FootBiz newsletter #90: Eagle Football latest, another winter World Cup and Villa 'do a Chelsea'

July, then. Notionally the quietest month in the footballing calendar, and yet every four years it’s also the month in which you’ll find the biggest game being played on Earth.

Increasingly, with the Women’s World Cup, the men’s European Championships and now the Club World Cup, July is going to be a fairly loud footballing month.

There may be no quiet ones left!

And that is something of a theme in today’s newsletter. Whether it’s clubs trying to avoid financial punishments, clubs trying to avoid regulatory punishments, clubs trying to win tournaments, nations trying to win tournaments (don’t worry CONCACAF, we didn’t forget you) or huge, bank-busting transfers it turns out that this month is as busy as any other in the football calendar. Maybe it shouldn’t be like that but it is, and it’s not going away.

With what is effectively a 12-month playing calendar now, how teams approach their season is surely going to change eventually.

What we saw Chelsea do last year, playing kids and fringe players in the league phase of the relatively weak Conference League to keep their best players fresh for Premier League action, is a sign of things to come. Could a PL side in the Champions League do the same, acknowledging they just want to finish in the top 24 and squeeze through? What would be the expected uplift on their domestic season in that trade-off? Will some clubs start sending individual players on mid-season breaks when they’re overloaded?

The NBA phrase ‘load management’ is unpopular with fans in the US, but Rafael Benitez brought ‘squad rotation’ into the mainstream 20+ years ago and it’s only going to expand as a concept with the way the calendar is going.

If there’s a 12-month footballing calendar then notionally everything also comes up for grabs.

The winter World Cup was the subject of many complaints and some (ultimately futile) resistance but now that the cat is out of the bag, why not more? Saudi Arabia is already hosting the 2034 World Cup, which will surely be a December or January affair, but with Australia and now Qatar bidding for the Club World Cup in 2029, wouldn’t both of those make more sense in the middle of the European season?

It occurred to me watching Manchester City lose to Al-Hilal in the CWC this week that their players — as competitive as they are — were probably smiling on the plane home at the thought of a decent rest and a holiday with the family. The teams that go all the way will be playing football in the scorching mid-July heat with only a matter of weeks until the new season begins. If it sets back the start to your domestic campaign, in a strong league you may never recover.

Is it worth it? The bean-counters and the players would probably have different answers there. That’s another theme of the newsletter today, so without further ado let’s get on with proceedings…

Table of Contents

• Villa ‘do a Chelsea’

• Ligue 1 launch streaming platform

• Eagle Football update: XXL edition

• Focus on WC26 scheduling

• Brentford ‘advanced talks’ over investment

• Could it be?

• Serie A seeking PE money?

• The cost of City’s shock exit

• Sheff Wednesday in crisis

• Ful backing 

Villa ‘do a Chelsea’

By the time you read this, we expect the news to be official that Aston Villa have sold their women’s team to help avoid a Premier League PSR breach.

Now, virtually everyone agrees that this loophole is stupid but the Premier League owners had the opportunity to close it and voted not to.

Everyone knew another club could follow Chelsea’s example and now they have.

Without seeing the numbers behind the deal we can’t be sure that they will satisfy the Premier League’s rules but it would be pretty wild if they didn’t.

However, UEFA’s squad cost ratio (SCR) requirements will be far more of an issue for Villa.

The rules for clubs playing in Europe are far stricter than the (soon-to-disappear) Premier League equivalent and UEFA expressly have wording in their rules about selling assets to related companies. It is why Chelsea had to agree a settlement with and pay a fine to UEFA last season, as their hotel and women’s team sales were not factored in.

Villa began negotiations over a settlement back in April, when they were the wrong side of the 80% revenue:squad cost ratio for the season before. Having consistently failed to get the right side of the line, with the limit going down to 70%, UEFA are likely to impose stricter rules on Villa as they have with Roma and Lyon in the past. Compliance is set to be difficult for the Birmingham club, explaining why you are seeing key players like Emiliano Martinez, Morgan Rogers and Ollie Watkins linked with a move away. Coutinho’s contract is also to be terminated this week as they look to shed wages.

Ligue 1 launch streaming platform

Ligue 1 clubs have launched their eagerly awaited streaming platform this week, with owners voting on Tuesday to green light the €14.99 per month offering.

It is a first of its kind move by a major football league, and it could end up being the model that many of French football’s European neighbours decide to follow.

That said, they aren’t in this situation by choice. The bungled negotiation in 2023/24 that led to a creaky deal with DAZN and BeIn Sports was the pre-cursor to an embarrassingly swift divorce with DAZN as subscribers turned their back on the league and the streamer exiting the deal after just one season.

