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WG Chelsea are in good financial shape to pursue the transfer targets they want over the summer. There were concerns that their absence from the Champions League would adversely affect them. It did generate £58.5m of revenue in 2015-16 and even a good Europa League run could have yielded as much as £35m.
Former Walt Disney chief executive Michael Eisner and his Tornante investment group wants to purchase a 100 per cent stake in Portsmouth. He is willing to pay £5.67m.
The Pompey Supporters Trust (PST) control 48 per cent of the shares. Tornante have made a heritage share proposal which would allow the protection of certain identified issues and vetoes exercised by the PST.
Crystal Palace could be the latest club to fall into Chinese ownership. There has been interest from Double Edged Sports (Desports), a Chinese marketing company that wants to acquire another football club after purchasing La Liga’s Granada last year.
A study by Sky looks at the value for money obtained by Premier League clubs in terms of their points total compared with transfer fees paid out.
West Bromwich Albion come out on top with a cost of £1.47m per point compared with Manchester United at the other end of the scale with just under £8m per point. They are closely followed by Manchester City on £7.8m.
Barcelona is the latest European football club to invest in China on the back of President Xi Jinping’s plans for a football revolution. They have opened a €4m complex featuring a football school, Barcelona shop and fan zone on the island of Hainan. They believe that revenues from China will be critical to Barcelona’s target of generating €1bn of revenue by 2021, up from €679m in the 2015/16 season.
A winding up petition has been issued against Bolton Wanderers over an unpaid £5m loan. The loan, from a finance company, was used to fund the takeover of the club. The case will be heard on May 22nd.
The relationship between the tax authorites and football has been a difficult one in recent years. There was the controversy over payments for players ‘image rights’ while the tendency of clubs in financial difficulties to use their tax payments as a de facto credit card also gave rise to resentments.
In recent years HMRC has collected more than £80m in additional tax payments from clubs, players and agents following probes into ‘image rights’ payments through which parties to a transfer can make large tax savings.
Views can differ about the harshness of the punishment on Joey Barton for breaking betting rules for players which effectively sent him into early retirement. However, a bigger issue is the whole relationship between football and the betting industry.
Half of Premier League clubs have gambling firms as shirt sponsors and most of them have gambling partners.
A new offer for Coventry City has been made by a consortium of local businessmen. It includes plans for fan involvement.
It was recently suggested that the Australian consortium reported to be interested in Charlton Athletic had also taken a look at the Sky Blues.
Despite their mismanagement of the club, Sisu has never shown any willingness to sell up.
The Chinese Dai family that are behind a proposed takeover of Reading were previously subject to a Premier League investigation that raised ‘red flags’ about their commercial background. This happened when they made an earlier bid for Hull City.
Their most high profile investment is based on transforming unused air raid shleters in China into shopping malls. They have to be vacated if war ever breaks out. This raises the bizarre spectacle of people sheltering amid displays of luxury western goods.