FootBiz newsletter #60: Premier League chief won't speak on Man City case, Chelsea protests and Belgium's reshuffle

And with that, we can probably declare the Premier League title race dead.

With relegation also seemingly tied up (and the larger structural questions that arise from having all three promoted sides relegated in back-to-back years) the Premier League is really going to have to sell people on the drama of the hunt for European football with three months still to go this season.

Of course, in financial terms qualifying for Europe is genuinely a big deal.

Whether you’re Chelsea or Manchester City who really need to finish in the Champions League spots to make the numbers work, or you’re Newcastle United, desperate for some legitimate revenues to help you continue building your project, it’s a massive boost.

With the Premier League now almost certain to gain an extra spot in UEFA’s top-tier competition for next season, that fifth place suddenly opens things up for the likes of Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth to put together a run and sneak in.

How Sky Sports make normal football fans care about the incremental increase in TV revenue is a different matter entirely, but fortunately for us we don’t work in Sky’s marketing department.

With the Premier League’s competitive landscape proving not that competitive, the real big story from here until the summer is those 130 charges and Manchester City.

So when Richard Masters steps up to the stage to speak at the Financial Times’ Business of Sport summit today he’ll presumably be ready to open up on City’s legal battle with the league?

Well, not so fast.

Here’s the newsletter.

Table of Contents

• Masters to speak

• United heading east

• Hoop, there it is

• Belgium reshuffling again?

• Chelsea fans protest ownership

• M&A Murmurs

• Put your clause away

• National League hopeful of promo spot

Masters to speak

Richard Masters is expected to outline the Premier League's ongoing concerns with the imminent establishment of the independent regulator when he appears at the Financial Times' Business of Football Summit today.

Masters is a late addition to the FT event having withdrawn from scheduled appearances in recent years, though the issue of the Premier League's multi-faceted legal battles with Manchester City will not be up for discussion. With the initial verdict of the independent panel that have heard City's 130 FFP charges case expected next month, all the other guests at the Peninsula Hotel near Hyde Park, may well be talking about it, however.

Masters will instead use his platform to emphasise the ongoing global appeal of the Premier League, despite their governance issues, as well as highlighting concerns about the powers to be given to the regulator, particularly regarding setting the level of parachute payments.

United heading east

Manchester United will attempt to partially offset some of last year's £113m losses by playing two post-season matches in Malaysia and Hong Kong in May, as first reported by BBC Sport yesterday.

Ruben Amorim's side will depart on the brief tour immediately after their final Premier League game of the season on 25 May, as their players have to be back in Europe by 31 May at the latest to be released for international duty.

United expect to make several millions of pounds from the trip to a region in which they retain a large fan base despite their recent on-field struggles. Ticket sales, TV rights and merchandising will all bring in significant revenue, but the biggest cash generator is the potential for securing more long-term commercial deals, such as that with Malaysia Airlines, the club's official airline partner.

In more news at Old Trafford, United have appointed Christopher Vivell as director of recruitment on a full-time basis after he has spent the last nine months fulfilling the role in an interim capacity. The 38-year-old German has agreed to take a pay cut in order to stay at the club and will have to make do with a smaller pool of scouts, as United's global recruitment team is one of the areas that has been targeted for cost savings by part-owners INEOS.

Vivell made his name in the recruitment world at RB Leipzig before a brief spell at Chelsea, whom he left after less than a year after clashing with the owners. At United Vivell will report to technical director, Jason Wilcox, who is now the de facto head of the club's football department following the sudden departure of sporting director Dan Ashworth in December.

Hoop, there it is

The financial challenge of running a Championship club was starkly illustrated this week in the publication of QPR's 2023/24 accounts, which showed losses of £13.5m after a mediocre campaign in which they only narrowly escaped relegation to League One.

QPR's losses have reduced from £24m over the last two years as they have cut wages and benefitted from increase TV revenue, but there has been little improvement on the pitch and they have spent most of the last 10 years in the bottom half of the Championship.

Their struggles are far from unique, particularly amongst those clubs not in receipt of parachute payments. Of the Championship clubs that have published their accounts for last season, only Watford are profitable after selling Ismael Kone to Marseille for £11m last summer, with QPR's losses in the middle of the pack.

More than half of the clubs in the Championship reported losses of more than £10m in their most recent accounts, with Stoke and Hull leading the way with losses last season of £25.7m and £18.8m respectively.

