FootBiz newsletter #79: Trent Alexander-Arnold to join Xabi Alonso at Real Madrid

It was a Bank Holiday Monday in the UK yesterday, which has always struck me as a funny term considering banks aren’t necessarily renowned for being open all the time. Why would they need specific days carved out to get some extra rest?

Anyway, traditionally they’re fairly quiet days but that doesn’t tend to stop the steady stream of football news.

More specifically, Trent Alexander-Arnold took the opportunity to announce he would be leaving Liverpool on a free transfer this summer.

Alexander-Arnold is a boyhood fan who won everything there is to win at the club of his dreams, creating from absolutely nothing one of the key moments of their Champions League victory, and thus the decision is eminently understandable for a 26-year-old wanting to test himself in a different environment and experience new things.

Of course, the Liverpool fanbase has not necessarily seen it that way.

Rather than directing their ire at a fellow fan, fingers could (should?) just as adequately be pointed at the club leadership that didn’t extend his contract, whose ceaseless caving to the annual power grabs by their former manager saw those responsible for extending contracts like Trent’s walk away from the club, and who only seriously engaged the England international in serious talks once the clock was ticking all too loudly.

By then, Alexander-Arnold had been allowed too much time to contemplate whether the grass was greener elsewhere, and with Liverpool romping to a title this season things became even easier for the academy product to leave on the happiest terms possible, with internal peace.

It will be a stupendous acquisition for Real Madrid, a club who have shamed themselves recently but who know a player when they see one. Alexander-Arnold is a £100m+ talent who brings elite creation from the full-back position, which will suit Madrid down to the ground.

Alexander-Arnold’s own personal brand will now skyrocket, he has a six-year contract which will pay him handsomely for almost all of what remains of his professional career while challenging for titles every year - and even if the move were to somehow fail then Madrid would be able to sell him back to the Premier League for a healthy profit in a couple of years.

As has appeared obvious for a couple of weeks since David Ornstein and Mario Cortegana broke the story, Xabi Alonso figures to be Trent’s new coach in the Spanish capital.

Bayer Leverkusen won’t win the title this year, but last year’s unbeaten season and double heroics to dethrone Bayern have cemented the World Cup-winning midfielder among the coaching elite. Now he will get his opportunity to prove it, once Madrid and Leverkusen have stage managed their respective departures and replacements.

Speaking on the departure of his coach, Bayer Leverkusen captain Granit Xhaka preferred to take a positive framing of events and focus on the success the club had enjoyed under Alonso.

“Whatever happens, we had a great time,” he said.

As much as yesterday’s news hurts, Liverpool fans would do well to take a similar approach to the long-mooted, now confirmed, departure of one of their own.

Table of Contents

• Political fallout

• Kang’s world

• Paris FC hit the big time

• Hoops coach on the way out

• Multi-club ownership Leeds to confusion

• New law to prevent PL games abroad

• M&A Murmurs

• Textor: Lage claim ‘unenforceable’

Political fallout

An intriguing political sub-plot has emerged in the ongoing saga of the government’s appointment of Chair of the Independent Football Regulator, which has had far more twists and turns than this season’s rather moribund Premier League title race, as we have discussed extensively in this newsletter.

Rob Draper has written a piece for premium FootBiz subscribers about the impending appointment of David Kogan, which will be published ahead of the media rights experts pre-appointment hearing in front of a Department for Culture, Media and Sport select committee on Wednesday, with the ramifications set to continue.

The Sunday Times’ Tim Shipman reported last weekend that Sir Keir Starmer is planning to abolish DCMS and merge it with other departments in a move that would also involve the dismissal of Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, as part of the fallout from Labour’s defeat in last week’s Runcorn by-election.

As Rob details, the choice of Kogan is one of a number of issues over which Nandy has clashed with Starmer, who has been heavily involved in the appointment process over the last few weeks.

Kang’s world

There are two worrying trends in women’s football that are working against Michelle Kang.

