FootBiz newsletter #83: UEFA ExCo meeting, Crystal Palace's big summer

I love this part of the season. The part where everything is finally decided, where it all makes sense (or often doesn’t) and where promotions, relegations, trophies, goodbyes and all of it play out. The tears, the smiles, the feelings are what football is about at its very core.

Select favourites from the last few days: Sunderland's stoppage-time winner (limbs) over Coventry to go to Wembley, Sampdoria being relegated to the third tier (then being reprieved by the courts), Jamie Vardy’s Leicester City farewell, Everton saying goodbye to Goodison Park, Union Saint-Gilloise edging to the brink of a first league title since 1935(!), village club Elversberg reaching the Bundesliga promotion playoff, Le Havre staying up with a final-day win (sending Saint Etienne down) and, of course, Crystal Palace winning their first-ever major trophy. I mean that with no disrespect to the Palace team who won the Zenith Data Systems Cup in 1991.

Obviously we have a lot of coverage based on these results and changes over the coming weeks, but it’s also the beginnings of transfer season and there are some big deals in the works already.

Broadly, we will only cover the most significant deals and ones that — according to information we have — are actually likely to happen. Where they are not, we will note that accordingly. Clubs’ transfer activity plays a big part in their finances, and so it’s pretty impossible to avoid, but we won’t be providing beat-by-beat, will-they-or-won’t-they coverage of moves.

Our advice is to work out who has a track record of being accurate with transfer news and follow their coverage if you want more volume. There are maybe one or two people on the planet who are well-sourced across multiple clubs and countries, most obviously David Ornstein, but there are plenty of people who are brilliant at individual clubs or in certain markets. Work out which you care about and adjust your transfer news consumption accordingly. Beware of what you read from aggregators, and critically analyse the source of news when you see it.

Also, if anyone knows an app developer with an interest in football please get in touch.

Right, newsletter time….

Table of Contents

• New stadium, new name

• Kogan the barbarian

• WTF CBF?

• Palace intrigue

• Sir Jim’s net worth down £7bn

• Leeds raise £120m from share issue

• FIFA win on agent fees

• UEFA ExCo primer

• Transfers that will happen

• Transfers that won’t happen

New stadium, new name

Everton have succeeded where West Ham and Tottenham failed by securing a naming rights deal for their new stadium at the first attempt.

The club's new home at Bramley-Moore Dock will be known as Hill Dickinson Stadium when they move in next season in a deal worth up to £10m per year. Hill Dickinson are a commercial law firm, founded in Liverpool in 1810, which has expanded to 11 offices across the UK, Europe and Asia.

English football has been largely resistant to naming rights deals due to a combination of aggressive pricing from clubs and fears that the traditionalism of fans would lead to insufficient exposure for brands, so Everton are bucking recent trends. West Ham have been without a naming rights partner at the London Stadium since they moved in eight years ago despite entering exclusive negotiations with several parties, while Tottenham have also been unable to close a deal amidst suggestions that chairman Daniel Levy is demanding £25m per year for a minimum of 10 years.

Everton in contrast have played the market shrewdly, albeit with some help from their (old) friends. USM, the holding company of Alisher Usmanov who was a business partner of former owner Farhad Moshiri, paid £30m for an exclusive option on naming rights for the stadium in 2020, in an extraordinary deal which effectively prevented the club breaching profit and sustainability rules before 2022/23. The club cut ties with the oligarch’s companies after Usmanov was sanctioned following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine three years ago.

Kogan the barbarian

English football’s new regulator, David Kogan, has a hell of a battle on his hands.

From the items that may seem quaint and insignificant to some investors — like changing a club’s badge — all the way up to seismic changes in the football landscape like a potential super league, Kogan will be on the front line.

Premium subscribers yesterday got an email from Rob discussing the skirmishes ahead for Kogan, including word of senior Premier League executives who “is still Mr Super League” and a whole lot more.

Upgrade to premium if you haven’t already by clicking the link above.

WTF CBF?

Even by the often-chaotic standards of Brazilian football it has been quite a week.

