FootBiz newsletter #6: Champions League bonuses, Man City hearing, independent regulator, Spurs, Valencia, Everton and more

So, after four years of investigation and nine years of alleged offences, the hearing into Manchester City’s 115 charges has begun.

City strongly deny the charges and the Premier League have geared up for their biggest-ever fight. But what can we expect to happen next now the hearing is underway?

Well, probably not very much for quite a while. The hearing is expected to take most of the autumn, with talk of a verdict at the start of 2025.

And for as leaky an environment as football can be, I wouldn’t expect too much to leak out during these proceedings. The arbitration hearing into Associated Party Transactions took place in June and there has still been no result, or at least not in the public sphere.

There are, however, things you can’t keep under wraps forever. The Lawyer revealed the location of the hearing, Juxon House in St Paul’s, by spotting Man City’s latest £400k per week signing, Lord Pannick KC, heading to the venue with his clerk. That’s correct; Pannick on the streets of London.

More specifically, the venue is the International Dispute Resolution Centre at Juxon House, which sounds about right.

Both sides will want to keep things as quiet as possible but we are, at least, in the beginning of the endgame for this story. Yes, there could be appeals and recriminations but without a conclusion to this saga, the Premier League cannot move on.

And in the spirit of getting things going, shall we do the same?

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Table of Contents

• Independent regulator

• Qatar hero

• Jump in the market pool

• Broadcast rights (and wrongs)

• The Iron Levy is not for turning

• Situation we’re watching

• Hope for Valencia?

• Roc and a hard place

• What shortbread taught me about player care

Independent regulator

The panic and paranoia which gripped the EFL on Saturday evening has begun to dissipate.

"We're the only ones who haven't seen this bloody letter, so make of that what you will," was how one executive described the mood among the lower division clubs.

The EFL's feelings of not-so splendid isolation are easy to understand. The Sunday Times' report that UEFA have threatened England with expulsion from the 2028 European Championship if the new independent regulator is deemed to be influenced by government must have appeared like a coordinated attack on a significant governance reform they have been championing for over three years, particularly as they had been left in the dark.

The reality? Well, that’s a little different. Matt Hughes explains the complex dynamics and powerplays we are witnessing as English football’s pillars of governance jostle for influence. (For premium subscribers only)

Qatar hero

Qatar Airways beat off competition from Turkish Airlines and a number of Saudi carriers to become the new official aviation partner of the UEFA Champions League this week.

More than that, they’ve managed to box out their rivals in the space for a six-year term spanning two of UEFA’s usual three-year partnership cycles. A real coup for the carrier whose branding was all over Euro 2024 in Germany this summer.

It means we’ll now be seeing Qatar Airways branding around the Champions League until 2030, further intertwining a tightly wound relationship between Qatar and European football’s governing body.

Jump in the market pool

In unrelated news, Paris Saint-Germain will receive more money for competing in the Champions League than any other club this year.

As the format has changed for the tournament itself, which kicks off tonight, so have the financial distributions.

And in a surprising twist, the new distributions favour a small group of clubs at the top!

The old distribution model was a four-way split:

• 25% of total revenues as participation fees divided equally

• 30% in performance-related fees for games won, drawn etc

• 30% on a club’s 10-year coefficient (UEFA’s performance metric)

• 15% for the ‘market pool’ - effectively which country pays in the most to the Champions League via their TV deal

The new distribution model is:

• 27.5% equally divided among 36 league phase participants

• 37.5% allocated to performance (€700k per point in league phase, plus ~€275k bonus for each final league position, up to ~€10m for first)

• 35% will be allocated to the newly created ‘value pillar’ - an extension of the ‘market pool’ that divides TV revenues into EU and non-EU but also factors in performance in UEFA competitions

Plus the bonuses below:

Interested in who has the biggest market pool? Well the excellent X account Football Meets Data has broken it down for you. Follow them for similarly nerdy delights.

And yes, you did read that correctly, first-time Champions Leaguers Brest are fourth and defending champions Real Madrid are in 19th.

The market pool rank is only one part of the ‘value pillar’ calculations though and because of Brest’s non-existent recent record in UEFA competitions (they are ranked 36th of 36 on the five-year coefficient) they receive nearly €17m less than PSG - who come from the same market pool. Brest’s 35th-ranked 10-year coefficient means they receive less than €1m for their non-EU part vs €11m for compatriots PSG, leaving a €27m gap between the two clubs.

“The big question to ask yourself with these things,” said one club source, “is who benefits the most?”

The teams who will make the most under the new calculations are those who come from a country with a big TV deal, who are essentially guaranteed to be in the Champions League every year and who perform well when they are in it.

