FootBiz newsletter #44: Barcelona's enduring mess, Amazon's strategy and PSR season

Straight back into it, then. Although for many in football it never stopped.

I caught up with an EFL manager over the Christmas period and hearing about the toll the (frankly insane) festive schedule takes on family life was quite shocking. Clubs at that level play 46 league games and have the same sort of fixture congestion issues complained about by Pep Guardiola and the game’s elite. That isn’t a conversation that is going to disappear in 2025.

Speaking of which, over the coming week we will have a few more pieces of forward-looking content, digging into some of the themes of what is to come next year and beyond.

Equally, there is no time to slow down as the news keeps coming thick and fast.

Thickest of all (though not necessarily the fastest) we have Manchester City’s 130 charges verdict coming at some point soon and we hope that is a time when a specialised outlet like ours will shine.

When we launched FootBiz at the end of August, our conviction was that there wasn’t really anywhere dedicated to covering this tangled little niche in the football world but a couple of helpful industry friends who served as sounding boards for the idea did question whether there would be enough stories.

We needn’t have worried. It has been a veritable conveyor belt of issues and controversies, with the Club World Cup, lawsuits, arbitration and financial mismanagement to keep us more than busy enough.

2025 will be about expanding and enriching that coverage. Adding depth more than breadth, and solidifying the foundations of our business by hosting our first subscriber events and building new things.

As of today we have signed our first partner to help us on that path. Retexo Group are a data-driven consultancy that work with clubs and ownership groups. They have helped the likes of Real Madrid, AS Roma, Olympique Marseille, Athletic Club and will now provide similar insights to FootBiz, so you will see their commentary where it can provide added value to our content.

Retexo CEO Charles Gould was a subscriber to FootBiz and got in touch to see if there was a way we could work together in a mutually beneficial way and if that’s the case for your organisation then simply reply to this email.

Otherwise, here’s your newsletter.

Table of Contents

• Barca do it again

• Amazon’s evolving football strategy

• FIFA vs FIFPRO continues

• NFL-style VAR trial

• It’s PSR season

• M&A Murmurs

Barca do it again

Barcelona began 2025 how they began (and ended) 2024, pulling levers to try and shoehorn a bloated squad inside La Liga’s salary limits.

Dani Olmo, an incredibly talented but ultimately unnecessary €60m summer signing was waiting to hear whether the league will approve his registration that expired at midnight on New Year’s Eve.

But La Liga played hard ball. So did the courts. And so did the Spanish FA.

And now we have a situation where Olmo can’t play for Barcelona any more. Oh, and per his contract, Olmo can also leave on a free transfer in January. The player doesn’t want to leave, but there is currently no way for him to play football in 2025 and unless Barca can untangle the mess that is entirely of their own making then they are faced with losing Olmo at the very least on a temporary basis.

Worse than that, according to Barcelona-based newspaper SPORT, they would have to immediately pay up the rest of Olmo’s contract (until 2030) and the outstanding balance on the transfer fee owed to RB Leipzig if he were to succumb to overtures from the Premier League’s top clubs or Bayern Munich, who would have been negligent not to try and pick up the Spanish international for nothing.

With Olmo hoping to stay, the story remains both complex and in flux. Local reports also claim that Barca’s latest lever pull, in this instance selling a load of VIP boxes for 20 years to a Qatari entity, ended up being around €100m - half the initial €200m deal discussed because the buyer knew of their desperation.

It should be said that there is a lot of claim and counter-claim in the Spanish media about this particular case. More than usual.

Is Olmo a free agent or does he just have the right to be?

Have Barca sold those VIP boxes or have they provisionally agreed a deal to do so and presented it to the league to ask whether it would count?

More news as we get it, but it’s potentially the biggest transfer story in January (as well as the biggest example of mismanaging a club).

Barcelona’s recent Nike deal saw the club secure a fairly meaningful influx of cash, while if you click the ad below then we will see a tiny one too.

