FootBiz newsletter #80: Brazil fraud probe, Real Madrid's negotiation and Ronaldo's race against time

Paris Saint-Germain will play Internazionale in the final of the Champions League, and it will be the first time the two clubs have ever met in serious competition.

They have, of course, met in money-spinning pre-season friendlies overseas. In fact, they have met on five occasions in friendly matches and those all came in the past 11 years as the volume and intensity of these far-flung tours has increased.

After meeting for low stakes in Tokyo, Macau, Doha, Marrakech and even the third world (Eugene, Oregon) they now meet for the highest stakes in European club football in Munich at the end of the month.

Both teams played outstanding counter-attacking football to win their respective semi-finals, winning the ball back and then punishing their opponents in transition. From that perspective, it feels a very fitting final, in footballing terms, for the age we live in.

Similarly, nothing says elite football in 2025 more than having one club owned by the sovereign wealth fund of a Middle Eastern petrostate and the other by an American investment fund.

In other ways you could say it feels like a throwback. For example, you have to go back to 1992-93 for the last time a French club met an Italian club in the European Cup final, which coincidentally also took place in Munich.

The French club on that day (Marseille) beat Inter’s crosstown rivals AC Milan, though it is a triumph that will always have an asterisk against it due to the match-fixing scandal that engulfed the club, resulting in their enforced relegation domestically and expulsion from the following season’s Champions League, Super Cup and Intercontinental Cup. Witnesses also claim the team was doping, though no scientific evidence ever proved it so.

But anyway that’s a rabbit-hole for a different day. Big ol’ newsletter incoming…

Table of Contents

• Madrid to buy Trent early?

• Carlo’s scare as CBF president in fraud probe

• Ronaldo’s race against the clock

• Regulator: I’m no Labour puppet

• Confirmed: León out of CWC

• Bloom buying into Hearts

• Jorge Mendes denies tax fraud

• More access for PL coverage

• ESPN to announce ‘flagship’ next week

• Reading spending 140% of turnover on wages

• World Cup visas back in focus

• Amorim: We don’t talk about Bruno

Madrid to buy Trent early?

Trent Alexander-Arnold’s move to Real Madrid has not been announced yet by the Spanish club as they seek to secure his services in time for the Club World Cup.

The full-back’s contract with Liverpool expires on June 30, as the majority of Premier League deals do, but FIFA’s lavishly expanded summer tournament begins on June 15 and a new, truncated transfer window has been introduced to allow clubs to make moves before the competition.

Beyond the obvious need for a right-back, with Dani Carvajal out long-term with an ACL injury and Alexander-Arnold representing a significant upgrade on converted winger Lucas Vazquez, signing Alexander-Arnold in the mini-window at the start of June would allow the Spanish giants to cash in commercially by presenting him as a new player in the US.

Real Madrid’s first game is in Miami on June 18, where they play Al-Hilal of Saudi Arabia.

How much Florentino Perez will authorise to free his new signing from his existing contract a couple of weeks early is unclear, and if it isn’t entirely unprecedented then it is at least unusual. Our best estimate would be around €1m and then bringing forward his original contract term by three weeks.

Carlo’s scare as CBF president in fraud probe

We doubt it will ultimately change anything but a scare nonetheless for Carlo Ancelotti/Real Madrid/Xabi Alonso as news breaks in Brazil that the president of their football federation (CBF) Ednaldo Rodrigues will resign in the coming days.

Rodrigues has been investigated for fraud by the country’s highest court, who have now reopened their investigation. He has been accused of fraud in changing the federation’s electoral statutes, including allegations that one of the key signatures was forged and/because the man in question did not have the mental capacity to do so.

The CBF president has pursued Ancelotti for years, so his resignation would understandably give the Italian second thoughts. But that is less of an issue than the fact that the CBF can’t hire a new coach without a president to sign off on it… meaning Carletto would surely be unable to take over in time for the June international break (as has been the sticking point between them and Real Madrid, given the scheduling of the Club World Cup).

A statement from the Brazilian federation read:

The Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) reiterates its commitment to transparency, legality, and good faith in all its institutional actions and decisions.

