FootBiz newsletter #106: Amorim's potential exit route, Brighton's sporting reshuffle

We had kind of run out of things to write about Manchester United, and while their tough run of fixtures means this pressure doesn’t feel likely to relent anytime soon, we don’t really have too much more to say until either the dam breaks and they fire Ruben Amorim, triggering a whole load of new issues, or they manage to turn things around.

But Ruben Amorim is practically asking to be sacked in public now, saying that if United want to play a different system then they’ll need to replace him. He’s going to stick to his preferred tactics, even if it means he has to die in a 3-4-2-1-shaped coffin.

While the underlying metrics suggest that their performances are at least slightly improving, the results are bad and the vibes are worse. Even now, with how far football has come, way more jobs in football are decided by results and vibes than by data.

They’ll be glad to have a few days out of the limelight, to some extent by virtue of their own incompetence, with nine other English clubs taking part in UEFA competitions this week and the only United-related news item incoming being their financial results, which should come out tomorrow.

That is really where the underperformance comes into focus. Not to second-guess United’s financials but they are a club of staggering scale and eye-watering revenues, their inability to conjure up a top-half team in this context is gross underperformance.

The level to which players go from being good before arriving, to bad while at Old Trafford, only to then turn into world-beaters on their departure suggests the very environment around the club is an enormous, still-to-be-solved issue.

Just as well they spent £75m on a centre-forward who desperately needs developing and could generously be described as a project, then…

United badly just need something to break their way.

Perhaps it’s a couple of wins, perhaps the Benfica presidential candidate who is trying to take Amorim back to Lisbon succeeds and everyone gets a fresh start or maybe, just maybe, a player leaves the club and doesn’t turn into an immediate Ballon d’Or candidate. Any of the above would help.

But the first option is always the most likely to release the pressure.

Away to Brentford next. Home to Sunderland after that. Wins in those games change the atmosphere but anything less will further concentrate the toxicity.

Oh, and if you get through those then you have a globally televised match against Liverpool.

Which is a bit like finally getting to leave the hospital only to be punched in the face as you walk out of the automatic doors.

Table of Contents

• CVC announce Global Sports Group

• Carabao Cup in July?

• Man City’s senior reshuffle

• INEOS to end UK investment

• Brighton’s major sporting reshuffle

• Barber joins Victory board

CVC announce Global Sports Group

Private equity firm CVC Capital Partners have set up a $14bn fund dedicated to investing in sport, the Global Sport Group, with a brief to broaden and deepen its holdings in the sector.

What was initially reported in July as a refinancing of their sports assets has now become something of a rebranding and reorganising exercise to boot, though the hiring of a fairly impressive executive team suggests CVC aren’t messing about.

The new chairman of the GSG (can we call it that?) is (prepare for more acronyms) CEO of mobile phone network EE, Marc Allera. While the telecoms background may not seem especially relevant, Allera has experience of one significant football deal, having negotiated the telecom firm’s sponsorship of Wembley Stadium with the FA.

CVC’s sporting assets that will move over to GSG include La Liga, Ligue 1, Six Nations rugby and the Women’s Tennis Associations commercial arm WTA Ventures, and they intend to grow that out.  

That said, sport will remain a small part of CVC’s overall portfolio, which currently extends to a total $234 billion in total assets under management globally. Sources briefed on their plans told FootBiz that CVC are likely to target investment in leagues and competitions rather than clubs. They are also one of the select group of private equity funds to be approved for investment in NFL franchises.

CVC doubling down on the sector only adds to the abundance of evidence that sports is booming as an investment class

Earlier this month, fellow PE giants Apollo announced their own $5bn fund destined for sports. The New York-based firm has held talks over investments in clubs (most notably Atletico Madrid), leagues (most notably Liga MX) and businesses in the wider sports ecosystem.

Carabao Cup in July?

The next EFL season could start in July, as football authorities begin to try and get a grip on how their calendars are going to look next year.

With a World Cup in the summer, seasons usually start late and next season will be no different but with the ever-increasing pressure on scheduling due to greed expanding competitions, a new three-week international break next September has made things even tighter.

While the EFL would not begin league competitions until August, the Carabao Cup may have to begin that early just to ensure that clubs playing in European competition can fit in the games.

