FootBiz newsletter #77: Champions League semi-finals, Man United cuts, Mastantuono and Leeds talks

Oh yes, it’s the Champions League semi-finals this week, one of the best parts of the football calendar as four huge clubs each with their own interesting stories prepare to fight it out over back-to-back games in different countries to try and win the biggest trophy in club football.

(Sorry, Gianni, yours doesn’t quite have the cachet yet even if it’s massive in diameter)

It’s Arsenal vs PSG first and then Barcelona vs Inter for a place in Munich on May 31, where there exists the possibility that — for the first time ever — both the men’s and women’s Champions Leagues feature the same teams. Arsenal Women and Barca Femení both booked their place in the final this weekend.

Barcelona and Inter meeting at this stage immediately evokes their now-legendary 2010 semi-final, andor nostalgia fans here is a good retrospective of that lava-affected two-legged battle to the death.

Whichever side emerges from that semi will very much feel like the establishment team in the final, the club that has been there and done it before but which would be more formally entering a glorious new era.

For Simone Inzaghi, who has lost a Champions League final already this decade, it has become about cementing Inter as Italy’s top club in the wake of Juventus’ self-inflicted decline and AC Milan’s inconsistency amid ownership changes.

For Hansi Flick, a German so conspicuously not rooted in the much-lauded ‘Barca DNA’, this has been about proving himself as one of the world’s best coaches in an unexpected environment, further decorating a curious career that sees him maintain a low profile despite winning a sextuple at Bayern and the Champions League in his first season. Winning a Champions League at a second club would put him in rare air in coaching circles alongside modern greats like Mourinho, Guardiola and Ancelotti.

Arsenal and PSG feel like the new kids on the block comparatively. Neither has won the competition before but both have flirted with it, losing finals this century.

Obviously with Nasser al-Khelaifi wearing so many hats these days, sitting on the board of the ECA and UEFA, a PSG win would represent something of an establishment win. But there is also the feeling that it could be the peak (and beginning of the end?) of Qatar’s project in Paris. Should they win the big-eared trophy, is there anything left to do?

Arsenal look set to establish something akin to a Wengerian era under Mikel Arteta, with the Basque coach likely to become one of the longest-serving bosses in the Premier League (and beyond) as the club increasingly is built around his vision.

Winning the European Cup would elevate him to an entirely new level, making history in north London, while piling more expectations on them to eventually win that evasive Premier League title.

It’s going to be a great couple of weeks and it starts tonight. Here’s the newsletter….

Table of Contents

• Real Madrid shame themselves, coaching update

• Regulation or free-for-all: football’s fork in the …

• More cuts to Man United scouting dept.

• For Farke’s sake

• Eagle search for board members

• UEC making political gains

• Stadium updates

• M&A Murmurs

• River Plate’s football factory

• Birmingham make big claim

Real Madrid shame themselves, coaching update

Watching a referee cry in a pre-match press conference is a pretty surreal footballing moment.

It is also a reminder of the human cost of clubs’ inability to accept bad luck at face value and the infantile yet litigious environment they are increasingly cultivating.

As Referee Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea detailed the effect that criticism and abuse had had on him and his family, it was hard not to feel angry at the frankly pathetic reaction of Real Madrid to his performances in recent games.

A change in mood that began with Jose Mourinho’s WWE-style management of the club over a decade ago, Madrid are now football’s biggest whiners while simultaneously being utterly devoid of self-awareness. The Guardian’s Jonathan Wilson neatly summarised them as “a club once obsessed by señorío, doing things the right way, [that] became seduced by the consolations of imagined persecution, a trait they have still not shaken off.”

Nothing bad that happens, to them or anyone else, could ever possibly be their fault.

Coming off the back of the club’s formal complaints and legal action over refereeing decisions that have gone against them, it was poetic that Saturday’s Copa del Rey final saw Madrid get the borderline decisions and still manage to disgrace themselves.

Barcelona appeared to have won a penalty with the final kick of the game in stoppage time, only for a VAR review to surprisingly overturn it.

Jules Koundé got a winner in extra time but Bengoetxea (the man that hates Madrid and cheats to hurt them, remember?) awarded Madrid their own penalty at the death only for the assistant to rule Kylian Mbappe offside.