The confirmation last Wednesday that Carlo Ancelotti will be the Seleção’s first permanent foreign coach, starting work next Monday to prepare for World Cup qualifiers against Paraguay and Ecuador next month, was followed 24 hours later by the removal of the man who appointed him, Ednaldo Rodrigues, president of the Brazilian Football Federation (CBF).

Rodrigues has been suspended, along with the entire CBF Board, following a court ruling in Rio de Janeiro issued by Judge Gabriel de Oliveira Zefiro. The 71-year-old has been the subject of two petitions to Brazil’s Supreme Court in recent days relating to the alleged falsification of documents ahead of his re-election as president last March 

One of the petitions, from congresswoman Daniela Carneiro, called on the Supreme Court to suspend and investigate Rodrigues. She claimed that the signature of CBF vice-president Antonio Carlos Nunes de Lima was falsified on a document that strengthened Rodrigues’ hold on the federation’s presidency.

Rodrigues was previously suspended in 2023 over allegations of election irregularities, but on that occasion the Supreme Court reinstated him, which led FIFA to issue the CBF with a reminder of its statutes that prevent political and judicial interference in national associations. 

The CBF described last week’s ruling as a “direct affront” to the country’s institutional framework and have lodged another appeal to the Supreme Court, with FIFA monitoring the situation. The world governing body’s ultimate sanction is suspension from international football, although 13 months out from the World Cup they will be extremely reluctant to get involved.

Palace intrigue

At Wembley on Saturday night, beaming on the back of Crystal Palace’s FA Cup win, Steve Parish’s smile was unbroken even as assembled journalists asked him about the knock-on effects of the club’s first-ever major trophy.

“I am trying to live in the moment! What happens down the track, summer transfer window, players… it’s for tomorrow.”

Well, tomorrow is here and the questions mainly centre on the future of manager Oliver Glasner, who has just 12 months left on his contract but who the club would love to extend.

The methodical Austrian, who promised Pep Guardiola after a 5-2 drubbing a month ago that he would “solve” Pep’s system — and then duly executed on his vision — was the subject of interest from FC Bayern last summer, with Palace scaring them off by quoting a huge compensation fee. One source says £30m, another says £40m and the highest number we have been told is the €100m (around £86m) which was also reported by Bild in Germany at the time.

Either way, the answer was essentially “fuck off” and Bayern hired Vincent Kompany instead, but Palace now have to tie down Glasner amid some uncertainty at ownership level and with his contract ticking down. Parish alluded to the obstacles being things that weren’t simply transfer budgets or the usual manager quibbles.

"Look, he will stay here. For some period of time…. Of course I want him to stay but things happen in football and clubs evolve and move on.

“I’d love him to stay but the club’s got to develop behind him, and the club has to show the ambition in terms of what we want to do to move it forward, for people to feel part of something. And if that all aligns, I think maybe he will.

"We’ve been talking about it. For Oliver, it’s not about the things that maybe people think it’s about. Oliver wants to be part of something that’s going in a direction, same with all of us. I think that’s what we’ll talk about. I think obviously before finals it’s not a time for all of that. After finals is probably not a time for that. But somewhere down the track we’ll have a conversation and see what we all feel.

"Oliver will be here next year. Everybody knows the length of his contract. Beyond that we’ll have to talk. We want to try and extend his contract. But it needs to be right for everybody and today is not a time to think about it."

With John Textor trying to buy a majority stake (after previously trying to sell) while simultaneously floating his multi-club vehicle on the stock market (if it ever happens) there is obviously a fair amount of uncertainty at Palace, but the expectation is that the bombastic American will not succeed with his bid for a buyout in south London. Textor was present on Saturday, on a rare occasion when all four general partners were at a game together. The atmosphere was described by others present as cordial, though obviously more jovial after the final whistle, between parties who haven’t always seen eye to eye.

To be able to compete in the Premier League and become more sustainable financially, Palace have been trying to expand their century-old Selhurst Park home for years now, but as costs continue to spiral there are increasing questions over those plans according to the Guardian. Planning permission was granted in 2022 but work has not begun.

You would expect that the increased revenues of a European campaign would help with that, though contrary to some fans’ expectations of a sensational windfall to be blasted on transfers there may not be a ton left over once Palace have paid the increased costs that come with it.

