FootBiz newsletter #53: Stories from the transfer window and problems in Paris

Few moments in the football calendar provoke the sort of wistful nostalgia as transfer deadline day.

For a brief golden period, having cameras stationed in the car park of Premier League club’s training grounds created the greatest reality show in British television history, culminating in one Sky Sports News reporter infamously having an, erm, intimacy enhancer prodded in his ear live on air.

(I’m trying to avoid words that might send this newsletter to spam, but the gif below can serve as a reminder)

That was probably the peak of it all. The apex. But mostly it was propelled by the big, splashy deals coming from nowhere, like Mesut Ozil signing for Arsenal for £40m to end Arsene Wenger’s era of frugality and immediately prompting wild celebrations from fans on the steps of the Emirates Stadium. Yes, fans stood outside in the middle of the night… to celebrate a transfer… behind a reporter.

It was a distinctly British take on things.

Far more serene and probably a better TV product in the traditional sense, Italian deadline days used to gather all the clubs’ executives in a hotel so they could hash out deals. Meanwhile the English would camp out to try and catch a glimpse of Peter Odemwingie driving somewhere. The will-they-won’t-they was always more important than whether any of these signings were actually good.

As the reporting of transfers has become its own mega-industry and social media replaced round-the-clock news channels as the fastest way to get information, the possibility of shock, big-money transfers has simply disappeared and thus the televisual product declined. If tens of millions are changing hands then David Ornstein or Fabrizio Romano has told you about it well in advance. The deals out of nowhere are now nowhere to be seen, and barring a few clubs there weren’t many big-money ones at all - let alone ones that surprised people - this month.

To walk down memory lane, I watched Sky Sports News for several hours yesterday and it was a real mixed bag. Andy Brassell was the highlight, providing insight on many of the players coming to the Premier League from Europe. The lowlight was, as it always is, the desperate need to fill this many hours with talk - no matter how empty. A decade ago I would man the transfer live blog on deadline day and have to do the same, it isn’t easy and when things are quiet it isn’t particularly fun either. That wouldn’t stop millions of readers from sitting there waiting for news on the back-up left-back their team is trying to bring in though.

And that’s why we are destined to always love to hate it. Because it’s the last moments you can cling to that the next club legend, the next messiah, is about to come walking through that door on a loan with an obligation to buy.

Table of Contents

• Inside the window

• Villa’s salary splash

• Real Madrid’s ref tantrum

• NASL loses at trial

• Rubiales in court

• Eagle raise funds for Lyon

• Belgian league to reduce games?

• Parisian problems

• Sweden rejects women’s JV

• FIFA bite back at EU

Inside the window

It was clear fairly early in the window that it wasn’t going to be particularly splashy. So many clubs we spoke to were only looking for cheaper deals with less commitment, meaning an almost universal response from people that they were looking for “maybe a loan or two”.

One thing I’ve heard more this window than in any other I can remember was complaints from clubs about the conduct of others, acting in an unprofessional way or simply pissing them off.

I’m not sure why that is, but by way of example:

• one club complained of a rival who made a significant verbal offer for their best player, pushing for a quick deal, then stopped responding to texts or calls and then 24 hours later said they weren’t interested any more because they won at the weekend

• one club made a formal, written offer late at night without making any prior contact, only to follow up early in the morning and say they no longer had an interest (though with the player now unsettled and asking to leave)

• one club found out that the team trying to loan them a player had falsely inflated the player’s wages at the request of the agent so the player would be paid more while on loan

Perhaps it’s the bitty deal environment with everyone trying to find bargains and moves without long-term commitment that adhere to financial rules. Perhaps it’s a knock-on effect of lower TV deals (La Liga clubs spent virtually nothing, for example).

A couple of weeks off for all involved and then onto making advanced moves for the summer window!

Villa’s salary splash

Aston Villa's transfer dealings are clearly heavily dictated by their ongoing struggle to comply with profit and sustainability rules, from their extensive trading in homegrown players last June to their decision to cash in on Jhon Duran this month, but beyond last-minute horse trading, there is little evidence of the club getting to grips with the underlying problem.

Villa's wages-to-turnover ratio in their most recent accounts for 2022/23 was 89 per cent - the fourth highest in the Premier League, and the highest once you remove clubs who were charged with breaching PSR that season: Leicester, Nottingham Forest and Everton.

Despite this, the club have committed to paying up 90 per cent of Marcus Rashford's £375,000-a-week wages for the rest of the season if he meets performance targets, almost double the combined wages of the three players they have offloaded this month, Duran, Jaden Philogene and Diego Carlos. Then they added PSG’s Marco Asensio in a late deadline day move.

