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- FootBiz newsletter #19: Amorim, FIFA, PIF, Eagle Football, WSL and a bribery investigation
FootBiz newsletter #19: Amorim, FIFA, PIF, Eagle Football, WSL and a bribery investigation
There is a lot going on in the world of football this week, so we tried to cover everything you might have missed (plus a little more Man United)
Ed Malyon & Matt Hughes
October 31, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 15 minutes
Two months ago, we sent out the first FootBiz newsletter not really knowing what to expect.
I was confident in the thesis. Having spoken to so many people at clubs, agencies, law firms and governing bodies over months and years of my day job, I was fully convinced that there was a gap in the market to cater to these people and the curious football fan who wants to understand how the business works.
So far, we have been proven right. We have a very healthy number of people within the game receiving the twice-weekly newsletter which is free (for now) and a slice of those who pay for our premium tier and the extra analysis and insight that comes with that.
Soon we will begin to roll out the community features and event invites too, with a view to making FootBiz work for its subscribers in whatever form that may take: networking, introductions, consulting and more.
Obviously we are still a small operation, self-funded with just three partners and a gaggle of talented contributors who are experts in their subject area. To make this succeed long-term, we ask of our subscribers that they continue to share the newsletter and spread the word to like-minded people. Every premium subscription helps, and once we pass a certain point we can ramp up and commission even more written content as well as podcasts, as some readers have requested.
There is no real point in having a community if things are one-way. We want to hear about the issues you want covering, we want a reply to the newsletter when you disagree with something in there and we want to double down on the topics you find fascinating.
Beyond that, I just wanted to say thank you for subscribing and reading.
Big, chunky and varied newsletter today so get stuck in…
Table of Contents
Amorim update
Amorim will be the next Man United manager
As they are subject to the rules of the Portuguese stock exchange, Sporting CP released a statement on Tuesday announcing that Manchester United had declared their intent to pay Ruben Amorim’s release clause and take him to Old Trafford.
Some work is needed on the contracts and working out when the 39-year-old can start, but it seems destined that he will replace Erik Ten Hag as the permanent Manchester United head coach (Ruud van Nistelrooy is currently interim).
Fortunately, the Mirror are reporting that Manchester City have no interest in Amorim anyway because his favoured 3-4-3 formation doesn’t fit their squad. So everyone in Manchester is happy, then! How wonderful.
Amorim will take charge of Friday night’s match against Estrela and reports in Lisbon suggest that Sporting want to hold onto him until the November international break. That would mean two more games as coach; a Champions League game at home to Manchester City (who didn’t fancy him anyway) and a Primeira Liga trip to his former club Braga before packing his bags for north-west England.
For premium subscribers, Rob Draper has written about Man United’s need to prioritise structure over culture as they move forward with Amorim and how this hire will become defining for Dan Ashworth and United’s executive committee.
UEFA up the stakes in FIFA row
UEFA have aligned themselves with the players' unions in their battle with FIFA over the Club World Cup.
In a significant political move that will inflame existing tensions between the two most powerful men in football, Aleksander Ceferin and Gianni Infantino, UEFA this week signed a partnership agreement with global players' union FIFPRO, who are taking legal action against FIFA.
Under the terms of the FIFPRO will be represented on the UEFA Executive Committee from next May, giving the union a say in discussions over the European fixture calendar and its impact on player welfare. Earlier this month FIFPRO filed a complaint to the European Commission about FIFA's failure to consult them over the recent expansion of the international match calendar, specifically the growth of Club World Cup to 32 teams next year, and the increase in nations competing at the World Cup to 46 teams in 2026.
UEFA and the leading domestic leagues, including the Premier League, are also opposed to the expansion of the Club World Cup.
FIFA sponsors kick off
Two of FIFA’s biggest partners, Coca-Cola and Adidas, have filed arbitration claims against world football’s governing body over the Club World Cup, according to the Guardian.
FIFA has still announced just one sponsor for the expanded, 32-team tournament set to be held in the United States, but this in itself was a major departure from its previous partnerships strategy.