The context is that the Carabao Cup has long been a great money-spinner for the EFL, principally because it is the only of the five competitions they run that allows them to profit from Premier League clubs. Clubs playing in Europe already get a bye and enter at the third round stage, whereas the rest of the top flight joins at the second round (and in the case of Manchester United, exits there too).

But with an extra week knocked out by the expanded international break (21 Sept until 5 Oct, allowing teams to play four matches) and with league competitions starting a week later than usual because of the World Cup going deep into July, a compressed timeline could turn the sometimes overlooked EFL Cup competition into English football’s curtain-raiser next year.

The Mail first reported the story, which the EFL declined to comment on.

Man City’s senior reshuffle

Not much to add here. Just a good look at the new brains trust atop Manchester City and what has changed at City Football Group with the departure of Txiki Begiristain, by Jordan Campbell.

INEOS to end UK investment

Ineos’ announcement that they are stopping all investment in Britain due to tax increases on North Sea oil and gas production has raised eyebrows in government, given co-founder Sir Jim Ratcliffe is seeking hundreds of millions of pounds in public money to help facilitate the £2bn redevelopment of Old Trafford. While any government funding, which has received the theoretical backing of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, would not be used to build the stadium, Ratcliffe has made clear that the ambitious project cannot take place without it.

Brian Gilvary, the chairman of the Ineos Energy division, said last week the company was diverting all spending to the US, and has already recently invested £3bn there. Ineos also shut down the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland earlier this year after 100 years of operation.

“We have stopped investing in Britain,” Gilvary said. “Our future investment will not be in the UK. There’s no question of that. The problem is that the UK has become one of the most unstable fiscal regimes in the world from a perspective of natural resources and energy.

“It means we cannot invest with any certainty because we can’t be sure what future tax rates will be. For us, the future lies in other countries, mostly the United States.”

United have claimed that the expansion of Old Trafford could help deliver a £7.3bn annual boost to the UK economy by 2039. While several Ministers, and Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham who is plotting a leadership challenge to Sir Keir Starmer, have back the plan securing the funding is proving more challenging.

With Monaco resident Ratcliffe having just taken billions out of the UK economy, the politics could prove equally difficult.

Brighton’s major sporting reshuffle

Brighton are set to appoint Jason Ayto as their new sporting director in place of David Weir, in a reshuffle executed by owner Tony Bloom.

Weir left Brighton last week after seven years at the club, having spent the last three as technical director after succeeding Dan Ashworth. Weir’s former assistant Mike Cave is promoted to sporting director and will report to Ayto. Cave has impressed the Albion hierarchy since arriving from Fulham in 2022.

While many on the outside might wonder why a key executive has been removed amid the club’s ascent from the third tier of English football to qualifying for European competition, it was actually that success which led to something of a reassessment of their goals on the south coast.

Weir was well liked but not seen as someone who could take Albion to the next level, where they intend to be regular competitors in Europe. They embarked on a confidential search for Weir’s replacement and landed on a candidate who they felt had a high ceiling and could oversee the next phase of their growth.

Jason Ayto was identified as Weir’s replacement in the process, which was run by Excel Search & Advisory. Excel acquired headhunter Nolan Partners last year, and Nolan Partners had previously found Ashworth for Bloom before his departure for Newcastle.

Ayto, 40, was most recently assistant sporting director at Arsenal under Edu, but left this summer after being overlooked for the top job in favour of Andrea Berta — the winner of a process also run by Excel. His experience as interim sporting director left him wanting the top job to himself on a more permanent basis and Ayto was interviewed for the vacant sporting director role at Newcastle this summer, only for the Magpies to hire Ross Wilson, who departed from the same role at Nottingham Forest.

As Forest’s head of global football, Edu will be charged with finding Wilson’s replacement, as the competition for appointing sporting directors grows ever more fierce.

Barber joins Victory board

In other Brighton news, CEO Paul Barber will join the board of A-League franchise Melbourne Victory as first reported by The Athletic.

Albion owner Tony Bloom invested in the Victory earlier this year, and spends a decent amount of time in Australia every year because his wife is from Down Under.

Bloom’s investment was personal, and not intended to create a multi-club operation with Brighton. That said, Barber joining as CEO provides another link between the south coast club and the four-time A-League champions.