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Celtic and Arsenal hold top positions in a new football financial strength league of 44 European clubs devised by S&P Capital IQ. While Celtic top the league, Glasgow rivals Rangers are bottom and are held up as an example of how things can go wrong on and off the pitch.
The Premier League has revived plans to play matches overseas. When the idea of a ’39th game’ was mooted six years ago, it encountered considerable resistance. The acceptance of NFL and NBA games being played in London has helped to bring the idea back to the table.
Coventry City Council have unanimously approved the sale of the operating company of the Ricoh Arena, Arena Coventry Limited, to Wasps rugby club. The council will retain the freehold, but the rugby club will have a 250 year lease.
Greg Dyke has dropped his idea for a League Three which Premier League ‘B’ teams could enter and progress as far as League One. Even Premier League clubs that backed the idea have now withdrawn their support. However, the second set of recommendations from his commission on the future of the English game is expected to include a proposal which may also prove controversial.
Coventry councillors were locked in talks late last night over whether the Ricoh Arena, home of Coventry City, should be sold to Wasps rugby club. A vote of the full council is scheduled for a meeting starting at 2 p.m. today.
If the Labour group agrees on the sale then they can easily out vote the Conservative opposition on the council. Some councillors have been asking for a free vote, but this is unlikely to happen.
Inter Milan has had a difficult patch since winning the Champions League in 2010. It has finished no higher than fifth in Serie A in the past three years and has fallen to 15th in the latest Football Money League from Deloitte.
Indonesian tycoon Erick Thohir now owns 70 per cent of the club (with business partner Handy Soetedjo) and is aiming to make it one of the top ten revenue earning clubs again and a contender in the Champions League.
The Premiership met resistance when it suggested the idea of a ’39th game’, a fixture to be played abroad in the Middle East, Asia or the United States. However, it has now been suggested that the idea could be used in the Sky Bet Championship.
Millwall chief executive Andy Ambler reckons that the time for the idea has come with a multi-cultural division with so many foreign players and a number of foreign investors. The game could be beamed back to the home stadiums so that fans wouldn’t miss out, although he doesn’t say anything about the time difference.
Recent talks with potential foreign commercial sponsors has sparked a discussion about whether Swansea City should accept significant foreign investment.
The Swans have managed so far without large-scale foreign investment and are currently 5th in the Premier League. Their model is treasured by their own fans and admired by fans elsewhere.
Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley has more than doubled his stake in Rangers to hold just under 9 per cent of the shares. The maximum stake he is permitted to hold under an agreement he concluded with the Scottish football authorities is ten per cent.
Coventry City councillors are expected to be asked to vote next week on a deal for a consortium led by rugby club Wasps to take over the Ricoh Arena, home of the Sky Blues. However, opposition is growing within the controlling Labour group. There are concerns that the deal is being rushed through without the consequences for the football club being thought through.