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Amazon’s evolving football strategy

Anyone watching the Premier League on British shores over the Boxing Day gameweek will have done so on Amazon Prime for the last time this decade.

The e-commerce giant will still have one game per week on UK screens - broadcasting the Champions League - but the latest PL rights negotiation saw the (slightly peculiar) 20-game package they had bought exclusivity to removed by the league. TNT Sports bought the smallest package of 56 games for the 2025-29 cycle but they spent around £300m to do so, 10x the amount Amazon had unloaded on its two exclusive gameweeks. It means from now until 2029 at the earliest, they are out of the Prem picture.

Broadcasters (and ex-pros) have enjoyed Amazon’s entry to the market and speak positively of working with them. Part of that is understandable self-interest; with traditional broadcasters’ business models creaking, there has been a decade or more of streamlining and fewer opportunities for everyone until Amazon turned up. Though to give them credit, with Amazon’s entry, each game was treated as a standalone spectacle again, with a host and at least two pundits broadcasting from a pitch side set. Minor innovations to the broadcast, such as a substitutions counter, have also shown a willingness to at least try new things.

The question for the Premier League after losing the streamer as a partner is whether they will ever get them back.

Amazon have dabbled in global football, trialling a couple of different strategies, but now appear to be settling on their path forward. Their other major domestic deal came when they stepped in as a broadcaster of Ligue 1 in France after the Mediapro deal collapsed during Covid but they didn’t bid in the latest tender process, a contributing factor to a near 50% drop in the league’s rights value as bids failed to materialise.

Their priority, ultimately, is getting as many people to sign up for Amazon Prime as possible. They have had great success partnering with the NFL on Thursday Night Football, which was the first primetime NFL package to go full streaming, and thus they understand the power of sports as a subscription driver. Peacock have experienced similar in the USA, with the Premier League one of the most significant sub drivers for their app, and there is pride internally that they were the first company to exclusively stream Premier League games.

It would appear that Amazon are focusing on territories where they would like deeper market penetration for Prime and going after a package of valuable rights in each as their wedge into that market. Their preference for those valuable rights is clearly the Champions League, which they have secured in Italy and Germany until 2027 (as well as their UK agreement) and they are expected to bid for France’s package from 2027 - though Canal+’s feud with the French league means they will face stiff competition for what might now be the premier rights package in the country.

With the continued decay of traditional linear broadcast models and streaming still finding its way, there are plenty of leagues who would love a partner like Amazon whose tech has proved robust and pockets have proven deep.

They will be around football for a while, and are beginning to get an idea of what their strategy for the sport might look like.

FIFA vs FIFPRO continues

FIFA are bracing themselves for another legal challenge from the international players' union, FIFPRO, after introducing updated transfer regulations on an interim basis last week. The new rules will apply to this month's transfer window and have been introduced in the light of the European Court of Justice's ruling regarding Lassana Diarra, the former France midfield player who claimed the existing regulations restricted his freedom of movement.

FIFPRO claim they were not consulted before the new regulations were drafted, although FIFA contend that they declined to take part in informal negotiations. 

The players' union had earlier submitted a legal complaint to the European Commission in October accusing FIFA of abusing their dominant position to expand the international calendar. 

That complaint focused on the men's international match calendar and specified the expansion of the FIFA Club World Cup to 32 teams next year and the FIFA World Cup to 46 teams in 2026. FIFPRO claimed that the new calendar infringed European Union competition law and "risked player safety and well-being," as well as threatening "the economic and social sustainability of important national competitions."

FIFA's new rules have amended aspects of the existing regulations to clarify the amount of compensation due in the event of a contract breach by player or club, as well as clarifying details regarding the burden of proof. "Any party that has suffered as a result of a breach of contract by the counterparty shall be entitled to receive compensation," FIFA state. 