It is the view of FootBiz that the broader model is unsustainable, and running an entire division of clubs at heavy losses on the distant dream of reaching the Premier League is unhealthy for the entire footballing pyramid.

Belgium reshuffling again?

News arrives of a surprising move in Belgium, where clubs from the top two divisions will vote today on potentially expanding to an 18-team league with no playoff system.

The Pro League has long been a bit of an odd one out in Europe, operating with both a four- and six-team championship playoff round in recent seasons as well as separate playoffs for the final Europa Conference spot and relegation.

Clubs have spent weeks, even months, debating what format the league would have going forwards but there was no consensus until the surprise favourite emerged this week: a return to a classic 18-team round robin.

On first glance, it is hard to see how this isn’t a mistake.

For one, rightsholder DAZN will be furious that the old format, which virtually ensured four games per season between the country’s biggest clubs, is replaced by half that number. Inventory will go up in raw terms insomuch as there will be more games to broadcast, but you don’t need to be an expert on the Belgian league to know DAZN would rather have double the amount of Club Brugge vs Anderlecht than some more games between Kortrijk, Dender and Mechelen.

Given the last domestic rights deal that the league signed was a slight reduction on the one it replaced, there is a chance that DAZN had priced in a move like this but it feels equally as likely that the London-based streamer seeks a renegotiation or exit, as they are already doing on a number of their biggest rights investments including Ligue 1.

So why would the clubs vote for something that would imperil their largest source of revenue?

Well, can I shock you? Football clubs acted in a short-termist, self-interested way.

As part of the reforms, the number of relegated clubs would go down from 2.5 (two automatic, one playoff vs second-division team) to just two direct spots.

That perked up the ears of bottom-half teams, but what sealed it was that the current season would become the transition year, meaning that in order to expand the league from 16 to 18 teams, there would be no direct relegation this year.

So the bottom four will no longer go into a relegation playoff next month, as they had expected, and rock-bottom and utterly doomed Beerschot, fully 16 points from safety, will now play a playoff tie to stay up rather than their near-certain demotion.

With every struggling team suddenly enthused, the new format very quickly appears to have the votes necessary.

Second division clubs were similarly excited by a bigger top flight, while the richest clubs in the country were bought off by the promise that four of them could have youth teams in the second tier, while their overall workload has been reduced from 40 domestic games to 34 as they prioritise continental competitions and those delicious UEFA revenues that are pulling them away from their domestic rivals.

Having youth teams in the second tier will help the richest clubs in the country suck even more talent away from those elsewhere in the pyramid, but the promise of survival (or promotion) in the immediate term seems to have been enough to persuade the clubs who will be disadvantaged by that to sign up for reform.

Amid a wider tightening of broadcast dollars in sport, it is a brave move. Pending a vote, of course.

Chelsea fans protest ownership

Fan protests have been a theme in recent weeks and on Tuesday night it was Chelsea’s turn.

As the Blues mounted an unexpected title challenge under new coach Enzo Maresca earlier this season, their fans chanted “we’ve got our Chelsea back”.

On Tuesday night, after a run of poor results, it was “we want our Chelsea back”, suggesting that the fleeting promise of success, or even contention for success, was only enough to paper over the cracks between the club’s owners and its fanbase.

“BlueCo stop killing Chelsea, get out of our club” read one banner.

“Wanted for crimes against Chelsea: Clearlake and BlueCo” read another, and amusingly: “We’re not Arsenal. Win or f**k off!”

Most targeted Clearlake Capital, the majority owner, but minority owner Todd Boehly didn’t escape the treatment. In one banner he was pictured with a fistful of cash and a speech bubble saying “thanks Chelsea fans for making me richer” with a reference to his investment in ticket retailer Vivid Seats, a secondary market that has profited from the unauthorised resale of Chelsea tickets.

M&A Murmurs

The long-running Reading takeover saga looks like it could rumble on for some time yet, despite the club expressing hopes of a “quick completion” after opening exclusive negotiations this week with Robert Platek, an American private equity investor.

The League One club has been on the market since October 2023, since when owner Dai Yongge has entered exclusivity periods with seven different buyers, so speed has not been of the essence so far.

Platek has the money to buy Reading after selling his controlling interest in Serie B club Spezia earlier this month, so proof of funds should not be an issue but there are other potential complications.