Madrid’s anger spilled over after the final whistle in the shape of three red cards; one for Lucas Vazquez, one for Jude Bellingham and a third for Antonio Rudiger, who had to be restrained by teammates and staff amid an aggressive outburst. Vini Junior, who had already been substituted but ran onto the field to protest to the referee, was somehow not sent off but should have been.

Rudiger faces a suspension of up to 30 games for his conduct, though realistically it seems as if he will get somewhere between four and twelves games as a ban.

Tell us again how it’s the officiating that’s the problem….

We continue to follow the story surrounding Real Madrid’s head coaching position. 

Last week The Athletic presented the deal as a fait accompli while local media in the Spanish capital kept their distance from the story, having 24 hours earlier said that Ancelotti had turned down Brazil. 

On Sunday The Athletic went one stop further and reported that Ancelotti was taking the Brazil role and had already begun informing people at the training ground. 

Marca’s front page on Monday claimed that the Italian, a five-time Champions League winner as a coach, was “continuing to give absolute preference to Madrid” though conceding that the Brazilian federation are confident of getting their man and that Xabi Alonso is waiting for news from the Bernabeu. The other major Madrid newspaper AS did not even address the story.  

Regulation or free-for-all: football’s fork in the road

Yesterday, premium subscribers received Rob’s in-depth look at financial fair play, 20 years in the making and the signpost at football’s fork in the road.

You can read that here, and click here if you want to upgrade to premium.

More cuts to Man United scouting dept.

Manchester United’s scouting department will bear the brunt of the latest redundancy drive imposed by minority shareholder Sir Jim Ratcliffe, with the club’s plans for cuts to crystallise this week.

The Athletic reported over the weekend that United’s director of scouting, Steve Brown, has opted to leave the club after being asked to take an alternative role with more significant cuts to their scouting team expected. Ratcliffe wants United to commit more resources to data and analytics rather than traditional scouting, which was once one of their great strengths.

United employ around 80 scouts globally, which Ratcliffe has concluded is too many, although the department has already been trimmed from a high watermark of 140 scouts two years. Around 200 job losses are expected across the club following 250 redundancies last summer, which taken together will result in United’s workforce being cut by more than a third in little over 12 months.

Ratcliffe is keen on a more data-led approach to player recruitment but is yet to show that he knows how to achieve this, recently surprising rival clubs by hiring a Formula 1 engineer to a senior data role.

For Farke’s sake

Leeds Chairman Paraag Marathe will hold talks with manager Daniel Farke this week in an attempt to resolve the manager’s future. The Guardian reported yesterday that Marathe flew in from Green Bay after attending the NFL draft on behalf of San Francisco 49ers, where he is Vice President of Football.

Members of the 49ers Enterprises consortium that owns Leeds have privately expressed doubts about whether Farke is the right man to manage the club in the Premier League, despite the German leading them to promotion his season and earning 90 points in the previous campaign. Farke was relegated from the Premier League in the 2019-20 season with Norwich, who sacked him early in the 2021-22 campaign after he had led them back to the top-flight at the first attempt.

Marathe watched Leeds’s Championship match against Bristol City at Elland Road last night, where Farke suddenly pulled out of the pre-match television interview. The home support sang the name of the German coach in a clear act of support, and Leeds chairman Marathe will meet Farke later this week. He is also due to attend their final game of the season at relegated Plymouth Argyle on Saturday.

Eagle search for board members

John Textor’s Eagle Football are planning on adding new members to their Board ahead of an IPO in New York, which has been delayed from last month.

Bloomberg reported last week that the new directors will include Frank Patterson, president and CEO of the Trilith film studios in Georgia which has produced several Spider-Man and Avengers films; and Sam Lynn, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs.

Eagle are working with UBS Group AG ahead of a planned IPO in New York, where listed companies are encouraged to have a group of independent non-executive directors. Eagle’s principal lender Ares have compiled a shortlist of candidates, with Textor given the final say on appointments as Chairman.

Eagle own 45 per cent of Crystal Palace, and are majority owners of Lyon, Botafogo and Belgian club RWD Molenbeek.

UEC making political gains

The European Commission invited the chairman of the Union of European Clubs (UEC), Alex Muzio, to Brussels to discuss regulatory and financial issues in football as pressure grows over the lack of representation for clubs outside the elite in European football.