FIFPRO want to use the Diarra judgement to give the players more freedom over their contracts without the threat of being liable for punitive compensation, and will not accept FIFA's interpretation of the ECJ ruling.

NFL-style VAR trial

The first use of in-stadium VAR announcements in English football will be trialled at next month's Carabao Cup semi-finals. 

As part of the trial referees will announce their decision over the stadium PA system following a visit to the VAR pitchside monitor, or after ruling on factual matters such as accidental handball by a goalscorer. Only the final decision will be announced in the stadium.

In-stadium VAR announcements have previously been used in several FIFA events, including the 2023 Women’s World Cup. The aim is to provide greater clarity and understanding around key decisions to supporters in the stadiums and those watching from home.

The trial will run over both legs of the Arsenal v Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool semi-final ties.

Such a system is already common in the NFL, where referees can flick a switch to speak to the whole stadium and clarify officiating decisions after video review.

It’s PSR season

The Premier League's legal and compliance departments can look forward to a busy start to the new year with the majority of clubs having submitted their 2023/24 accounts for assessment this week.

Under new regulations introduced 18 months ago designed to ensure that any possible Profit and Sustainability Rules breaches are dealt with immediately during the following season, all clubs that have posted aggregate losses over the previous two accounting periods must hand in their accounts for the previous season by 31 December.

Premier League lawyers and accountants will spend the next fortnight assessing the numbers to determine if there have been any PSR breaches, with any decision to charge published by January 13.

The new fast-track system was introduced at the start of last season as an attempt to avoid a repeat of the situation which many clubs felt affected the integrity of the Premier League two seasons ago after Everton were charged with PSR breaches in April 2023. The Merseyside club were eventually found guilty and docked points by an independent commission, but the verdict was not reached until the following November so the sanction was applied in the next campaign. Everton would have been relegated if they had been docked points during the 2022/23 season, an unfortunate occurence which led to other clubs threatening legal action against the Premier League, although it did not materialise.

Under the new regulations the Premier League demand that any club at risk of a PSR breach submit their accounts before the end of the year so that any cases can be dealt with by April.

Given most clubs have been posting losses over the last two years only Arsenal, Brentford, Brighton, Bournemouth, Ipswich and Southampton are exempt from this new provision, and will have an extra three months to submit their accounts. Leicester appear the most likely club to be charged with a PSR breach, as they only escaped a disciplinary hearing earlier this season after changing their accounting dates and successfully arguing that they were not a Premier League club when they submitted their accounts for the 2022-23 season on 30 June 2023 following relegation. The club recorded pre-tax losses of £92.5m and £90m in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

In the EFL meanwhile, some clubs have been dismayed by the Club Financial Reporting Unit saying they won’t be able to confirm their Profit & Sustainability status for weeks despite the January window being open.

It means clubs not knowing whether they can or can not spend money in the transfer window, or how much, and follows on from a similar issue in the summer when, according to some teams, they weren’t given clarity by the EFL until mid-August.

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M&A Murmurs

There was noise last week that Dai Yongge had paid back the troublesome loan taken out on Reading’s stadium that had played a part in nixing any takeover in the EFL’s longest-running saga. There was also talk of a “man in the background” who was ready to buy the club, and it isn’t Rob Couhig, whose legal action against Yongge continues.

A club statement on December 30 confirmed that "the ‘Stop Notice’ charge in place against the Select Car Leasing Stadium [is] now removed.”

Which doesn’t mean the loan was necessarily paid back (with onlookers wondering how that would have happened) but for Reading’s purposes it is no longer an obstacle, or as the club described it: “one external factor which had caused delay has subsequently been resolved.”

As for the mystery buyer, even less detail.

“Whilst the club understands our supporters' desire for the identity of the purchaser to be confirmed, at this stage confidentiality must remain in place for the benefit of all parties.”

The club’s update was vague but its content was positive. Having won three in a row under new manager Noel Hunt, the sun could be starting to emerge from behind the clouds in Berkshire.