Broadly the Europa League prize money (not including matchday, commercial revenues etc) looks like this:

• Base fee €4.3m

• €450k per win, €150k per draw in league phase (eight games)

• €600k for finishing top eight in league phase

• €300k for qualifying for playoff round (finishing 9th-24th in league phase)

• €1.75m for making last 16

• €2.5m for making quarter-finals

• €4m for making semi-finals

• €7m for making final

• €6m extra for winning the final

As FootBiz contributor, football finance lecturer and Brighton fan Kieran Maguire points out, though, Brighton’s recent accounts show their Europa League campaign saw a £19m increase in costs. You effectively will only break even if you make the quarter-final stage, he adds, but if Palace’s commercial team can do their bit then there is upside for the club. The Premier League’s relative strength also means Palace have a shot of going deep in Europe, which is a statement you never thought you’d read.

Speaking of which, Palace’s cup win and their own qualification for the Europa League also happily extinguished the possibility of arch rivals Brighton qualifying for the Europa League.

Palace do, unfortunately, stand to lose some of their cup-winning squad, though this is the reality of any mid-table club and it should be easier to retain some talent given the promise of European football.

Marc Guehi is expected to leave regardless, with only a year left on his contract. The England defender has multiple interested parties in the Premier League who will be competing for his signature, which should mean Palace don’t get much less than the £65m they turned down from Newcastle last summer - a calculated risk that has paid off. Chelsea have a raft of clauses in the deal that sold him to Palace, and that is just one reason they feel like the most likely destination. Guehi impressed everyone with his humility by letting the departing Joel Ward lift the trophy on Saturday, has been a popular leader and would leave with the best wishes of all at Palace.

Jean-Philippe Mateta is understood to have two years left on his deal after an extension was triggered in December but couldn’t agree on an extension during talks earlier in the season. With dreams of Champions League football and representing France, the striker is going to force a difficult decision for the club, who already spent a lot on his notional successor in Eddie Nketiah but would love the cult hero to stay. Goalscorers are always in demand in the market, and especially those with Mateta’s physical gifts.

While he has admirers among the elite, Adam Wharton will almost certainly remain with the club and continue to grow and Daniel Muñoz’s recent contract extension means he is going nowhere, despite being the best right-back in the league over the past 12-18 months.

Cup hero Eberechi Eze is a more complex case. Eze is 26, so he and the club may only have one more summer to cash in before buyers start overlooking him in favour of younger options, as happened to former Palace favourite Wilfried Zaha. Selling Eze would make Palace a big profit on the £16m they paid QPR and this season’s success could have triggered further payments to the Championship club, who also have a sell-on clause.

Where would he go, though?

As obviously brilliant a player as he is, and he is loved as a person by all who meet him, Eze would command a fee around £60m. There are few clubs on Earth who could afford that anyway, even fewer who would spend it on a 26-year-old and fewer again whose priority is buying a floaty number 10. Manchester City want that position but are more into Morgan Gibbs-White than Eze, United prefer Matheus Cunha for the same role, there’s been no whisper of interest from Arsenal or Liverpool, he’s too old for Chelsea and where would he fit at Tottenham? Aston Villa and Newcastle are the only clubs who might have enough money and might be interested, in my mind, but I may be proven wrong on that and both could yet miss out on Champions League football, virtually ruling them out. Maybe under new management he makes sense for Spurs, but if they don’t win tomorrow night then he’d be giving up European football to move from south to north London. Worth it?

It’s a by-product of the relative wealth of the Premier League’s middle class compared to the rest of world football that the market for a player like Eze could be so restricted.

If and when players leave, however, it will be the vindication of a new strategy that Palace committed to a few years ago to become a more developmental club after years of plugging holes just to avoid relegation. The club’s two biggest purchases, £30m pair Mamadou Sakho and Christian Benteke, helped keep them up but both ultimately left for nothing. Finding players with re-sale is a notable shift now the overall level of the squad is strong enough to keep its distance from the strugglers.

Palace have made just £12m transfer profit in total over the last five seasons. It’s the lowest of any Premier League club.