In light of recent press reports about an alleged fraudulent act in the signature contained in the agreement approved by the Supreme Federal Court (STF), which recognized the legitimacy of President Ednaldo Rodrigues' election, the CBF clarifies that it has not yet had formal access to the aforementioned expert report, supposedly signed by a private expert, which is being used in a media-led and hasty manner, in a true sensationalism that serves far from republican interests and apparently questioned by third parties completely unrelated to the process.

The CBF emphasizes that all actions related to the aforementioned agreement were carried out within the law and with the participation of duly authorized representatives. The process was legitimate, and the agreement was approved.

It is absolutely false that this process has been reopened at the request of a parliamentarian.

Ronaldo’s race against the clock

If Ednaldo Rodrigues is out of his job, triggering an election, then it is also interesting timing for Ronaldo Nazario.

The former Brazil striker and Ballon d’Or winner announced he was ending his campaign to become CBF president earlier this spring after failing to even get a foot in the door with the heads of Brazil’s regional federations, who vote for the new president.

Part of that was because there was a president in place, so things may change a little on the political front.

But he still can’t become president of the CBF while he still owns Real Valladolid. Either he needs to sell the club this month or the election could come too quickly for him.

The latest noises suggest a deal could close within a week, but we’ve heard that before.

Regulator: I’m no Labour puppet

The chairman of the new independent football regulator, David Kogan, insisted he is not a “Labour puppet” after revealing that he donated money to the leadership campaigns of both Sir Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy at his pre-appointment hearing in front of the department for Culture, Media and Sport select committee yesterday.

Rob wrote about Kogan’s strong Labour connections and previous donations to the party in a piece for premium subscribers earlier this week, but it was not known that the media rights specialist had personally pledged funds to the Prime Minister and Culture Secretary Nandy until yesterday.

Responding to a question from the chair of the CMS Committee, Caroline Dinenage MP, about whether he was “in the pocket of the Prime Minister, in cahoots with the secretary of state, a puppet of the Labour government?” Kogan went on the front foot.

“I recognise there is a perception of bias and the way you correct a perception is by action, by delivery, by being transparent and being held to account –  all of those things I absolutely pledge to you I will be,” he said. “I have been a donor to the Labour party; I have been utterly transparent about it. I am prepared to declare now that five years ago I contributed very small sums to the leadership campaigns of both Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy. 

“But I did those donations to individual parliamentary candidates, none of whom were MPs, in the belief that having a leadership battle in the Labour party between two seasoned candidates was a good thing. And I have never been particularly close to any of the individuals to whom I’ve donated money, so I have total personal independence from all of them.

“I have never had a one-on-one meeting with Keir Starmer. I have never met him since he has become Prime Minister; literally not been in a room with him.”

Confirmed: León out of CWC

León have officially and finally been excluded from the Club World Cup due to rules over multi-club ownership. The Court of Arbitration for Sport announced its decision yesterday after a hearing in Lausanne.

León have been excluded as they are majority-owned by Grupo Pachuca, whose other club, Pachuca, also qualified. While FIFA loses the star quality and recognisable face of James Rodriguez from the tournament, they will gain either Mexico’s biggest brand, Club America, or another American team in the shape of LAFC.

FIFA have not publicly confirmed the final details of the playoff but a 31 May fixture has been mooted for the one-legged playoff, which will bag the winner at least $10m in guaranteed prize money.

The playoff victor will take León’s place in Group D, where they will face Chelsea, Flamengo and ES Tunis.

Bloom buying into Hearts

Brighton owner Tony Bloom has agreed to buy a 29 per cent stake in Scottish Premier League club Heart of Midlothian for £10m, pending a vote from the club’s main fan group. The proposed investment is around half of Hearts’ annual turnover, with Bloom aiming to help the Edinburgh club challenge the dominance of the Old Firm, Celtic and Rangers, who between them have won every Scottish league title for the last 40 years.

Bloom and Hearts have been involved in talks for several months, with full details of their agreement revealed this week. In return for his investment, Bloom will get 29 per cent of the fan-owned club but no voting rights, meaning there would be no dilution of voting power for fans group and majority shareholder the Foundation of Hearts (FoH).

The FoH would continue to hold 75.1 per cent of the voting rights. Bloom is investing on a personal basis rather than on behalf of Brighton. The 55-year-old will be entitled to a seat on the Board, but has indicated that he will put forward a representative to act on his behalf.