Fans will be able to access the platform via most connected TVs, games consoles and telecoms services (Orange, SFR, Bouyges) but the glaring absence from the press release is Canal+.

Formerly the league’s long-running partner, relations soured dramatically when the LFP turned their back on Canal+ to sign their ill-fated pact with Mediapro. Canal+ refused to bid in subsequent rights auctions and L’Equipe reports that not only did they decline to be the preferred partner of the streaming service, they declined to distribute it at all.

For €14.99 per month — crucially, less than half that of DAZN’s offering last season — subscribers will get eight of the nine games per weekend. Presumably BeIn retains that ninth match.

The press release also states that the 10 biggest games of the season will all be live on the platform, so there are no excuses and plenty of people eager to see how this experiment goes.

Of course, it’s not ideal for the French league that its future depends on an experiment that has no guarantees of success but it seems like they’re giving themselves a chance.

Eagle Football update: XXL edition

A week is a long time in John Textor’s far-flung footballing empire, but here is an attempt at detailing the biggest stories to have emerged from Eagle Football this week:

UEFA have kicked the can down the road on making a decision regarding Crystal Palace’s right to play in the Europa League.

European football’s governing body had briefed journalists that a decision was due on Friday, and then on Monday, only for UEFA to come out after the weekend and explain themselves that there won’t be a verdict from them until the French authorities have made a definitive call on Lyon’s relegation.

Olympique Lyonnais confirmed immediately that they are appealing their relegation to Ligue 2, but only received the full report explaining the decision on Monday. The appeal hearing must happen within 14 days.

If Lyon are reinstated, then UEFA will have a decision to make on Palace. So it appears we will be waiting some time yet for clarity on this, but one additional tidbit from The Times suggests why Palace fans may be feeling a bit more nervy.

In the hearing at UEFA headquarters in Nyon (of which the entire purpose was to demonstrate how Textor didn’t have control or influence at Palace) Textor “declared that he was heavily involved… and played a key role in [hiring] Oliver Glasner.”

That may explain why the Daily Mail’s Mike Keegan, who was waiting outside that meeting in Nyon, described chairman Steve Parish’s demeanour as “haughty” afterwards.

You had one job, John.

There was a noticeable change in attitude last week from Textor’s characteristic bluff and bravado to a sudden realisation that things might be very bad indeed.

As Eagle wrestled with the severity of the punishments for Lyon, and the further financial disaster that would come with an enforced demotion to the second tier, it became clear that Textor finally appreciated the gravity of the situation and would now do whatever it takes to try and save them from relegation. Even if it meant stepping away from the club.

L’Equipe had reported late last week that Textor would resign from his formal positions at Lyon to try and help give the DNCG the impression that things were finally changing and that they were taking the financial restrictions seriously amid growing fan protests.

On Saturday night in an interview with Globo, the Brazilian TV channel, Textor was as conciliatory as we have ever seen him and alluded to what was to come.

"I will spend a lot more time thinking about Eagle in a global way, devoting myself more to Botafogo… I have excellent partners within the Eagle Football Group, shareholders who will take the reins to manage issues that I honestly did not manage very well in France.”

French media considered it a mea culpa. Though still tinged with delusion, as he went on to claim the group had “no financial difficulties”:

"As an American investor, the process of adapting to the French system has always seemed strange to me. But we are very well capitalized."

“We are going to invest a significant amount, we have just sold Crystal Palace. We have no financial difficulties, we have never had so much liquidity. But during the process, I did some things that disappointed the governing bodies there and we must remedy that."

On Monday it was confirmed that Michele Kang, one of the most interesting figures in world football, would become Chairwoman and CEO of Eagle Football Group and CEO of Olympique Lyonnais. Kang has made her name as a trailblazing investor and philanthropist in the women’s game, and was already a board member at Eagle after her deal to buy OL Feminin (now OL Lyonnes) from Textor.

Michael Gerlinger, a former FC Bayern executive who is seen as a safe pair of hands, has been named director general.

Three investors in Eagle Football, two of whom are board members, are threatening John Textor with legal action if he does not buy their shares back off them for $93m by the end of today - as first reported by the Financial Times.

Jamie Dinan, Alexander Knaster and Edward Eisler wrote to the under-fire multi-club leader last week to warn him that if he didn’t fulfil his obligations in repurchasing the $75m equity they held in Eagle (plus interest) that they would pursue Textor through the courts.

Per the FT, Textor acknowledged receiving the letter but denied he owed the trio the money, telling the pink paper they were “not entitled to the contractual benefits they now claim”. It is a similar defence to the one he is using against Bruno Lage.