I’ll allow our sponsorships expert Ricardo Fort to explain, as he did in this very good piece for Premium subscribers last month:
FIFA has long operated under a system in which sponsors automatically gained rights to both current and future events. This was the case when tournaments like the now-defunct Confederations Cup and other smaller competitions were launched. FIFA’s top-tier sponsors, known as FIFA Partners, enjoyed automatic rights to these new ventures. In contrast, FIFA retained the ability to cancel any event without compensating its partners.
However, in recent years, FIFA has altered its contract approach.
Future events are no longer automatically bundled into sponsorship agreements. This shift aligns with FIFA’s ambition to create larger, more commercially valuable events. A 32-club FIFA Club World Cup, planned for 2025, and an expanded Women’s World Cup are seen as significant departures from the smaller tournaments of the past, and, according to FIFA’s logic, should command higher sponsorship fees.
This change in strategy has created an uneven playing field for sponsors. FIFA’s contracts have been signed at different times, meaning that some sponsors may retain rights to future tournaments, while others do not.
The Club World Cup exemplifies these complexities. As a new competition, it requires extensive promotion and advertising to establish itself. To generate excitement, FIFA could have leveraged its existing partnerships by offering all of its sponsors free access to this new event, regardless of their current contract terms. This would have incentivized brands to invest heavily in marketing efforts around the tournament.
Instead, FIFA has reportedly asked sponsors to pay an estimated $100 million for the privilege of being associated with the Club World Cup. This decision has caused friction with companies that believe they already hold rights to the tournament, and others that have recently invested heavily in sponsoring the FIFA World Cup.
With less than a year to go before the tournament, FIFA may struggle to attract new sponsors for a high-cost event that lacks an established history. In a crowded American sports market, corporate decision-makers are likely to hesitate before committing substantial sums to an untested competition with limited time to exploit the rights to it.
For FIFA’s existing partners, the situation presents a different challenge: it is too late to meaningfully integrate the Club World Cup into their 2025 marketing strategies. Major sponsors like Coca-Cola, Adidas, and Visa have likely already locked in their advertising campaigns for next year, leaving little room for last-minute adjustments with nine-figure price tags. Even if FIFA offered free sponsorship rights, it’s unclear how much could be done this late in the game in an operational sense.
The friction that Ricardo mentions has seemingly manifested itself in some formal action on the part of Coke and Adidas.
FIFA’s newest cash cow still promises to be a fascinating experiment in terms of the competition itself but its funding, organisational and logistical challenges mean it remains firmly under the microscope.
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PIF money tap turned off?
In a move that will almost certainly have an effect on football, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) announced that it is once again cutting the amount it invests overseas, meaning the fund has cut international investment from 30% of its fund to below 20% in just four years.
PIF governor Yasir al-Rumayyan told the FII conference in Riyadh on Tuesday that 10 years ago most of the fund’s investments had been in domestic Saudi projects… “but then [the proportion of international investments] increased from 2% all the way up to 30%,” he said. “Now our target is to bring it down to a range between 18 to 20 per cent.”
The fund hopes to have $2tn in assets under management by 2030, and Saudi Arabia is due to host the World Cup in 2034.
M&A Murmurs
Reading are approaching crisis point as they seek the new investment required to meet their operational costs, with several sources who have knowledge of the club's finances telling FootBiz they could run out of money next month.
A £5 million loan from prospective buyer Rob Couhig was repaid by Reading owner Dai Yongge last month leaving the club short of funds to pay the wages of players and staff.
Reading have been docked a total of 18 points by the EFL over the past two seasons for the late payment of wages, and without securing fresh investment the unpalatable prospect of administration is looming large.
The club announced that they had entered exclusive negotiations with another buyer after the collapse of the proposed sale to Couhig last month, but those talks have not progressed sufficiently for the EFL to be informed as yet.
Eagle Football Group needs to borrow $300m to pay back Ares Management, according to Bloomberg, raising questions over how John Textor’s group planned to fund their purchase of Everton and what the next steps are towards his oft-stated goal of floating on the New York Stock Exchange.