In a statement, the Foundation of Hearts have described the proposals as an "unprecedented opportunity for the club" and encouraged members to vote in favour of the plans while confirming that Hearts will not become part of a "multi-club system".

Jorge Mendes denies tax fraud

Super-agent Jorge Mendes is set to pay €18m to Portugal’s tax authorities but has denied allegations of tax fraud levelled at him and his wife, Sandra.

The public prosecutor in Portugal has targeted fraud in football with a long-running investigation called Operation Offside, which has seen raids on the majority of top-flight clubs in recent years as well as a number of Portuguese football’s best-known figures.

Mendes’ homes were searched back in 2020 after documents that emerged from Football Leaks suggested he gifted half of his company to an entity owned by his wife in the Netherlands, allowing him to avoid tax on certain types of income.

One of the world’s best-known representatives, Mendes has acquired preposterous levels of wealth by representing some of the world’s best players and coaches, most notably Cristiano Ronaldo and Jose Mourinho in their pomp and more recently Barcelona’s teen superstar Lamine Yamal.

More access for PL coverage

With leverage seemingly swinging back towards the media rights holders in the delicate balance of power between broadcasters and leagues, one area where I have recently found myself advising league-side clients to unlock more value is an increase in access.

Media access in European football is some of the worst of any major sport. Once you have covered the NFL, where you are allowed to roam the locker rooms after the game to ask questions to any player, or MLB, where you can do the same in the clubhouse, the stale reality of covering football becomes even more obvious.

By way of example, the Premier League mandates a pre-match and post-match press conference from the head coach and the written press may get one player to speak to after the match with those quotes shared among all publications. When Alejandro Garnacho spoke yesterday ahead of tonight’s Europa League semi-final at a UEFA-mandated press conference, it was the first press conference Garnacho has spoken at since joining United (source: Laurie Whitwell of The Athletic).

While part of the protectionism is to preserve value for the companies spending billions on rights, who get a lot more access to players and coaches, the end result is still a huge amount of value leakage for the leagues. A lot of valuable, interesting content simply doesn’t get created because of the fear and conservative nature of the leagues.

As another example, in an era where sporting directors really rule the roost there is no access given to football’s biggest decision-makers. Or their boss, the chief executive. Or their boss, the owner. Even easier would be putting two or three players up for a Zoom every week to allow journalists or content creators to write articles or make videos about those players or the wider team with input from those on the pitch. It doesn’t seem like a ton to ask?

But before this degrades into a rant, we are starting to see the gradual realisation of this value. Inevitably the rights-holders are seeing the benefits first.

Mike Keegan reports for the Mail that the Premier League will now allow camera operators on the pitch to gain better angles of goal celebrations, using 4K steadicams to put viewers right in the middle of the chaos and the joy. The PL is also relaxing its rules surrounding ‘reaction’ videos filmed by members of the accredited media, which is more indicative of the direction of travel and influenced by the success of new media.

It is only a start, and principally benefits those paying billions to the league, but it bodes well as more leagues and governing bodies hopefully begin to twig that being more open and accessible creates more value for everyone in the ecosystem.

ESPN to announce ‘flagship’ next week

Like every linear broadcaster the world over, ESPN has been trying to plot a future amid the shifting tectonic plates of viewer habits.

This has resulted in a multi-year project to build what insiders are still calling ‘flagship’ but which will (with a different name) be announced next week as the future of the company.

ESPN currently receives carriage fees from cable companies as well as selling access to its streaming service ESPN+ in the US. As someone who watches a lot of sport, ESPN+ is a dream product. It is simple to use, boasts 24m subscribers and perfectly serves the market as a portal to all the sports you want to watch that would never make it onto a linear television channel, offering everything from college lacrosse to Belgian football to cornhole in addition to the top-tier events you’d expect, as well as newer, complementary content like alternative broadcasts and digital-native shows.

Flagship (which won’t be called that) is ESPN’s huge new bet, a direct-to-consumer product that they’ve avoided for years for fear it would cannibalise their cable business but that they hope will be more deeply monetisable via commercial integrations - think betting, fantasy football and eventually e-commerce.

Disney CEO Bob Iger said on yesterday’s earnings call that “the plan would be to basically be somewhat agnostic from a subscriber perspective, so that we can still do our best to preserve the multi channel ecosystem.”