While the European Club Association (ECA) has broadened its membership as a response to the UEC’s representation of smaller clubs and arguments for a more equitable financial distribution within football, ECA’s 500+ associate members do not get to vote on policy matters at the general assembly.

Ordinary members of the ECA, which includes the biggest clubs in the world, vote on all matters at a general assembly and are eligible for all bodies, creating something of a two-tier system that prioritises the interests of elite teams.

Muzio met with Glenn Micallef, the Commissioner for Intergenerational Fairness, Youth, Culture and Sport among others.

Stadium updates

Bournemouth owner Bill Foley has bought the Vitality Stadium from a local property company, Structadene, as the first step towards more than doubling the ground’s capacity to 23,000.

The club, then in the third tier, sold the ground for £3.5million to raise funds when it was known as Dean Court 20 years ago and have been paying rent to Structadene to play there ever since.

Foley has created a new company to run the Vitality – Black Knight Stadium Limited – but has no immediate plans to change its name. The American has looked at alternative sites for a ground in Bournemouth, but has opted to rebuild the club’s existing home in a gradual process that could take up to six years. The initial phase of redevelopment will take the capacity to just over 20,000, but an extra 3000 seats could be added at a later date.

Aston Villa are concerned that Villa Park may be unable to host games at the 2028 European Championship without improvements to local transport links. The club announced plans to take the capacity of Villa Park beyond 50,000 from 42,918 by the end of 2027 last week, but need the support of Birmingham City Council to improve local transport links.

The biggest issue is a proposed redevelopment of nearby Witton railway station, which is used by thousands of supporters for every Villa game. The club want to double the match-day capacity of the station to 10,000 passengers, and claim their stadium expansion will be impossible without Council backing.

“Without that commitment we will be unable to proceed with this project and furthermore would need to reexamine whether we would be able to continue as a Euro 2028 host venue,” Villa said in a statement last week.

Villa Park is one of nine stadia selected as a Euro 2028 venue, although the tournament has already lost one ground after a proposed redevelopment of Windsor Park in Belfast collapsed due to a local political row over funding.

Leeds United will progress plans for their updated, expanded Elland Road stadium to the public consultation phase as they seek to increase the capacity from 37,645 to an estimated 53,000.

Having returned to the Premier League, and now funded by the sporting heavyweights in the shape of the 49ers and Red Bull, Leeds are looking to buttress their already strong financial position by growing the capacity.

As with every stadium upgrade these days, a focus will be on increasing and diversifying the hospitality offering.

Leeds already has more than 26,000 fans on its season ticket waiting list.

M&A Murmurs

Leyton Orient chairman Nigel Travis will remain in his post despite David Gandler becoming the new majority owner at Brisbane Road.

The CEO of FuBo TV is buying the east London club for around £15m and the new holding company is called GSG LOFC Limited, with Gandler owning just shy of 80% of the holdco.

“Our aim is to become a Championship club in the future,” he said. “We hope to achieve this by making sensible investments in our playing squad and off-pitch projects. Whilst we are very ambitious, we will not spend recklessly and will never make decisions that could jeopardise the future of this special football club.

“I still have lots more to learn about Leyton Orient and our fans and I’m very much looking forward to embracing those history lessons and meeting supporters in person.”

Orient have won five games in a row at the best possible time, sneaking into the final playoff spot in League One with just one game to go.

Should they beat Huddersfield — or simply match the result of M&A Murmurs mainstays Reading in their game against Barnsley — then they will be in the playoffs for a shot at reaching the Championship.

“Explain in your article that Ronaldo is a terrible president, he’s ruined a historic club,” said one Valladolid season ticket-holder to Dermot Corrigan, as The Athletic’s La Liga correspondent headed to Castilla La Mancha to work out what the hell was happening with the protracted sale of the club.

It’s hard to sum up the feeling in Valladolid better than that, and despite a number of interested parties there is unlikely to now be a sale.

After turning down a number of offers, Ronaldo himself had put a deadline of the end of April to sell the club before knuckling down and preparing for a season in the second tier. The Brazilian remains confident he can oversee an instant return to the top flight but those around the club are less sure. By surrounding himself with yes-men, there is a feeling that he has lost sight of the fair market value of the club but also the uphill battle to get promoted again, considering how the sporting department has been managed.