Textor’s multi-club group borrowed some $500m from Ares to help fund the purchase of Olympique Lyonnais for an eye-watering sum close to $900m in 2022. But Lyon have struggled on the pitch since, and after a summer transfer splurge (the fourth-highest net spend on Earth), still holding significant debts and hamstrung by Ligue 1’s bungled television rights process off of it, Textor has likely seen hundreds of millions knocked off Lyon’s valuation.
Interestingly, The Athletic’s Matt Slater reported in September that Ares did “not want [Eagle] to buy Everton as they are concerned that Eagle Football is already overstretched.”
They got their way but are now awaiting the repayment of some of their cash.
Ares also own stakes in Inter Miami (going well) and Chelsea (going better than it was).
Elsewhere in the Textor portfolio, RWDM were relegated from the Belgian top flight but Botafogo lead Brazil’s Serie A with seven games to play.
The American is understood to still be looking to sell his minority stake in Crystal Palace via Raine Group after refusing an offer from co-owners Joshua Harris and David Blitzer.
Sky win WSL rights
Sky expect to lose money on the WSL
Sky Sports are certainly putting money where their mouths are in their championing of women's sport by agreeing a new £60 million, five-year deal to broadcast the Women's Super League from next season.
Senior sources at Sky have confirmed to FootBiz that their £12m-a-year investment is far more than they are projected to recoup from subscribers and advertisers related to the WSL, but that they are happy to fund what is still a fledging sport ahead of expected revenues. The BBC are understood to be paying around £1m-a-year for secondary live rights, a small increase from the £750,000 they have paid the WSL this year.
The overall deal represents a significant rise on the £7.75m annual fee the WSL are currently receiving from Sky and the BBC, although the broadcasters have secured far more live matches in return. As the major rights partner Sky will show 118 of the 132 WSL matches from next season, 78 of them exclusively, and with 75 per cent of the first picks. The BBC have bought the rights for 14 exclusive live games, and will show seven in partnership with Sky.
Although securing an increase of more than 50 per cent in a challenging market represents good business from new WSL's parent company, Women’s Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL), the overall result of £13m is less than half the figure some clubs were demanding when negotiations began 12 months ago. With Barclays also having recently extended their title sponsorship, the WSL's main sources of revenue are now fixed until 2030.
The scope for future growth in the medium term is therefore distinctly limited, putting last year's bold claims from WSL Chair Dawn Airey that women's football could be a billion pound sport into context.
FIFA bribery scandal rolls on
Blatter’s FIFA was accused of bribery and corruption
The executive chairman of Televisa Group, one of the biggest mass media organisations in Latin America, has been placed on “administrative leave” pending the result of a US Department of Justice investigation into bribery of FIFA officials.
Emilio Azcarraga's leave was announced by Televisa during Q3 financial results, and creates more uncertainty around the Mexican broadcaster, which is the world’s largest producer of Spanish-language content.
Televisa reached a settlement with investors in March 2023 after they were accused of paying bribes to FIFA officials in order to win the rights to broadcast four World Cup tournaments.
The company denied wrongdoing in its settlement agreement, but that was not enough to prevent the DOJ from continuing its decade-long investigation into bribes for TV rights in Latin America, which burst into the public conscious with the Baur du Lac raids of 2015 that precipitated the downfall of Sepp Blatter, Julio Grondona, Alejandro Burzaco and a number of other now-disgraced figures from football and broadcasting.
In August of this year, Televisa said it had learned that the DOJ investigation "may have a material impact on the company's financial condition or results of operations."
Reuters then reported that Wade Davis, CEO of the TelevisaUnivision joint venture with Univision, was replaced in September "due to company results that had lagged internal expectations.” TelevisaUnivision owns Canal 5, who will broadcast the 2026 World Cup in Mexico.
Televisa remains a FIFA partner and will broadcast the 2026 and 2030 World Cups, even though testimony under oath in a New York courtroom stated that the deals were awarded on the back of bribes. Televisa have always denied the allegations and say they are cooperating with the ongoing investigation.