"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
The ability of Manchester United to attract increasingly lucrative sponsorship deals is demonstrated by their new shirt sponsorship deal with Chevrolet. Their current deal with US insurer Aon, admittedly over a four year period, is worth £80m. The new deal which will start from the 2014-15 season is reported to be worth $600m over seven years. They are the club’s fifth shirt sponsor.
When does prudent become unwisely stingy? That is the question being posed about new Conference outfit Hyde United. They were 33-1 outsiders to go up last year and it seems that their own game plan was to avoid relegation.
A certain financial caution is understandable. The club was wound up because of tax debts of about £120,000 in September 2009. But then £8,000 was raised in a bucket collection at Manchester City. This funded an appeal and the judge found in their favour.
Truro City FC have been given a six week reprieve over a winding up order but have been warned by the judge that they have got to sort their financial affairs out. They owe Revenue & Customs £15,000, having settled a separate tax bill of £51,000.
The Tigers are disputing a much larger sum of £700,000 claimned by other creditors. Truro are owned by local businessman Kevin Heaney.
The Premier League’s determination to protect its intellectual property rights and those of its broadcasters is demonstrated by its involvement in the public prosecution of a man accused of importing cut-price satellite decoder cards.
Former Portsmouth manager Harry Redknapp has promised to do what he can to stop Portsmouth going out of business. Unless the club’s finances can be sorted out by August 10th it will have to close.
Redknapp has said that he will speak to former player Kanu who claims that he is owed £3m in unpaid wages. Redknapp says that he understands why players want money they are owed, but if the club folds they will get nothing.
Manchester United has temporarily paused plans to launch its $300 initial public offering in the US where market volatility has soared in recent days as macroeconomic fears hit share prices. The S&P 500 index has fallen 2 per cent since the start of the week.
Portsmouth FC are moving closer to liquidation. SOS Pompey, a Portsmouth supporters; group, has made a last-ditch plea to players to take pay cuts in an attempt to stop the club from going out of business. It is understood that eight players have yet to reach agreements with the club over unpaid salaries.
‘This is the end game,’ Bob Beech of SOS said. ‘Some players were excellent and listened to what we said; others weren’t interested.’
Football economics guru Professor Stefan Szymanski, now at the University of Michigan, has estimated that the Euro 96 football tournament made people so happy that it had a value of £165 per person. This is, of course, an average value as some people have no interest at all in football.
Professor Szymanski argues that ‘Anything that ultimately brings us happiness can be considered as an economic benefit.’ A social historian of my acquaintance used to argue that football was not about happiness but collective suffering for one’s team.
Rangers have until Friday to sort out the membership requirements to play in the Scottish third division. The sticking point in relationship to their membership of the Scottish Football Association is accepting a twelve month transfer embargo.
Throughout the recession football has continued to attract investors, although they often seem to be rich individuals with money to burn. But there are those who think that with shrewd investment it is still possible to turn a profit.
The owners of the Lotus F1 racing team are setting up an investment vehicle to spend as much as €500m on acquiring clubs. Gerard Lopez and Eric Lux have set their sights on about five second tier European clubs as well as a dozen football-related businesses such as player agencies, academies and media rights management companies.