In my mind that’s a list of very few teams: Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester City, FC Bayern and (just about, given the Spanish TV deal) Real Madrid. More traditional grandees of the European game like Juventus and FC Barcelona are certainly aided by the 10-year calculation.

Clubs that are disadvantaged include Benfica and Club Brugge, who are top-half for coefficients but suffer because the TV deal for their geo is markedly lower than, for example, Austria or Scotland.

“The teams you expect to benefit will be the teams that will benefit but why do they need the extra help?” asks an executive at a UEFA Conference League club.

“Shouldn’t UEFA be redistributing the biggest TV deals rather than handing the lion’s share of it back to the richest clubs?”

As for the Conference League, I thought it was notable that the difference in basic UEFA prize money between England’s top Champions League representative (Man City) and England’s top Conference League representative (Chelsea) is more than €50m.

No wonder Chelsea haven’t registered Cole Palmer and are focusing his efforts on the Premier League until the knockout stages.

Broadcast rights (and wrongs)

Some interesting whispers on a couple of football topics at the International Broadcast Conference which is taking place in Amsterdam this week.

1) Who the hell is going to broadcast FIFA’s (doomed?) Club World Cup next summer? With the long-presumed $1bn Apple deal now dead and no precedent for viewership to dangle in front of broadcasters, there are wildly varying internal valuations for these rights at media companies - but crucially all of those valuations are significantly below what FIFA thought they would get.

2) Where will Amazon next dive into football? Prime Video has dabbled in the Premier League as its tertiary broadcaster and took a quick dip into Ligue 1 rights during the last cycle before exiting France this summer, but many are now wondering what the future looks like for Amazon in football. They have invested in Champions League rights in some territories, and women’s sports have clearly been a focus as they now hold long-term NWSL and WNBA deals. With a business model where subscriptions generate revenue for the company far beyond their streaming service, Amazon aren’t really playing the same game as Netflix or any of their other competitors. Which territory they choose to invest in next will tell us a lot, and rumours are that there may be news on that in the coming months. Keep an eye out.

The Iron Levy is not for turning

The incessant takeover talk surrounding Tottenham Hotspur does not appear to be having any influence on Daniel Levy's willingness to sell, according to one source who has held talks about buying the club in the past. 

Reuters reported last year that Iranian-American billionaire Jahm Najafi, chair of MSP Sports Capital, was preparing a £2.85billion takeover bid Tottenham Hotspur, following earlier reports in the Financial Times that the company were putting together a consortium of potential investors. It was reported that MSP valued the club at £2.2billion and were planning at add £650m of debt onto the club's books.

Levy made it clear that he was not interested in entering negotiations with MSP due to their valuation. The MSP valuation did appear low given that 12 months earlier Chelsea was sold for £2.5bn plus a commitment from Clearlake Capital and Todd Boehly to invest a further £750m, with the west London club yet to produce a plan to redevelop or leave the 40,000-capacity Stamford Bridge.

Tottenham continue to attract interest, with former Newcastle director Amanda Staveley widely reported to be in talks with Middle Eastern investors about making a minority investment, but a source who has dealt with Levy on multiple occasions over the years is convinced he will not sell. 

Levy's stake in the club is only 29.4 per cent, with the Joe Lewis' family trust holding 70.6 per cent, but the chairman has become even more influential after the Bahamas-based billionaire ceased to be "a person of significant control" at the club two years ago before he was found guilty of insider trading. 

"Tottenham has become Daniel's life," the source told FootBiz. "He sits there in the front row like a Roman Emperor and absolutely loves it. It would take an extraordinary offer for him to even consider selling."

Situation we’re watching

Now that Eddie Howe and Paul Mitchell’s civil war is out in the open, people in the game are asking which way it’s going to break.

If CEO Darren Eales can fix the relationship and Newcastle can move on, then nothing major need happen.

Should Mitchell be defenestrated so soon it would be a major victory for Howe, who would essentially assume increased control similar to what Jurgen Klopp managed after winning his battle with those above him at Liverpool. Howe also has the leverage of the England job being open.

If the club were to back Mitchell and Howe ends up leaving (for England or otherwise) it would be a clear shift towards Newcastle becoming a club that prioritises its structure over any one individual. When Amanda Staveley was still there, Howe felt like the most important person at the club. Now? We’ll find out soon enough.

Hope for Valencia?

Last in La Liga and overwhelmed by debt, it’s easy to make the bear case for Valencia CF, but it’s a club that many potential investors have looked at in a desperate attempt to find a way to make it work.

When Singapore-based billionaire Peter Lim bought the club, they were a regular fixture in the top four, playing Champions League football in a city that’s mad for their club and not that far removed from winning La Liga and appearing in a Champions League final.