Our understanding of the case has been that when Textor purchased Lyon for ~$930m, nearly half of that amount was money lent to him by Ares. Rather than loaning him more, Iconic Sports Management, a sports SPAC, contributed $75m in equity but with the understanding that it must be repaid if Textor had not taken Eagle Football public via a SPAC merger with Iconic by a certain date.

The FT report that date as being in 2023, and when Textor refused to pay them back Iconic originally tried to sell their stake but found no buyers in the market as Eagle very publicly stepped on rake after rake, hence the pending (threatened) legal action.

Textor’s defence is that Iconic failed to deliver “a viable SPAC”.

So UEFA are waiting on the DNCG’s decision on Lyon before having to make their own decision on Crystal Palace but they have made their call on the French club already.

European football’s governing body signed a settlement agreement with OL where the French club agreed to pay a conditional €50m fine and conform to a strict financial framework in order to compete in the Europa League.

But the good news is that if OL’s appeal to the DNCG is successful and they are not relegated then UEFA has already agreed they can play in their second-tier continental competition.

Of that €50m fine, per L’Equipe, €12.5m is non-negotiable but the rest can be avoided if they meet a number of financial targets.

“But that will be difficult,” notes France’s number one sports newspaper.

“It must first reinject very significant funds into the club's coffers as quickly as possible.”

Based on what Textor said in a November press conference, Eagle can only count on around $40m of the proceeds from selling the stake in Palace as the rest must go to lender Ares.

As evidenced by the archive of this newsletter, two weeks is a long time in Eagle Football land.

Less than two weeks ago, John Textor interrupted a live TV interview to kiss Botafogo coach Renato Paiva after he had guided the Brazilian side to victory over European champions Paris Saint-Germain.

Now Paiva is out of a job, sacked by Textor after Botafogo were eliminated from the Club World Cup after extra time by fellow Brasileirao side Palmeiras.

While their domestic start was a little slow, Botafogo remain in touch with the league leaders and have qualified for the last 16 of the Copa Libertadores, where they will meet LDU Quito next month.

You might have thought that after buying into Crystal Palace, trying to buy out a majority, failing to buy out a majority, trying to sell his stake in Crystal Palace to buy Everton, failing to buy Everton, trying to buy out a majority of Crystal Palace, failing to buy out a majority of Crystal Palace and then finally selling his stake in Crystal Palace (after potentially costing them their first-ever European campaign) that Textor might take a moment away from English football for a while.

Apparently not.

"We have our U.K. strategy where we need to look at who our new club is,” he told Globo in the aforementioned interview on Saturday night.

“What are we going to buy there? What's the partnership? Because it's that collaboration between the clubs that's been so successful for us.”

Textor would favour a club in the top two tiers, near his west London home and is understood to have looked at Watford and Southampton among others.

For what it’s worth, while the sale of his stake to Woody Johnson won’t be official for months, Textor is no longer a director of Crystal Palace as of June 18.

Focus on WC26 scheduling

A cynic might suggest that this summer’s Club World Cup was hosted in the US primarily for revenue reasons but if the hosting committee were also to use this opportunity as a dry run to learn some lessons ahead of trying to put on a 46-team World Cup next summer then the most obvious lesson is likely to pose an awkward dilemma for FIFA.

Because the reality is that they will need to upset broadcasters and protect the players (and fans) by scheduling around the afternoon heat.

It isn’t like nobody knew that the US was hot in the summer.

Indeed, anyone who can remember USA ‘94 will recall it was an issue then too, but it somehow appears to have caught many off-guard this month. The US is also pretty stormy in the summer, and Chelsea found that out with a game against Benfica that finished almost two hours late after weather delays.

But while storms are unpredictable, we know and knew that some of these cities are going to be hotter than others. Indeed FIFPro, the global players union, has published a report which specifically categorises the host cities by their risk to players.

Afternoon games in Miami, Monterrey and Kansas City are deemed "extremely high risk" with regards to heat-stress injury, while Boston, Philadelphia and Guadalajara are "very high risk" for playing those early slots too.

The problem for FIFA is that the earlier kick-offs would be primetime viewing in Europe and the broadcasters (who largely fund FIFA’s global showcase via media rights) want the best teams playing in those slots and not the middle of the night.

Now, unfortunately we know that money will almost always triumph over player safety in football. After all, this Club World Cup (and the expanded Champions League etc etc) is evidence of that in itself.

Players and coaches have complained about the heat and the scheduling throughout the tournament, though FIFPro secretary general Alex Phillips did say FIFA had at least been reactive and made changes during the competition to aid the situation.