Whilst Villa's first-ever Champions League campaign will lead to them recording a club record revenues of up to £300m when their accounts are published next year, wage-bill discipline remains an issue at the club.

For all the criticism of Manchester United's wasteful spending embodied by that Rashford contract, the clubs wages-turnover ratio was 55 per cent last season, only slightly higher than the leanest operations in the Premier League, Tottenham and Arsenal.

Real Madrid’s ref tantrum

Real Madrid have submitted a formal complaint to the Spanish football federation (RFEF) after a “scandalous performance of the refereeing and of the VAR” during their defeat at Espanyol on Sunday.

“The events that took place in this match have exceeded any margin of human error or refereeing interpretation. What happened at the RCDE Stadium represents the culmination of a completely discredited refereeing system, in which the decisions against Real Madrid have reached a level of manipulation and adulteration of the competition that can no longer be ignored.”

A statement from the RFEF in response to the allegations read: “We reaffirm our commitment to transparency, fairness and the constant improvement of refereeing mechanisms, fundamental pillars to guarantee the development and integrity of our competitions. We deeply regret the tone and seriousness of the accusations that question the honorability of the refereeing bodies and the functioning of the competition as a whole.”

The club also released a video cut-up of the decisions they objected to.

While Madrid are no stranger to these tiresome stunts, the caso Negreira has only solidified suspicion of refereeing authorities in Spain.

But yes, it was a bad tackle on Kylian Mbappe and should have been a red card. It doesn’t mean there was a conspiracy. Occam’s razor.

NASL loses at trial

The now-defunct North American Soccer League (NASL) lost its anti-trust case against Major League Soccer (MLS) and the US Soccer Federation (USSF).

A jury deliberated for just a few hours before coming down on the side of the USSF and MLS, who had been accused of colluding to freeze out the nascent league after its rebirth in 2011.

It may not be over, though, with NASL counsel Jeff Kessler telling FOS: “We have great respect for the jury process, but there were some fundamental legal errors made which prevented the jurors from receiving important evidence or being instructed on the correct legal standards and claims. Our client accordingly expects to appeal.”

Rubiales in court

Former president of the Spanish football federation, Luis Rubiales, has begun his trial for sexual assault and coercion after he kissed Spain’s captain, Jenni Hermoso, without consent in the wake of them winning the 2023 World Cup.

Hermoso was the first witness in Rubiales' trial and told the court in Madrid her life had been on hold while waiting for the trial and some semblance of justice: "My boss was kissing me, and this shouldn't happen in any social or work setting."

Rubiales has consistently denied wrongdoing, while the federation is under the microscope for trying to convince Hermoso to sign a statement minimising the kiss.

"The next thing he did was to grab me by the ears and kiss me on the mouth."

"I didn't hear or understand anything," she said. "A kiss on the lips is only given when I decide so".

"No one came to ask me how I was" afterwards and Hermoso added that she felt "completely abandoned by the federation".

She added that Rubiales later asked her to record a video with him on the flight home because he was being accused of assault on social media.

"I said no, that I was not going to do anything, that I was not the cause of this."

Three additional federation employees - coach Jorge Vilda, the federation's head of marketing at the time, Rubén Rivera, and ex-sporting director, Albert Luque - are accused of trying to coerce Hermoso into saying the kiss was consensual but all three deny the charges.

The trial continues…

Eagle raise funds for Lyon

Eagle Football have announced €83m of additional revenues generated during Q4 that it expects will help overturn the French football regulator’s decision to provisionally relegate Olympique Lyonnais.

Lyon and Botafogo have sold a number of players in the January window, while Michelle Kang invested further into OL Féminin to take her shareholding to 52.9%.

Belgian league to reduce games?

An intriguing vote may take place in Belgium next week, with clubs in the Jupiler League being asked whether they want to adopt a radical new structure next season, which has similarities with the so-called Swiss model adopted by UEFA for the Champions League. 

In a radical departure from global trends for more matches, the proposal is for the regular Jupiler League season to be cut from 30 to 16 games, followed by an extensive play-off programme to determine the league champions and European qualification. The league changed the playoff system from four to six teams last season.

The move is being pushed by the larger Belgian clubs led by Club Brugge, in the hope that fewer domestic games would aid their prospects in Europe. A 10 per cent decline value of the Jupiler League's domestic TV rights, which were bought by DAZN in December in a five-year deal worth just £78m, has also empowered the clubs to seek change.