The first is that — as in the men’s Premier League — all of the teams promoted from the second tier to the top flight have been relegated in back-to-back years. In the case of the WSL, that meant Bristol City last year and Crystal Palace this season going straight back down to the Championship.

The second is that independent clubs, those not attached to a men’s team, are generally struggling in (European) football.

Next season, the London City Lionesses will look to buck both of those trends after gaining promotion to the WSL, a place they plan to stay and a league where they will be the only club that isn’t already a household name in the men’s game.

"We have been building a team to be at a minimum, on day one, mid-tier WSL," she told Sky Sports.

"When I first came a lot of people were very concerned for me, asking, as an independent team: 'how can you do this because you don't have a men's team from which you can draw the equity, the brand power and the fanbase?'

"As an independent team, to accomplish this in one year, is proof that with proper investment and resources anything is possible. This is proof, we are only going up."

Kang is one of the most significant figures in women’s football, putting her money where her mouth is after setting out to grow the game. She has invested in three successful teams and donated significant sums to US Soccer, most recently a $25m gift termed more fittingly as an investment in its future. As part of that investment, her privately-founded (and funded) Kynisca Innovation Hub will be integrated into the USSF’s foundation, enabling the hub to perform valuable research that had run into obstacles working alongside Kang’s multi-club ownership model.

With a dedication to undertaking much-needed research into the health and physiology of women footballers, the idea is that the hub will — over time — build a performance blueprint to be rolled out across elite teams. That will now extend beyond Kang’s own portfolio of the Lionesses, NWSL’s Washington Spirit and OL Féminin in France to include the USWNT and other clubs and franchises beyond.

Her donations to US Soccer are also earmarked for youth camps at national team age group level, talent identification and scouting, and education and mentorship for women seeking to become coaches or referees.

The Lionesses might not have an easy time sticking in the WSL but they appear to have the right owner to give them the best chance.

Paris FC hit the big time

Also promoted to the top flight, albeit in the men’s game, are Paris FC.

The Parisian club last year saw Agache Sport, owned by France’s richest man and his family, buy a majority of the club with Red Bull acquiring just over 10% to form one of the more interesting ownership groups in football.

Given the financial struggles in Ligue 1, Paris FC figure to be one of the better-backed clubs in a league where owner contributions are now essential.

It also means a Parisian derby, and Paris FC share a stadium with rugby’s Stade Francais just a matter of yards from Paris Saint-Germain’s Parc des Princes.

They will join Lorient, owned by Bill Foley’s Black Knight group, in promotion to Ligue 1.

Meanwhile at the other end of Ligue 2, Caen finished rock-bottom and fully 10 points adrift of the next club, meaning the team that is now 80% owned by Kylian Mbappe will next season be playing in the French tier, where one side has a stadium capacity of 995.

Hoops coach on the way out

Highly rated QPR coach Marti Cifuentes appears set to leave the club this summer after being placed on gardening leave last week.

The Spanish coach, who joined from Hammarby in October 2023, has been linked with a number of jobs including the vacancies at Norwich City and West Bromwich Albion.

QPR chief executive Christian Nourry described the situation as “disappointing”, while West Brom denied any interest in Cifuentes via local media.

The Spaniard is now expected to leave the club this month.

Multi-club ownership Leeds to confusion

One of the pitfalls of multi-club ownership has been illustrated by the speculation which has raged over the past fortnight about the future of Leeds manager, Daniel Farke, which was (fuelled by and then) finally clarified by Chairman Paraag Marathe after he lifted the Championship trophy last weekend.

"I have ended the speculation. He is my man,” Marathe told BBC Radio Leeds on Sunday evening, though only after almost two weeks of silence following reports Leeds’ owners were considering appointing a new manager for their return to the Premier League.

While the extent to which Farke’s job was in jeopardy after guiding Leeds to promotion with a tally of 100 points – the third time the German has taken a side up from the Championship – may never be known, the situation was not helped by the fact that the club’s owners, 49ers Enterprises, are also busy recruiting a new manager for Glasgow Rangers.