Local reports two weeks ago once again claimed a Mexican group was close to a deal but, as has been the case with others, the goalposts were moved by the selling side at a late stage. If the Mexican consortium returns to the table then perhaps there is a chance for a U-turn but it looks like Valladolid are stuck with Ronaldo for a while longer.

River Plate’s football factory

A fun story from Marca, who report that Barcelona are interested in signing Atletico Madrid and Argentina forward Julian Alvarez as their longer term replacement for Robert Lewandowski.

I say fun because there is some history here.

When Manchester City were building out the City Football Group under Ferran Soriano and Txiki Begiristain, they hired a number of former Barcelona executives and functionaries to help execute on their blueprint.

One of those was Joan Patsy, who was charged with leading City’s scouting in South America, which eventually broadened into leading their football operations there and, later, becoming the director of football for the whole City Football Group. An initial two-year posting has now lasted 10+ years.

When Julian Alvarez was first lighting things up as a teenager at River Plate, a director of the Argentine giants asked Patsy for a number of someone at Barca to check if they still had interest in the young forward.

Patsy never passed on the number.

Instead, he and City pounced on Alvarez, who won the Champions League and World Cup in 2022, and they would later sell him on for a £50m profit to Atleti.

Now he may finally get the Barca move that River Plate tried for all those years ago.

The most in-demand young player on earth right now is also a River Plate starlet, 17 year-old Franco Mastantuono, and he added some rocket fuel to his already burning hot reputation with a divine free kick in the Superclasico against Boca Juniors on Sunday.

A number 10 by trade who currently mainly plays from the right, where he cuts inside on his stronger left foot, Mastantuono already has a €50m release clause in his contract that Europe’s elite consider a bargain given his age.

River director Stefano Di Carlo claimed that Mastantuono will stay with the club until at least the end of 2025, though if a European club triggered his release clause after his 18th birthday in August then technically the Argentines would be powerless to stop him leaving.

“There is agreement between the parties to develop the matter very slowly and naturally,” added Di Carlo.

To what extent that plan is allowed to play out will be dictated by Real Madrid, Manchester United and Manchester City, who have all watched him extensively and made contact with his entourage.

Mastantuono will have his pick of Europe’s biggest clubs when he comes to make a decision.

City cash in on IRC scheme

Manchester City are the biggest winners from UEFA’s international release compensation scheme, which rewards clubs that produce and release their players for international duty. In figures for the 2020/24 cycle published last week UEFA revealed that City had received £5.17million from a £200m pot distributed to 901 clubs across 55 countries, significantly more than the next best talent producers Real Madrid, who were paid £4.1m.

The payments relate to appearances in UEFA Nations League fixtures, European Championship qualifiers and last year’s finals in Germany, rather than friendlies. UEFA’s windfall to City is unlikely to improve relations between the two parties or stop the club’s fans booing the Champions League anthem, a long-running dispute which really began when they were charged with breaching Financial Fair Play rules by the European governing body 11 years ago.

Birmingham make big claim

Championship rivals will welcome two big brands into the league next year, with Birmingham City and Wrexham both securing their place in the second tier. 

For Birmingham, a disastrous and self-inflicted relegation was followed by a record spend for a League One club and, in the end, a fairly easy walk to automatic promotion and a likely title. 

Knighthead Capital’s mistakes may have precipitated their drop out of the Championship but the Blues have confidence that they will be back among the big boys in the second tier, with potentially record-breaking revenue to fuel their bid to return to the Premier League after 15 years away from the top flight. 

“If our revenue progresses as we expect into next season, which is basically a certainty, we will be the highest revenue-generating club in the Championship ever not receiving parachute payments - and we will be on a par with those receiving parachute payments” claimed chairman Tom Wagner.

Rival executives are pulling out their abacuses and trying to work out how exactly Wagner got to those numbers but it will be interesting to see the extent of their ambition now they are back in the second tier.

Wrexham’s Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and the other guy have lost an estimated £20m+ in helping to propel their club from the National League to the Championship, and their ambition is to reach the Premier League.

Expectations are that next season will be a battle for survival, as they will no longer be able to so comprehensively outspend their divisional rivals. The Welsh club will, however, boast above-average Championship revenue after posting £26.5m revenue in League Two and an expected £30m+ in League One, but it won’t be multiples bigger than their rivals as it has been in recent seasons.