Of note: UEFA’s new distribution formula for broadcast rights rewards teams that come from leagues whose teams succeed in Europe.

Parisian problems

When France’s richest man bought second-tier Paris FC with some help from Red Bull, it turned plenty of heads.

Bernard Arnault, the billionaire CEO of luxury good powerhouse LVMH, bought the club with his sons last year and has exciting plans to make the team into a top-flight mainstay and global brand.

Currently second in Ligue 2, Paris FC boasts fresh investment, easy access to the world’s biggest brands via LVMH and a city that produces greater footballing talent than any other on planet Earth.

It is a formula brimming with potential.

Nobody said it would be straightforward, though.

Arnault is now desperately searching for a stadium solution as the club needs to move on from the run-down and slightly soulless ground it currently plays in, with an athletics track around the pitch ensuring a poor experience for fans.

While he has spent months trying to strike a ground-sharing deal with rugby club Stade Francais, Arnault refused to pay costs that he deemed excessive to swap out the existing artificial pitch for a grass one. With those negotiations having broken down, Paris FC are having to examine all possibilities including finding an area outside the city to build.

Only that isn’t easy either, as the city’s megaclub Paris Saint-Germain will tell you. For one, Parisian property is not cheap, especially not the footprint that you’d need to build a football stadium and the accompanying entertainment complex.

PSG spent much of last year trying to buy their Parc des Princes stadium from the city, but negotiations turned sour and PSG executives fumed at Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo.

So now both of Paris’ biggest football clubs are on the lookout for a stadium to renovate or ground to build. Bonne chance!

Dig deeper: As TV revenues flatten, the stadium arms race heats up

Sweden rejects women’s JV

The governing body that oversees women’s football in Sweden has turned down the opportunity to enter into a commercial joint venture similar to the one that England’s WSL turned to last year in a bid to grow the league.

Elitfotboll Dam (EFD), the umbrella body over the top two women’s leagues in Sweden, rejected the approach from a mixed consortium of domestic and international investors.

The Women’s Football Group (WFG) offered nearly $30m for a 25-year partnership that was slated to grow the Damallsvenskan, Sweden’s equivalent of the WSL or NWSL.

Founder and CEO of the WFG, Eric Cohen-Peckham, spent over a year in talks with stakeholders but the 28 professional clubs voted against the proposal despite approval from the country’s football federation.

FIFA bite back at EU

FIFA responded to criticism from the EU with a strongly-worded letter pointing the finger at hypocritical behaviour from the continental bloc.

30 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) signed a letter sent late last year criticising the award of the 2034 World Cup to Saudi Arabia for “undermining the principles upon which FIFA was founded,” with reference to gender equality, human rights and environmental concerns.

But FIFA’s secretary general Mattias Grafström responded by claiming the process was fair, that Saudi Arabia “has committed to ensuring equitable wages and decent working and living conditions for all individuals involved in the preparation and delivery” of the tournament and that Riyadh “has committed to ensuring a secure and inclusive tournament environment free from discrimination, through the implementation of policies, procedures and educational measures to address discrimination in the tournament context.

“The bidder has also committed to reviewing and potentially amending relevant legislation as part of the government’s commitments under international standards,” Grafström added before going on the offensive.

“The European Union has already demonstrated its commitment to strengthening economic, political and cultural ties with Saudi Arabia. Bilateral trade in goods reached €75 billion in 2023,” he pointed out.

With 18 months to go until the North American World Cup, the beginning of a trade war between the host nations was hardly ideal for world football’s governing body.

That said, the American president’s favoured strategy of starting a fire, putting it out shortly afterwards and then handing himself the best firefighter award is pretty well-established at this point.

On the off chance relations are still testy as we get closer to the tournament, perhaps Gianni Infantino will see himself as the peacemaker?

One question over the World Cup is how some of these cities will cope with the volume of people descending over the course of the group stage. And that’s before we get to stadium security, which is now under the microscope after the debacle of the Copa America final. 

Anyone who has been to a Super Bowl week knows that cities tend to deal with these influxes and serve fans with differing levels of success. In cities like LA and Phoenix, things are a little too spread out for the vibe to truly be felt, but the cities can cope while in Miami the vibes are terrific but horrendous traffic and the geography of Miami Beach makes transport difficult. Vegas hosted its first Super Bowl last year and was almost perfect; compact to the point of being almost walkable, plenty of tourist infrastructure, the best party venues possible and mild weather to boot.

One concerned onlooker has put together a report into the readiness of some host cities for the World Cup, which is worth a read.