The Finances of Football

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.