cups - we've earned our pie. It may even given the little teams a kick up the arse to get closer to us. Nothing's stopping Swansea from touring China.

Actually over the lifetime of the Premiership you've "earned" close to fuck all, but whatever.

Would Man United, Chelsea, etc. want to swap a chance to win the league on a regular basis with scraping 5th or 6th in a Euro superleague, even if it meant more money?

It may even given the little teams a kick up the arse to get closer to us.

This is the sort of doublethink that Tory MPs trot out when they argue that reducing benefits will aid social mobility. It's nonsense.

What say you to my pie comment above, Matt?

I assumed it was just pure trolling

Perhaps we should give Nottingham Forest a slice of the pie as well? They've earned it more than Man City.

Thanks Matt.

Sorry, I'm being an arse on purpose. I don't back Ayre's proposal - these are just some of the arguments that have been thrown at me by a number of Liverpool fans. One dude's even gone as far as to say that anyone who attacks Ayre on this isn't a true supporter. Head, brick wall.

I withdraw my snarky comment about the five-times Ottoman Empire league champions then.

lol no worries.

Some very polite trolling there - was hoping you'd ramp it up a bit, personally.

Not all the time or all that much though, surely? How much would you really miss the games against Sunderland or Fulham? Have you missed pitting your wits against Middlesbrough these last few years.

No, not all the time, and I would be happy if we never played Middlesbrough again. But I think any Euro Super League would most likely be a closed shop with no relegation (otherwise how would it work? If, say, an English team got relegated, would they automatically be replaced by an English team? If so, why would that team be more deserving of a place than an Italian / German / French / whatever team?) so it would get stale very quickly. And while I'd agree that I don't salivate with excitement at the prospect of a trip to Sunderland, I don't think I'd be that excited about playing Dortmund or Marseilles twice a year every year for the rest of my life. At least with other English clubs you've got the potential for (the dreaded) banter at work - you're much likelier to work with a Fulham or Sunderland fan than a Lyon or Roma fan.

one thing that hasn't been mentioned-

if a european super league were to create a monopoly that killed off tens of clubs, maybe even hundreds of clubs around europe... where would the players worth playing in a ESL come from? Would it just be youth academies, places like Clarefontaine and buying Brazilians?

Hold on - why is that a link as well? Am I trapped in html hell?

italics link

Hmmmmmmmm. Premature senility.

what happens in, say, the us re gridiron pipecocking re promotion etc?

A European Super League is one of those things that seems to have been talked about for about 15 years. That it would, effectively, kill off the Champions League is still probably the biggest reason it's unlikely to happen.

I don't think the US does a very good job at nurturing talent, actually. At least aiui. It seems totally haphazard there, dependent on schoolteachers and a college system with different priorities. Maybe better for life skills, but chances of uncovering a Messi (in any sport except maybe baseball) are pretty remote because the elite are picked out very early on the basis of being the best/biggest kids, and never really tested until they reach the big leagues.

Sorry, got Sam & Darragh's posts muddled up there.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/oct/12/football-broadcasting-deal-liverpool

Are those Merit Payments accurate? Blackpool were relegated but still received more than Wigan and Wolves? I thought they were dependent on your final league position.

Something to do with the fact that Blackpool were higher than Wigan and Wolves for most of the season?

Just checked the Premier League's official press release and the Guardian's figure is wrong (Blackpool actually received £1,513,512). So yeah, based on final league position.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/nov/18/manchester-city-biggest-ever-loss

all in preparation for ffp tho.

Anyway,

i. Money doesn't matter to 'em
ii. They're making serious progress.

^^ this.

It's not a loss of 'bad management' or of a club going to shit, it's just a debt of buying a whole slew of players. Doesn't seem anything to be bothered about tbh. They have the money so they spend it. It's not really a "loss", they just spend way more than they receive.

petrol is how much a litre in the UK?
and then the money comes back from the middle east. to adam johnson, in the form of a contract extension.
perfect economic circle imo

you left out hookers and coke

http://www.itsroundanditswhite.co.uk/2012/01/06/evertons-blueprint-for-oblivion/

bleak picture, if it's all true

Some good stuff on that site. They could do with making their articles a bit longer imo.

Everton do concern me. They've got most of the ingredients of a big club but have built it into no clout whatsoever. Goodison doesn't even seem like a hopeless ground to me - it's big enough despite being hemmed in - yet they're pissing about with no-hoper schemes and robbing-peter-to-pay-paul while Moyes keeps them afloat.

The English game is destroying the Northern Irish game is also something I harp on about a lot, nice to see it from a different perspective. There's no way out though - you can't have a tiny league with a tiny geographic spread, that is also a good league objectively worth watching anymore. They are simply incompatible.