After adjusting their strategy and buying well, the club stands to make good profits on a number of their players and begin to feed the all-important recruitment flywheel that most teams that are even remotely sustainable in modern European football are built on. Indeed, you could argue the club already has its replacements for Guehi (Chadi Riad) and Eze (Matheus Franca, Romain Esse) already in the squad after being bought in the last 12 months.

The club also has to hire a new CFO and COO after recent departures, so there is plenty to be getting on with for Parish and his executive team.

But while there are a lot of questions to be answered, there are also some solid certainties that many fans had never dreamed of.

Palace have won their first major trophy, and they’re off on a European tour.

Sir Jim’s net worth down £7bn

Manchester United’s share price is continuing to drop ahead of the game that will define their season in the Europa League final against Tottenham tomorrow, with Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s investment now worth less than half the £1.25bn he paid for his minority stake 15 months ago. 

Ratcliffe paid £26 per share for a 27.7 per cent stake in United in February 2024, but the price movement has only been in one direction since, with shares trading at £10.37 yesterday. For context, the S&P 500 is up around 20% in the same period.

The INEOS founder has also seen his personal wealth fall by almost £7bn to £17bn in the past year, according to the Sunday Times Rich List published this weekend, largely due to rising costs in the chemicals industry.

Victory over Tottenham in Bilbao tomorrow would see United’s share price surge, as the prize of Champions League qualification would unlock around £100m in additional revenue next season, with significant implications for Ruben Amorim’s summer transfer budget and the wider club, which Ratcliffe infamously claimed was close to going bust.

United would pass on almost a third of the extra income to the players however as a result of a standard clause in their contracts, entitling them to 25 per cent pay increases if they are in the Champions League. United’s players would also share £1m in bonuses for winning the Europa League, with Tottenham’s bonus scheme more generous at around £3m.

While United are Champions League or bust, the other two football clubs in the INEOS group could both find themselves in the Europa League next year.

Nice will be in the Champions League qualifiers, meaning they could face United next year. While the Côte d’Azur club is still for sale, the French league remains a tough sell right now for investors and you would expect that les Aiglons would have to spend a second consecutive season under the supervision of the blind trust they were put in a year ago to avoid issues with Ratcliffe’s position at United.

The qualifiers in the Champions League League Path are significantly harder than the Champions Path, however, so should Nice lose and end up in the Europa League then they’ll avoid United but could end up on collision course with the other INEOS club, Lausanne.

Lausanne play Servette this weekend in the final round of fixtures and a win could send them to Europe but they wouldn’t know for sure until June 1.

June 1 is when FC Basel play third-tier Biel-Bienne in the Swiss Cup final. And if, as expected, the 21-time Swiss champions win the cup then another European place will be allocated to the league.

That would mean the fifth-placed team gets Conference League (quals), fourth gets Europa League (quals) and third goes straight into the Europa League league phase. The top two both go into the Champions League qualifiers, albet different paths (champions path and league path).

Lugano host Young Boys, with the away side needing a win for a chance of Champions League football. Lausanne go to Servette hoping to give Young Boys a helping hand, while Luzern — though back in sixth place — may have the best chance when they play a Basel side that’s on the beach after securing yet another Swiss title.

Whether Lausanne would be placed into a blind trust or it would make more sense to just keep Nice in its current state is a question we don’t know the answer to yet.

We’ll ask some people and let you know.

Kang rebrands OL

Michele Kang, the majority owner of Olympique Lyonnais Féminin, has announced a significant rebranding of the club. The team will now be known as OL Lyonnes, a name that blends the French word for “lionesses” (lionnes) with a stylized “y” to reference the city of Lyon. This change emphasizes the club's all-female identity while maintaining its connection to the OL brand and the city.

Alongside the name change, the club has introduced a new logo featuring a roaring red lioness with blue and gold accents. The team's new motto, “New Story, Same Legend,” reflects a commitment to setting a global standard for excellence, ambition, and investment in women's football.

Starting with the 2025–26 season, OL Lyonnes will play all home matches at the 59,186-capacity Groupama Stadium, previously used exclusively by the men's team. This move aims to provide the women's team with top-tier facilities and elevate the fan experience.

