"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
Does Manchester City’s new sponsorship deal represent a way of dealing with the constraints of Uefa’s financial fair play rules? As we shall see, the answer is in part legal and in part political. But what of the sponsorship deal with Abu Dhabi airline Etihad?
For a Premiership neutral, many of the big questions about the forthcoming season relate to Arsenal. It could be a make or break season for them and Arsene Wenger. I like the kind of football that Wenger provides, but at that level of football, it is also important to win trophies. Should Arsenal fail to qualify for the Champions League next month it will leave a gap of around £25m in their finances.
Overseas television revenues are becoming an increasingly important part of overall Premier League revenues. A big share of these revenues comes from Asia which also has the greatest growth potential, not least in China. One reason for the popularity of the Premier League there is that in most East Asian countries gambling is very popular. Premier League matches are seen as reliable events not susceptible to fixing.
No final decisions have been taken by Fenway Sports Group about future stadium options for Liverpool. The review started last October is still going on. Liverpool City Council has given the club another three months to decide whether to take a 999-year lease on the Stanley Park site. However, the council wants a decision by late September and it looks increasingly likely that the club will decide to leave Anfield because of the prohibitive costs of re-developing there, ending John W.
One of the most interesting presentations at last week’s Sport and EU conference was by footballer Gareth Farrelly, badged as from Edgehill University. In March 2007 Cork City asked Fifa to make an exception to the then rules on player registration. Farrelly had already played in matches for two different clubs in the period between July 2006 and March 2007 and so would be ineligible to play for Cork until July 2007. It should be noted that summer football had been introduced in Ireland.
Anthony Evans, a Liverpool-born 27-year old sales consultant at GT Law, a firm of Essex solicitors, is heading up the consortium that plans to buy Stockport County. The identity of the consortium members is unknown but Evans has emphatically denied rumours that one of the investors is Stephen Vaughan, the controversial former owner of Chester City. Vaughan was jailed for 15 months in August for assaulting a police officer.
Since the European Court of Justice delivered its landmark Bosman ruling in 1995 there has been an increase in the number of sports cases brought before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJ) and also of the policy and political initiatives of the EU in relation to sport. This trend culminated in the introduction of an EU sport competence in Article 165 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Stockport County were relegated to the Conference at the end of last season after 105 years in the Football League, but now they have new owners and a new manager in the shape of former Premiership and Germany midfielder Dietmar Hamann in his first managerial post.
Despite last minute hitches, a deal to take Plymouth Argyle out of administration is nearing completion. Under the arrangement the property assets and the club itself will be run by separate companies.
The so-called ‘pubcasting’ cases refer to pub landlords showing live football matches by subscribing to services from outside the UK rather than obtaining a license from Sky. They were discussed by Daniel Geey, a solicitor from Field Fisher Waterhouse at last week’s Sport and the European Union conference.