And yet within cable companies, there is a fear that if you no longer need cable to get ESPN and you could get it cheaper directly then it will only accelerate the cord-cutting. That fear is supported by internal research done by ESPN, WBD and Fox during their ill-fated Venu experiment.

Why is this all significant? Well, my expectation is that eventually there will be a handful of global (or at least more international) sports streaming apps which have regionalised rights agreements. ESPN’s flagship app project, which they’ve spent years working on with the backing of Disney, seems like a pretty good bet to be among the most significant platforms in sport over the coming decades.

More news next week, when we’ll get a name and release date - though you can safely assume it’ll launch in time for college football to start in late August.

Reading spending 140% of turnover on wages

The scale of the challenge facing prospective new Reading owner Rob Couhig is laid bare in the club’s 2023/24 accounts, which were belatedly published this week.

The League One club’s transfer embargo was lifted by the EFL after their accounts were published six weeks late, a considerable improvement on the 2022/23 accounts which were over 12 months late, although being technically able to register new players does not necessarily mean they will have the funds to sign them.

While Reading’s losses have reduced from £21.7million to £15.5m, and their wage bill cut by £4m to £10m, the club’s wages to turnover ratio is a frankly frightening 140 per cent, which is unsustainable in the long-term.

Couhig and business partner Todd Trosclair will have to demonstrate source and sufficiency of funds to keep the club running for two years to pass the EFL’s owners and directors’ test, so the pair are looking at the thick end of £50m just to buy the club having already agreed to pay £25m to Dai Yongge.

Manager Noel Hunt, who impressed in tough circumstances this season, should not be expecting a transfer splurge this summer.

World Cup visas back in focus

US vice-president JD Vance warned foreign football fans not to outstay their welcome at next summer’s World Cup at the first meeting of Donald Trump’s tournament taskforce, which he announced will be headed by Andrew Giuliani, son of former New York Mayor, Rudy.

Trump and Gianni Infantino were also present at the launch in the two presidents’ third meeting in as many months, another reminder of FIFA’s increasingly close relations with the White House.

“Of course everyone is welcome to come and see this wonderful event,” Vance said. “We want them to come, we want them to celebrate, we want them to watch the games. But when the time is up, we want them to go home. Otherwise, they will have to talk to [Homeland Security secretary] Kristi Noem.”

Trump insisted he is not lobbying for Russia to be parachuted into the tournament despite saying it could be “a good incentive” for them to end the war in Ukraine.

Russia and its clubs have been banned from international football since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and with European qualifying for the tournament having already started without them it would take an extraordinary intervention from FIFA for them to be involved next summer, although Infantino did not rule out it.

“They are banned for the time being from playing but we hope that something happens and peace will happen so that Russia can be readmitted,” he said.

“That’s possible,” Trump responded. “Hey, that could be a good incentive, right? We want to get them to stop. We want them to stop. Five thousand young people a week are being killed – it’s not even believable.”

Trump added that Infantino was “the boss” in any decision over Russia’s participation and that he had “nothing to do” with calls to reinstate them. 

With the way FIFA shoehorned Inter Miami (read: Lionel Messi) into their Club World Cup despite losing in the first round of the MLS playoffs, it’s something that is worth monitoring at the very least.

Amorim: We don’t talk about Bruno

Al-Hilal are willing to offer Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes more than £1m a week to join them this summer, according to the Daily Telegraph. The Saudi Pro League club are looking for a marquee signing after Mohamed Salah opted to stay at Liverpool with Fernandes one of their leading targets.

The Telegraph reports that Al-Hilal have had exploratory talks with Fernandes's camp and are ready to offer the Portuguese midfield player four times his current £250,000-a-week salary at Old Trafford.

Fernandes is under contract at United until 2027, with the option to sign a 12-month extension. The club insist he is not for sale despite their well-documented struggles to comply with the Premier League’s profit and sustainability rules and manager Ruben Amorim’s desire to overhaul his squad.

Given their limited PSR headroom United need to sell players before they can buy this summer, with Amorim keen on Wolves forward Matheus Cunha, Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo and Ipswich Town striker Liam Delap.

Alejandro Garnacho is among those who have been linked with a move away after being the subject of a bid from Napoli in January, while the futures of Antony, Victor Lindelof, Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Casemiro are also expected to lie elsewhere as United look to raise cash.