Now they have a half-built stadium (below) and debts of around €300m, with much of that to be paid by the end of 2026, they haven’t finished higher than 9th in the last five seasons and they’re presently rock-bottom of La Liga.

With Lim still insisting he won’t sell, interest in buying a heavily-indebted club with a big pile of concrete usually evaporates fairly quickly but we are hearing Goldman Sachs has been brought in to raise north of €100m to refinance that debt and try to finish the Nou Mestalla stadium project that has been frozen for 15 years. Local authorities this summer granted approval for work to resume on the site.

Had the part-finished ground been on a better track, it might have been included as a host venue for World Cup 2030 but the slow progress there has been such that the Spanish FA did not want to take any risks on what would, otherwise, surpass the Wanda Metropolitano in Madrid as Spain’s newest stadium (the Bernabeu and Camp Nou are impressive remodels but not new grounds).

Dermot Corrigan wrote a good piece on the ghost ground that has sat untouched for 15 years, which appears to be Valencia’s only way out of this mess.

It is worth remembering that the last time a construction worker added to the Nou Mestalla was two years before Diego Simeone arrived at Atletico Madrid, dragged them out of the relegation zone and propelled them to league titles and within a whisker of Champions League glory.

Turnarounds are possible, and what once was Spain’s third club needs one badly.

La Liga president Javier Tebas said last week he “can not force Lim to sell” and that potential buyers are being “scared away”.

And while Lim’s absentee ownership has been incredibly unpopular in the city, finishing the stadium and starting to address the debts would be the starting point to begin putting the club back where it should be.

Roc and a hard place

Your (seemingly weekly) John Textor update!

A report in a British tabloid that remains unpopular on Merseyside this week claimed that Textor wants Jay-Z to join his bid to buy Everton.

I don’t doubt that Textor would love that, but with Mr Carter as founder and owner of Roc Nation Sports, a huge agency that represents Vinicius Junior, Kevin de Bruyne and a number of other elite players, it is hard to see how a deal would be allowed to happen.

While Jay-Z isn’t a licensed agent himself, there would be obvious conflicts of interest that FIFA and more local governing bodies would be pretty quick to pounce on.

That said, Textor is bidding for one Premier League club while still owning 46% of another, so you can’t say he doesn’t have a can-do attitude to any of these things.

Keep an eye on the return of Daniel Friedkin to negotiations - the former Roma owner has about £200m locked up in Everton already and we know he likes the club.

Vaguely related story from the archive: Rapper Diddy rejects Palace takeover

What shortbread taught me about player care

Player care is not something that most football fans think about, and I would have included myself in that bracket until about 2009.

At that point I was studying at the University of Manchester and, after blowing through my student loan too early, ended up getting a job at the Hilton Hotel on Deansgate to make ends meet.

One midweek afternoon I was down working behind the bar when a member of staff from housekeeping came down to the bar (unusual) a little distressed. In broken English she was telling me that I needed to come with her to one of the rooms (very unusual) and so I did.

I had worked in room service previously while they were training me, which means you get to know the room numbers of some of the longer-term guests.

So when we got to the room, I knew the room we were walking into belonged to Jô, the young Brazilian striker that City had fairly recently spent a club-record fee of £19m on.

Jô had arrived from CSKA Moscow and was living in the hotel like many of the new signings did at that time. We got to know Robinho, Benjani, Elano, Vincent Kompany and Pablo Zabaleta in that period, as well as others I’ve probably forgotten.

Jô was not in his room, however. He was on a UEFA Cup trip to Hamburg (if I recall correctly) with the squad.

As I stepped into his room, I saw a woman sat on the bed crying.

Next to her was a pile of cash with an elastic band around it and scattered about the room were a number of empty packets of Walker’s shortbread - the biscuits that came free in the room next to the tea and coffee.

What had happened was that, before going away, Jô had given his girlfriend around £5,000 in cash to look after herself while he was gone, but his girlfriend spoke no English and knew nobody in the city. She was afraid to even call room service to order food, let alone leave the hotel to go and find a meal.

Now, my very British instinct was to phone down and order some bangers and mash to her room, which I’ve never seen anyone eat so quickly, but I remember thinking how crazy it is that a club would spend a record fee on a player but not commit anything to ensuring their success by looking after them off the field.

A lot has changed since then, and Manchester City are now considered one of the best in the business at looking after their playing staff (this incident was right as Thaksin Shinawatra was being replaced by Sheikh Mansour) but it is with this story in mind that I spoke to Hugo Scheckter, the founder and managing director of the Player Care Group about what clubs are doing in 2024 to look after their players’ needs.

For background, Hugo worked at three different Premier League clubs before starting his own business offering these services on a wider basis.

He spoke to us for a Q+A on the topic, for premium subscribers only.