Additionally, the team will relocate to a newly renovated training center in Meyzieu, formerly used by the club's boys' academy. This state-of-the-art facility, privately financed by Kang and expected to be the best in the world for women’s soccer, is designed specifically for female athletes and will feature a statue of captain Wendie Renard.

Leeds raise £120m from share issue

Leeds United’s owners are issuing around £120m of new shares in the club to help fund investment in the squad and stadium renovation plans.

The Athletic reports that the ownership group reached out to existing investors shortly after securing promotion last month, and while not all of them took up the opportunity they have raised the significant sum from shareholders.

After reaching the promised land, Leeds have plans to buy big to stay there.

FIFA win on agent fees

FIFA have achieved a significant legal victory in their attempt to impose a cap on agent fees.

An Advocate General of the European Court of Justice, Nicholas Emiliou, last week published a formal opinion on two cases referred to it by German courts concerning the FIFA Football Agent Regulations (FFAR).

FIFA announced tougher rules for agents in December 2022 and introduced them in September 2023, including a cap on fees of between three and five per cent depending on an individual player’s salary, but legal challenges in multiple jurisdictions saw the fee cap element suspended. 

The matter was referred to the ECJ with Advocate General Emiliou issuing a non-binding judgement last week, which ruled that even anti-competitive elements of the rules could potentially be justified.

“While such regulations are in principle acceptable, should they be found to have significant anticompetitive effects they would need to be justified,” Emiliou said. “Such justification would be possible if they were found to pursue legitimate sporting objectives while satisfying the proportionality and effectiveness tests.”

“In line with today’s opinion, FIFA believes that the FFAR which are the result of a long and inclusive consultation process, are fully justified and provide a transparent, reasonable and proportionate framework to help resolve systemic failures in the player transfer system and protect the stability of squads and the integrity of football competitions,” FIFA said in response. “FIFA is confident that the Court of Justice of the European Union will follow the key findings of today’s opinion.”

UEFA ExCo primer

UEFA’s Executive Committee meet in Bilbao tomorrow to determine the qualification procedure for the 2028 European Championship, which will be staged jointly by the United Kingdom and Ireland.

With four host nations for the first time – Northern Ireland have withdrawn after being unable to guarantee funding for a proposed redevelopment of Casement Park in Belfast – qualification has been complicated by attempts to ensure all can take part. While all four will go through qualifying, at least two spots will be reserved for countries that do not qualify automatically, or through the UEFA Nations League.

Ireland and Wales are understood to have lobbied for more than two safety-net berths, with the final decision to be taken by ExCo. As it stands, if more than two sides fall short then only the two with the best record in qualifying will get a place at their own tournament.

Although not on the agenda, much of the talk at ExCo is likely to revolve around last week’s extraordinary FIFA Congress in Paraguay, where the eight European members of FIFA Council walked out during the coffee break in protest at Gianni Infantino’s late arrival.

Congress was delayed by three hours as Infantino had prioritised travelling to the Middle East for a summit involving US president Donald Trump and Saudi Arabia’s Prime Minister, Mohammed bin Salman, which led to a stinging rebuke from UEFA president Alexander Čeferin.

The Athletic’s Adam Crafton was one of a handful of British journalists to attend the Congress in Asuncion, with his dispatch required reading on all matters FIFA.

Transfers that will happen

Manchester United has looked like Matheus Cunha’s landing spot for a while and all indications are that this deal will be done early in the window with personal terms agreed and a clause in the Brazilian’s contract meaning United can land him for £65m.

Cunha fits nicely as the left 10 in Ruben Amorim’s 3-4-2-1 shape.

Transfers that won’t happen

Manchester City have pulled out of the chase for Florian Wirtz.

The deal for the German starlet is expected to be the biggest in the world this summer, and that is part of the reason that City have walked away with estimates of the all-in cost being €300m once fees and salaries are factored in. City are instead considering Morgan Gibbs-White of Nottingham Forest.

Usually if a club makes their withdrawal this public via the media, it means they felt he was going elsewhere anyway. Bayern have long been favourites to sign him from Leverkusen, though Liverpool are ready to break their transfer record to sign him, per Paul Joyce of The Times, who is well-connected at Anfield.

Liverpool are already in discussions with Leverkusen over Jeremie Frimpong, who is having a medical this week.