FootBiz newsletter #74: Champions League fallout and what does Ligue 1 do now?

And then there were four.

Arsenal will play Paris Saint-Germain in one semi-final of the Champions League, while Barcelona will face Inter in the other.

European football’s biggest prize will end up in the hands of one of its biggest brands but who will it be?

Inter and PSG have both come close in recent years, losing finals, but glory this year would mean very different things for them as clubs.

For Inter it would be a fourth big-eared trophy in the cabinet and cement them as Serie A’s team of the decade under the (somehow still) underrated Simone Inzaghi. For PSG on the other hand, it would be the culmination of a state-driven project that has zigged and zagged in pursuit of this exact trophy. The release and relief would be significant.

Premium subscribers got an email from Rob yesterday discussing what stage of their evolution PSG are in, but a Champions League title would answer that fairly neatly.

Arsenal and Barcelona are both back in the big time after years away, having rebuilt and found a way back to domestic and continental relevance under smart coaches. As with the other semi-finalists, Barca are like Inter in that would merely be adding another European Cup to the four they’ve won in the last 20 years (five total) while for Arsenal it would be a transformative, era-defining and first-ever win, one that would place Mikel Arteta — who has never even won a Premier League title — among the club’s all-time greats. Funny how these things work.

And for the losers this week, there is always fallout. Less so for Dortmund or Aston Villa but at Bayern a last-eight exit represents failure and, this year, marks the end of Thomas Muller’s glittering career at the top level.

In Madrid, the repercussions could be even more grave.

For nearly two years now, the Brazilian federation has been trying to lure Carlo Ancelotti into international football based on the hypothesis that his ‘vibe conductor’ management style will get the most out of their talented squad, shepherding them through next summer’s tournament and to a sixth World Cup win.

Real Madrid have resisted those overtures, which has led Carletto to do the same, but suggestions from the (notoriously reactionary) local media last night were that it could be third time lucky, with a Brazilian intermediary in the Bernabeu’s VIP boxes.

The issue will be, as I understand it, that Xabi Alonso gave his word to Bayer Leverkusen that he would be staying with the club this summer. The glaringly obvious choice for the job, perhaps he could be persuaded but otherwise one would imagine the cooler heads may prevail and Ancelotti stays for one last season.

While quarter-finals and semi-finals don’t sound like a huge difference, for some of these clubs it can and will trigger (irrationally) large changes.

One definite difference this season is that the prize money is even greater, and so Real Madrid and Bayern end this campaign with around €100m in UEFA prize money while the semi-finalists are at around €118m and counting.

Good news for certain teams in Catalunya that like to constantly pull levers…

Table of Contents

• What now for Ligue 1?

• Tottenham could hit reset at exec level

• Iraola set for Bournemouth talks

• Leicester loophole removed

• No luck in regulator search

• M&A Murmurs

• Vegas to host World Cup draw

• More opposition for 64-team World Cup

• FA lose more talent to Saudi

• Someone explain this to me

What now for Ligue 1?

Ligue 1’s showdown talks with DAZN ended on Tuesday with the two parties headed for divorce after just one season, but there is no agreement on the terms of that divorce and there are justifiable fears that things could turn ugly.

The LFP responded to the breakup on Tuesday evening with a press release acknowledging in no uncertain terms “the failure of the mediation” but insisting that “the contract between the parties remains in force and LFP MEDIA expects its partner to fully fulfill all of its obligations in this regard.”

It remains to be seen whether they will try again to mediate or whether this ends up in court but the latter feels far more likely.

For DAZN’s part, they wish to exit at the end of the season and have no intention of paying compensation for next season as is being demanded by the league. That compensation, per L’Equipe, would be around €120m.

With the stance of the London-based streamer having been that the league had broken the terms of their contract (leading them to sue the LFP claiming €573m in damages) there is now some uncertainty over whether DAZN will pay the remaining instalments for this season. Those payments are due in two weeks and then at the end of June, totalling €140m.

All those questions seem fairly small and inconsequential compared to the much bigger one - what does Ligue 1 do now?

A plan that was mooted last summer as the LFP desperately tried to simulate leverage during the tender process was building their own streaming platform. John Textor, who was previously chairman of FuBo TV, a sports streaming platform, was outspoken last summer in his frustration that the league never seemed to seriously pursue the idea.

Now they may have no choice.

Having incinerated their decades-long friendship with Canal+ in 2020, when they attempted to go with Spanish firm Mediapro, the LFP can no longer rely on firm interest from France’s biggest pay-TV operator.

Some may assume that the man Textor described as Nasser al-Khelaifi’s “lapdog”, league president Vincent Labrune, will go cap in hand to the chairman of PSG and BeIn Sports to secure a TV deal but optics may make that difficult and the direction of travel has been of Qatar investing less, rather than more, in French football. Even the one game per week they paid for felt like doing Labrune a favour.