Although the 49ers’ £100m+ investment in Rangers has not yet been completed, the California-based group are understood to be leading the search for a manager to replace caretaker boss Barry Ferguson, who has been in temporary charge since Philippe Clement was sacked in February.

The 49ers’ technical director Gretar Steinsson, who previously held the same role at Leeds, is leading the process and has held talks with numerous potential managers. The possibility of the Leeds job also becoming available at some point is thought to have been raised in some of those discussions, leading to some confusion among potential candidates, though following Marathe’s comments Farke can consider himself safe at Elland Road for the start of the season at least.

The 49ers are hoping the Rangers takeover will be completed next month.

New law to prevent PL games abroad

The UK government is ready to back plans to add provisions to the Football Governance Bill that would prevent the Premier League and EFL from staging competitive matches abroad. The move would be welcomed by fans’ groups, who are concerned that clubs will seek to cash in on their global popularity by moving games overseas in a radical break with tradition expected to be approved by FIFA this year.

Liverpool’s chair, Tom Werner, told the Financial Times last year that he wants to see competitive league matches games played in New York, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Riyadh and Rio de Janeiro, although the Premier League say they have “no plans” to do so. Premier League policy is decided by its members, however, and if 14 clubs wanted to play overseas the executive would, at present, be unable to stop them.

Fans’ groups and some MPs want to see legislation introduced that would rule it out completely however, and view the Governance Bill as the best mechanism. While there is already a clause in the bill stating clubs must seek permission from the new independent football regulator “to move home games elsewhere,” there are plans to submit an amendment at the committee stage that would explicitly prohibit taking a single match abroad.

The bill to create the Independent Football Regulator had its second reading in the House of Commons last week, but MPs will have another chance to submit amendments in parliamentary committees.

M&A Murmurs

The long-awaited sale of Reading is due to be finally completed after almost 600 days on the market at an EFL Board meeting this Thursday.

Reading announced on Saturday that owner Dai Yongge had agreed a deal in principle to sell the club to former Wycombe owner Rob Couhig, with the EFL Board meeting to ratify the deal later this week.

Yongge previously withdrew from a £25m deal to sell the club to Couhig last summer, but having subsequently been disqualified as a director by the EFL and no other offers on the table the Chinese businessman is expected to proceed with this sale. The takeover includes the Select Car Leasing Stadium and Reading’s Bearwood Park training ground, with Couhig buying the club with Todd Trosclair through their Redwood Holdings Limited investment vehicle.

Fans at Real Valladolid’s defeat to Barcelona brought protest signs and fake €500 bills adorned with a simple message: “Ronaldo go home”.

Seeking to utilise their last moment in the national spotlight before a relegation that has been obvious for some months now, fans chanted for the former Brazil striker to sell the club amid local whispers that the long-rumoured Mexican group interested in the club were willing to meet Ronaldo’s elevated asking price.

Whether that actually comes to pass should become clear in the next week or so, given the self-imposed deadline for a sale.

Textor: Lage claim ‘unenforceable’

Crystal Palace’s biggest shareholder, John Textor, has admitted offering Portuguese coach Bruno Lage a contract worth at least £2.7million to manage the Premier League side or his French club Lyon this season, but is defending himself against a claim for compensation on the grounds that it was unenforceable.

Lage is suing Textor’s holding company, Eagle Football Limited, for £6m in damages as he was not offered either job despite having what his claim despites as a “legally binding contract” covering the period from January 1 to April 15 2024, which he allegedly signed when being appointed coach of Eagle’s Brazilian club Botafogo in July 2023. The Portuguese, who is now at Benfica, was dismissed after less than three months and not offered another job by Textor.

Palace appointed Oliver Glasner as their new manager in February 2024, while Lyon hired Pierre Sage as their new head coach in July 2024. In his submission to the High Court Textor admits he signed the "alleged contract" in July 2023 but claims it is an "unenforceable agreement in law".

Having submitted their written testimony both parties are waiting to be given a date for a pre-trial hearing.