"If you want some accessible but informative insight into football then I suggest you couldn't do better than the Political Economy of Football website, which is not only intelligible but comes with the added bonus of being written by Addicks fan Wyn Grant." Ben Hayes - Charlton Athletic programme
A desire to stop the spiralling of players’ wages and agents’ fees has led the Premier League to set up a working party to look into producing its own version of Uefa’s financial fair play rules.
There is a concern that Uefa’s rules may not be fully enforced, something we have argued may be the case on this page given their susceptibility to a legal challenge.
Football League clubs paid £21.7m in agents’ fees last season, more than £5m more than in the previous season. West Ham United were the biggest spenders, paying out £4.3m or nearly a fifth of the total spent.
Npower Championship clubs accounted for £18.7m of the total. Five clubs spent nothing on agents: Accrington Stanley, AFC Wimbledon, Barnet, Crewe Alexandria and Hartlepool United.
The bid by a mystery Middle East consortium for Leeds United has effectively been put on ice with the exclusivity period enjoyed by them coming to an end. The club is prepared to continue discussions, but the ball is very much in the court of the prospective purchasers.
Like many well-devised schemes Uefa’s Financial Fair Play has perverse and unintended consequences, particularly as it is rolled out a lower level. The new Salary Cost Management Protocol rules that come into effect this summer in Leagues 1 and 2 may appear to be a sensible attempt to curb unsustainable spending, but in fact they could hit smaller clubs.
Portsmouth City Council is expected to approve a £1.45m 12 month loan to help fans bid for Pompey. The money will only be made available to the Pompey Supporters’ Trust if there is no other commercial alternative to bringing the club out of administration.
Tough conditions are expected to be attached to the loan. The club and its assets have to be bought for £7.68m which includes provision for the full and final settlement of the football creditors. This requires agreements with all players on high wage contracts.
The crisis at Truro City has deepened with players’ wages not paid by the deadline they set yesterday. It’s uncertain what sort of team they will field at their opening fixture at Billericay Town. Apart from anything else, the cost of transporting a team from Cornwall to Essex is substantial and any coach operator is likely to want payment up front.
Chairman Kevin Heaney has not been contactable and there is speculation that he may be going into hospital for an operation which could sideline him for several months.
The initial public offering (IPO) of Manchester United is set to be finalised this evening. The club is offering 16.7m Class A shares which are set to be priced at between $16 and $20 each before listing on the New York Stock Exchange tomorrow.
Instiutional investors are said to have shown strong interest. The ratio of conversion from attendance at roadshow events to firm indications of interest has been better than usual.
Liverpool’s shirt sponsors, Standard Chartered Bank, have been accused by US regulators of sanctions busting deals on behalf of the Iranians. The allegations are denied by the Bank, but there is a real risk of their US licence being revoked. This would pose serious difficulties for them as much as their income comes from facilitating trade deals. In the meantime, 16 per cent has been wiped off the value of their shares.
The Growth Company Investor website is reporting that an AIM-quoted company called Sports Stars Media is developing an animation series aimed at children entitled Mourinho and the Special Ones.
Chief executive officer of the company, Ruben Dias, said that they also planned to develop a card-trading game based on the television series.
The country’s best known and most successful phoenix club, AFC Wimbledon, are making plans to return to their spiritual home in Plough Lane, Wimbledon. They currently play at the Kingsmeadow stadium in Kingston on Thames.
They would use the site of the Greyhound Stadium, just yards from the original ground. It is believed that the project would take around 10 years to complete and would cost somewhere in the region of £100m. For the past three years the club have been working with The Newridge Group, a property developer based in Wimbledon.