That said, with DAZN walking away this summer, BeIn will be the only official Ligue 1 broadcaster left.

Having gone from their €1bn per year agreement with Mediapro, to around €500m a year with Amazon Prime and Canal+, the LFP are now set to lose their €450m a year combination of DAZN and BeIn Sports and be forced into a market with very few bidders.

Seeing your league have 55% of its media value erased in just a few seasons poses fairly serious questions about not only the future of Ligue 1 but also its governance in the present.

Tottenham could hit reset at exec level

Tottenham’s hiring of Vinai Venkatesham as their new CEO may not be the final move in a summer of change.

Chief football officer Scott Munn’s future at the club is in doubt according to Jack Pitt-Brooke, who has covered Spurs for more than a decade.

Munn, yet another former City Football Group executive who has found himself in a senior role elsewhere, was inserted into the newly created role after Fabio Paratici’s ban was confirmed in 2023. He has remodelled much of the sporting structure at Tottenham, ruffling some feathers along the way.

Sporting director Johan Lange’s position is thought to be safe for now. Ange Postecoglou is expected to depart unless the club wins the Europa League, though there is an argument that retaining the Australian off the back of a cup win would simply be delaying the inevitable.

Iraola set for Bournemouth talks

In related news, Bournemouth owner Bill Foley will offer head coach Andoni Iraola a significant raise and assurances over investment in the squad as he seeks to extend the contract of the in-demand Basque coach.

Tottenham are just one club expected to kick the tyres on Iraola this summer, though he has also been mentioned as a possible successor to Carlo Ancelotti if Real Madrid can’t lure Xabi Alonso back from Germany.

According to the Guardian, Iraola has just a year remaining on the contract he signed after leaving Rayo Vallecano for Dorset. Bournemouth’s impressive season tailed off slightly during March, costing them a chance of Champions League football, but the Cherries still have a strong possibility of qualifying for Europe which would only further elevate Iraola’s reputation.

Leicester loophole removed

The Premier League have redrafted their rulebook to remove the legal loophole which enabled Leicester to escape a profit and sustainability rules breach last year.

Leicester were charged with a £24.4million breach of their PSR rules over the 2020/23 reporting cycle last March, but an independent commission later ruled that the Premier League lacked the jurisdiction to punish them, as following relegation they were an EFL club by the time their accounts for the final season were submitted in June 2023.

In one of several changes to the competition’s Handbook, which was published without fanfare on their website last Friday, the Premier League explicitly state for the first time that clubs relegated to the Championship remain bound by their rules. They also now state that the Premier League’s Board can enforce sanctions imposed by the EFL on clubs who are then promoted to the top-flight.

FootBiz has been told that the rule changes were agreed at a meeting of the 20 top-flight clubs last month, and were approved by a majority vote.

Rule E:49 of the Premier League Handbook now states: “If a club is relegated from the League, that Club shall, relegation notwithstanding, remain bound by rules E47 to E86, as if it were still a club, until such a time as it has complied with all of its obligations relating to its last season as a Club.”

Leicester had also disputed the cap on the losses allowed under PSR, claiming that they should have been permitted the full Premier League allowance of £105m over three seasons despite having spent last season in the Championship. The Premier League have also clarified those rules, which now state that losses should be a maximum of £13m for every year in the EFL and £35m in the Premier League.

No luck in regulator search

The British government have reopened the process of recruiting a Chair for the new Independent Football Regulator after their shortlist of candidates failed to produce a preferred candidate.

Sky News has reported that the Chair is "unlikely" to come from their shortlisted trio of former Aston Villa chief executive Christian Purslow, Kick It Out Chair Sanjay Bhandari and Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, and that Whitehall officials have begun to reach out to other candidates.

The delay in concluding a lengthy appointment process which began last autumn is likely to fuel speculation that Sir Keir Starmer wants to reduce the powers of the football regulator. The government have been subjected to sustained lobbying from the Premier League to curb the regulator’s powers, particularly regarding their influence in setting the level of so-called parachute payments made to clubs relegated from to the EFL.

M&A Murmurs

M&A activity in Italy is heating up as the season draws to a close, with three more clubs in talks with American parties.

Udinese, Cagliari and Brescia are all at differing stages of the process but expected to transact before the beginning of next season.

Udinese owner Gino Pozzo is also understood to be looking to sell Watford as he steps away from football. Pozzo was, at one stage, a multi-club pioneer with Udinese, Watford and Spanish side Granada regularly loaning or selling players to each other.