Like some modern day Faustian pact Everton has literally sold their soul to remain solvent. All their assets have been either sold or mortgaged: this includes their stadium, which acts as security for a £30m loan; their future season ticket sales, the method by which the loan is repaid; and their ability to generate future commercial income as they have uniquely sold the rights to both their catering and merchandising operations.

Yikes... I don't know of another club that has sold so many key assets like this. The article makes it sound like Everton is just a huge debt-house, only alive to try and pay off those debts and make new debts to pay off old ones.

I don't know of another club that has sold so many key assets like this.

I do. They're currently awaiting the decision on a tax case that could cost them £50m and shut them down. Lots to read here if you're ever stuck for an afternoon's reading - http://rangerstaxcase.com/

http://s15.postimage.org/em75660m3/totalrevenues.png

HSV must be the most underperforming club of that lot. Also lol at no ManC, although I guess they don't need revenues

yeah HSV's income surprised me a lot, considering they only seem to have been buying Chelsea youth lately (tbf tore and bruma have been half decent)

Juventus surprisingly low. All of Italy really, they must be due big things soon?

Juve are filling the new stadium, I think the knock-on effect will be p dramatic soon.

Italy is still a shambles though. Just lost their 4th CL spot, still not filling stadiums, not making much on tv deals as they should be etc.

Also lol at no ManC ???

Man C - 169.6

bayern munich are impressive in that they make nothing like the tv money that premiership teams do and i can't imagine the bundesliga is as big in asia or africa as the epl (i may be completely wrong on this). in addition they don't totally rip-off their fans with the matchday experience. i think they're just fucking great at marketing and merchandising. lucrative sponsorships mainly. suppose it must help being by far the biggest and most successful team in the biggest and most successful country in europe.

if man city win the league then they'll be up there soon enough, what with history and tradition not meaning much to most fans of big epl teams:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/10/23/1319381519355/Manchester-United-V-Manch-002.jpg

Haha wow - it's less that guy, more the fact that there's a mass-production market for those

bayern munich are impressive in that they make nothing like the tv money that premiership teams do and i can't imagine the bundesliga is as big in asia or africa as the epl (i may be completely wrong on this). in addition they don't totally rip-off their fans with the matchday experience. i think they're just fucking great at marketing and merchandising. lucrative sponsorships mainly. suppose it must help being by far the biggest and most successful team in the biggest and most successful country in europe.

― zverotic discourse (jim in glasgow), Thursday, 9 February 2012 18:25 (8 minutes ago)

They are gonna become like Utd now - i.e. the only team that can be on the same scale as Barca and Real - when our bubble bursts and the Bundesliga picks up the rope, like the Premiership did when Serie A's bubble popped.

Will the EPL bubble burst though? The foreign tv revenues are becoming staggering, and I'm not sure I can envisage any other country bar matching the EPL package (in the broad footy-as-pop-culture sense).

Unless foreign love for it is just a fad, then everyone's swimming naked.

Also lol at no ManC ???

Man C - 169.6

― le ralliement du doute et de l'erreur (Michael White), donderdag 9 februari 2012 19:15 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Missed them, soz

The EPL bubble has been about to burst for about 12 years. I've resigned myself to the fact that it's not gonna happen.

Wenger says it will, and people hate him for it.

Wenger less reliable on football than onimo imo

i dunno, onimo what are your thoughts on mertesacker?

I thought he was a great signing but he's looking increasingly like a Big at a club that doesn't suit them.

a measured response there, Tom D might be on to something.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17197269

Villa lost 53m (pre-selling Young and Downing) last year. It is amounts like this which make me assume the league is fucked, long term. Lerner is not going to want to pay that off.

Swiss Ramble does Arsenal

That's a great piece. It'll be really interesting to see what happens in the battle between Stan Kroenke and Alisher Usmanov over the next few years as well. The latter's possibly the most transparently crooked man with a stake in a major European club (with the possible exception of Akhmetov at Shakhtar) but he has the resources to put a pretty attractive bid together.

Berlisconi surely

From the link that IK provided

There are clearly issues with Arsenal’s equitable wage structure, which means that the best players like Robin Van Persie are not particularly well remunerated (by modern standards), while fringe players like Abou Diaby, Marouane Chamakh and Manuel Almunia are handsomely rewarded for their efforts. This was epitomised recently by Johan Djourou’s new £50,000 a week contract, which seemed more in recognition of his frequent interviews with Arsenal.com than his defensive ability.

#shotsfired

xp, as bad as Berlusconi might be, i think the worst allegation i've heard against him is that he got started by taking money from the mafia to build a business empire and might have done favours for them along the way.

Usmanov is the mafia.