The Guardian reported yesterday that several EFL clubs have raised concerns over a potential conflict of interests due to Platek's position as Head of Global Credit at BDT & MSD Partners, the investment vehicle of technology billionaire Michael Dell. MSD have loaned tens of millions of pounds to EFL clubs including Burnley, West Brom, Derby, Sunderland and Premier League strugglers Southampton.

The terms of those loans give MSD security over club stadia in the event of a missed repayment, leading to concerns over a possible conflict of interest should Platek acquire control of Reading.

The EFL's position is that if Platek can meet their ownership requirements as an individual, then there is no conflict as far as their regulations are concerned, although they acknowledge the concerns of other clubs. The 60-year-old stated when buying Spezia, Danish club Sønderjyske and Casa Pia in Portugal that they were personal investments with no link to MSD, and he will have to demonstrate a clear separation of funding to the EFL.

Previous attempts to sell Reading have collapsed after prospective buyers attempted to renegotiate the price, as well as issues relating to a loan taken out by Yongge secured against the Select Car Leasing Stadium. The Platek offer however, is for Yongge's stake, the stadium and training ground, and his plan to return all the club's assets to one company is likely to prove popular with the fans.

This should not even count as a murmur, more a breath in the passing wind, but some random website I’ve never heard of in Turkey has reported (and then been aggregated and misunderstood by a raft of social media accounts) that Cristiano Ronaldo is teaming up with Mohammed bin Salman to buy Valencia.

Now, we are treating this as 0.1% likely to be true but if anyone could convince Peter Lim to finally give up on the utterly disastrous administration he has overseen at Valencia then it would be his good friend Jorge Mendes. Cristiano Ronaldo and Jorge also go way back, while Ronaldo is also very much in the good graces of the Saudi crown prince after he was kind enough to accept £250m a year to go and play football there (and become the league’s biggest star).

So, incredibly unlikely. But what if….

Bostonian investor and media executive Linda Henry has pulled out of the ownership group of Boston’s NWSL expansion team.

Henry is co-owner and CEO of the Boston Globe newspaper, and her husband John W. Henry is the owner of Fenway Sports Group which boasts controlling interests in Liverpool, the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Penguins.

The brand launch of BOS Nation FC in October was such a disaster that the ownership is considering changing the team’s name before they even set foot on a field.

It is unknown if Henry’s exit is due to the botched campaign of the autumn, but the ownership group will continues to be led by an all-female group that includes Boston Celtics minority owner Jennifer Epstein, Stephanie Connaughton, Anna Palmer and Ami Danoff.

Put your clause away

An interesting nugget from the Telegraph’s Mike McGrath, reporting that clubs are offering Manchester United up-front cash to do away with sell-on clauses as United very publicly slash jobs and look to cut costs.

Sell-on clauses are common for clubs cashing in on younger players, and United are no stranger to including them in deals when they are selling academy products or first-teamers.

It is just a quirk that the sporting environment has been so poor at Old Trafford that players have been thriving after making their escape.

With Sir Jim Ratcliffe warning of grave financial difficulties ahead and the prospect of a huge shortfall should the club miss out on European competition next season, opportunistic teams have offered United money now to remove those future clauses.

One player cited is Hannibal Mejbri, now of Burnley, whose 50% sell-on clause reduces over time. Facundo Pellistri is another mentioned, with United due 45% of his next sale.

Read more: Sports lawyer Daniel Geey on the clauses he sees in transfers

National League hopeful of promo spot

Clubs in the National League, England’s fifth tier, are trying to apply pressure in the hope that the EFL will relent in their resistance to a third promotion spot to League Two.

With the EFL governing the three divisions between the Premier League and National League, their constituents have long been staunchly against having more than two teams drop out of League Two because of the instability it would create at clubs who are already struggling financially.

FootBiz has confirmed a report from the Daily Mail that moving to a three-up, three-down system was discussed at the EFL’s owners summit this week. While League Two owners in particular are against the proposal, one owner confessed to FootBiz that it was hard for the EFL to rail against the Premier League “pulling up the drawbridge” while they did the same to the National League.

National League general manager Mark Ives told the BBC that "we have a pyramid that is the envy of countries worldwide because you can go from the very bottom to the top, purely on sporting merit. But there is a blockage in the jump between National League and EFL. Two-up, two-down is simply unfair.”