Cagliari are in talks with investors that may heat up now the Sardinian club has seemingly secured its place in Serie A next season, while Brescia owner Massimo Cellino has been in advanced talks with a view to selling the Serie B outfit where Pep Guardiola, Roberto Baggio and Andrea Pirlo once wore the famous chevron shirt.

Brentford owner Matthew Benham has completed a deal to buy Spanish third-division side UD Merida in a return to multi-club ownership.

Brentford were previously part of a successful multi-club operation with FC Midtjylland for a decade that involved numerous player and executive trades, but Benham sold the Danish club two years ago.

The Merida purchase has been executed by Brentford’s new holding company set up last month, Best Intentions Analytics, rather than the club itself. Brentford are also seeking minority investment in the west London club, but having been on the market for over a year have yet to find a partner willing to match Benham’s £400m+ valuation.

Brentford’s ownership of Midtjylland proved extremely profitable for the club, giving them first-mover advantage in the Danish market and helping them to sign players such as Mikkel Damsgaard, Christian Norgaard and Mathias Jensen. In an indication of the close alignment of the two clubs former Brentford director of football Rasmus Ankersen was also Chairman of Midtjylland until he left the group in 2021 to join another multi-club group, Sport Republic, owners of Southampton.

Brentford are hoping that buying Merida, a small city in the south west of Spain close to the Portuguese border, will give them similar advantages in the Spanish market. The club are currently fifth in the Primera Federación, the third tier, and on course to reach the play-offs for promotion to La Liga 2 for the first time.

No news on Reading, who must transact by April 22 after the EFL extended their deadline.

Rob Couhig is understood to be the only serious bidder left but hurdles remain.

Ronaldo is expected to hold on to Real Valladolid and attempt to return them to the top flight after turning down further offers for the club. The Brazilian has set a deadline of the end of the month to enter exclusivity with a buyer or knuckle down and focus on next season.

Rooted to the bottom of La Liga, Valladolid’s relegation will be confirmed in the coming weeks and the club has been enveloped by tumult all season long, with fan protests and Ronaldo announcing he would sell the club in order to run for the presidency of the Brazilian football federation (CBF).

After failing to get to grips with the politics of the CBF and withdrawing from the election before he could even mount a full campaign, Ronaldo no longer has to dispense with Valladolid and has decided he can’t stomach selling the club for less than he paid - unloading €30m for a 51% stake in 2018.

Given revenues in Spain’s second tier, the club’s value as whole would be around €25-30m now depending on valuation models.

Vegas to host World Cup draw

FIFA are in advanced negotiations with venues in Las Vegas over hosting the 2026 World Cup draw next December, as reported by The Athletic.

While a return to Las Vegas, which hosted the draw for the 1994 World Cup, is cited as the preferred option for FIFA due to the commercial benefits, Washington has also been discussed as a potential venue as staging the draw in the capital could help secure the involvement of President Trump.

FIFA president Gianni Infantino has prioritised building good relations with Trump since his election last year, and had several meetings in Washington last month. The new Club World Cup trophy was photographed in one of their meetings in the Oval Office, with Trump signing off the creation of a World Cup Task Force.

Despite the Trump factor FIFA have held talks with several venues in Vegas about hosting the draw, including the MGM Grand Garden Arena, the T-Mobile Arena and The Sphere.

More opposition for 64-team World Cup

South America’s desire to expand the 2030 World Cup to 64 teams continues to meet opposition from other federations. 

CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez will officially propose the expansion at next month’s FIFA Congress in Paraguay, which will host one of three matches in South America in 2030 before the rest of the tournament shifts to Spain, Portugal and Morocco, but is struggling to find supporters elsewhere.

UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin and Asian Football Confederation president Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa have rejected the idea, with the influential CONCACAF boss Victor Montagliani the latest to outline his opposition.

“We haven't had a 48-team World Cup yet so expanding to 64 should not be on the table,” he said this week.

FIFA, whose decision to expand the World Cup to 48 teams for the 2026 World Cup was widely criticised at the time, have committed to discussing the proposal.

FA lose more talent to Saudi

A second senior Football Association executive in a year is moving to Saudi Arabia. As reported by the Daily Mail on Tuesday, Chief Regulatory Officer Tarik Shamel is leaving the FA to join Saudi Football Federation for a new role focussed on planning their preparations to host the 2034 World Cup.

Shamel, who spent 20 years at the FA running their integrity and investigations departments, will be reunited with former colleague Polly Handford, who was the FA’s head of legal before joining the SFF as General Counsel last year.

Shamel’s wide-ranging role will be split into two new jobs by the FA.

Someone explain this to me

UEFA’s attempts to make the Champions League final into more of an entertainment bonanza reminiscent of the Super Bowl continue this summer with the announcement of Linkin Park as the performers of the pre-match show.

A curious choice.