'fringe' is a hell of a euphemism for 'utter shite' imo

Djourou could get a massive contract hosting the National Lottery and game shows for the BBC, no wonder Arsenal are throwing money at him.

Arsenal’s expertise can be evidenced by two great statistics: (a) the last time that they reported a loss was way back in 2002; (b) in the last four years alone, they have accumulated staggering profits of £153 million.

Only another 120m to go and we pay off the stadium. I'm convinced they are trying to pay it off early. I just wish that were this the strategy, they'd fucking say so. Otherwise that 153 fucking million, could help us ummm, maybe improve a little.

I thought it the article that the board specifically said they weren't going to pay it off early because it was 'good debt'

here it is

Many ask whether it would be possible for Arsenal to pay off the outstanding debt early in order to reduce the interest charges, but Gazidis has previously implied that this is unlikely, arguing that not all debt is bad, “The debt that we’re left with is what I would call ‘healthy debt’ – it’s long term, low rates and very affordable for the club.”

Yeah sorry, long article, should have read the whole thing before commenting etc.

So basically it is 2014 or bust? hmmm.

So hang on, the owner's plan is to get Arsenal debt-free, then flog it for substantially more than they paid for it, leaving the owners filthy rich and Arsenal FC and the fans with a team fully capable of mounting a serious challenge for a Europa League spot? Is that right?

Owners already did that/died and now Kroenke is hoping to do that again, I think.

Swiss Ramble on Villa
http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2012/03/aston-villa-prophets-and-losses.html

P fucking bleak. Wages-to-turnover ratio of 91%! just for starters.

I don't know what Lerner wants out of this tbh

To lose £100m+ it seemingly

Should be no 'it' there.

It's hard think of a way to blow £100m without having some kind of fun, but that might be it.

Thing is from the outside looking in you would think it would have been possible to spend £100m less and still be in roughly the same position they are in now.

Manchester United Ltd, the world's best-supported soccer club, filed with U.S. regulators on Tuesday to raise up to $100 million in an initial public offering of its Class A common stock.

The company told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in a preliminary prospectus that Jefferies, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, BofA Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank Securities are underwriting the IPO.

I'm still amazed by people trying to make money long-term from football. It's football! All you need is a couple of season of bad injuries and your'e fucked! This financial asset-stripping is only good for people who don't like football.

If anyone fancies part owning Panathinaikos :

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/feature/_/id/1126919/paraskevas:-panathinaikos-reborn-under-fan-ownership?cc=5739#

http://bundesligafanatic.com/financial-fair-play-the-implications-for-the-teams-in-the-bundesliga/

Great article on how things are working out in the Bundesliga

That's excellent.

What I'm having trouble with is how the new, enormous EPL television deal is going to feed in to conditions elsewhere on the continent. Are English clubs going to sweep the board for the next five years?

Not too sure. If we pretend that wages in the Prem stay exactly the same as they are now and then add in the new TV money how many clubs in the league would still fall foul of ffp?

Are the majority of clubs here living so far beyond their soon to be increased revenue that they wouldn't be able to increase salary anyway?

the Glazer family have taken the unusual step of buying out DHL, so certain are they of negotiating even greater revenue

I'm giving up trying to understand this stuff

surely it's pretty simple, they want a new and bigger deal immediately so they end the dhl deal now?

tbf I did get that bit, it's why anyone would pay even more that is the mystery

Bolton in £163.8m of debt. Turnover £25.8m. I don't see how they can ever hope to pay that back.

Barcelona cannot register any new signings, not Memphis Depay, Sergio Agüero, Eric García or Emerson Royal, after exceeding the La Liga salary limit.

Despite selling Konrad de la Fuente, Jean-Clair Todibo, and Junior Firpo, Barcelona need to reduce their wage bill by €200,000.

— Zach Lowy (@ZachLowy) July 5, 2021

Extraordinary

Lmao. They are supposedly even going to pay some players to leave on a free, like Pjanic

hmmm, that may account for Trincão coming to us

lol yeah next tweet mentions that

€200,000 can't be the right figure there?

Saw a clarification that its about the weight of pesos in kilos or some similar slang!

Also just presumed it was per week, and with messi not yet signed i figured that was..... serious

Oh haha yes I suppose it could be a week. Though even that is probably only a mid-range player or three for them.

i assumed that was a weekly figure i guess, Football Manager not always the best metric for understanding this stuff

Pjanic is on about €300k a week so no major surprise he didn’t volunteer to cancel his contract.

Also Messi apparently earns 100 times more than Junior Firpo.

I am keen that Pjanic doesn't come to the Premier League because of the temptation his name would cause to every my-age, indie-arsed, Egg-from-This-Life football journalist with an untreated Smiths obsession.

Do ittttt