“We are partially happy because Fifa have been quite responsive once the tournament was under way,” Phillips said.

“They have actually modified how they have been dealing with heat during the matches based on FIFPro’s input.

“Obviously, it would have been better if that had happened in advance, but it’s better that they have adapted and they’ve put in place various different mitigation measures. There’s additional water around the pitch, towels and so on, and the threshold for the cooling breaks has come down. So there has been a positive reaction from Fifa, which is good.”

As for how this affects scheduling next summer, we will have to wait and see.

Games are already locked in for cities on certain dates but the kick-off times are yet to be announced (and presumably, given how few teams have qualified so far, yet to be decided). By my quick calculations, most days could be re-jigged to ensure the cooler climates (San Francisco, Vancouver) or indoor stadiums (Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta…) host the early games. It might just mean Uzbekistan vs North Macedonia — a realistic fixture, given one has qualified and the other tops their qualification group — lands in primetime for FIFA’s most valuable audience while a much more sexy match-up doesn’t finish until 4am.

My personal view on this is that it’s the World Cup. Every game is sacred, and if you aren’t staying up until 2am to watch all the games then you deserve to wait four years for the next ones.

That isn’t the approach of most normal people, however. Broadcasters — and their advertisers — need the most eyeballs possible.

It is going to put FIFA between a rock (the players) and a hard place (their media partners).

Stay tuned to find out who wins.

A winter Club World Cup in 2029?

In semi-related news, Qatar want to host the 2029 Club World Cup in a move that would involve moving the tournament to the winter. The Guardian revealed that Qatari representatives have held talks with FIFA officials in Miami last week during which they indicated a desire to stage the next tournament in four years’ time.

The nine stadiums constructed for the 2022 World Cup remain in place, with six used regularly to stage games in the Qatar Stars League, and could all be utilised to minimise staging costs and internal travel for fans. While that may suit FIFA the extreme heat in Qatar during the summer would present a major problem, and almost certainly require it to be moved to the winter in a repeat of the World Cup.

The Guardian reported that December 2029 was mentioned as the most likely slot for a Club World Cup in Qatar during their talks with FIFA, although this would be fiercely opposed by European leagues, including the Premier League, because of the disruption it would cause to domestic seasons.

Clubs are likely to have to get used to this sort of disruption, however, with the Saudi Arabian World Cup in 2034 also incredibly likely to be shifted to the northern hemisphere winter.

Brentford ‘advanced talks’ over investment

Brentford owner Matthew Benham may be finally taking some of his chips back off the table, with The Athletic reporting he has finally found investors willing to take a minority stake in the west London club.

A reported £500m valuation had scared off many, but more recent chatter that the minority investment would value the club much closer to £400m makes at least a little more sense. South African businessman Gary Lubner and film producer Matthew Vaughn are named as Benham’s potential new partners.

The banker-turned-gambler’s investment in Brentford, both in a financial sense as well as the use of his data model, propelled the Bees from League One to the Premier League and they have been a consistently mid-table club virtually ever since.

With a new stadium and a London location, Benham was looking for an ambitious valuation as he sought investors willing to buy 10-20% of the club. He appears to have found some, though no deal is yet done.

Could it be?

Valencia’s Nou Mestalla stadium may finally get finished.

We wrote about them bringing in Goldman Sachs and raising money to complete the job all the way back in FootBiz #6 and the club announced this week that they have secured a whopping €322m to finish the works on the partly built ground.

€85m of that number is a five-year loan while the rest is a bond issue, per a celebratory club statement. The notes issued have a 28 year maturity.

Valencia hope to open their new stadium in 2027.

After years of mismanagement and being hamstrung by debts, there is a glimmer of hope in a part-finished concrete bowl on the other side of town.

Serie A seeking PE money?

Bloomberg reports that Serie A has contacted private equity firms over a plan to sell a share in its international media rights business.

Owners of clubs within the league have been critical of the league’s overall governance and the approach to media rights and internationalisation - and none moreso than Aurelio De Laurentiis, the owner of Napoli, who labelled them “incompetent” and “a disaster”.

In a semi-related move, the Italian government has provisionally agreed to change the law to allow a single bidder to win the entire domestic rights - paving the way for a sole subscription broadcaster to come away with Serie A’s full package next time around.

You might expect there to be a queue of firms lining up to invest in Serie A given it is one of the world’s leading football leagues, but after the disaster that has befallen Ligue 1 and French football since CVC Capital spent $1.5bn to buy 13% of their media rights business, the appetite in the market is less clear.

It is probably quite important for European football that this goes well.

The cost of City’s shock exit

Manchester City’s shock last-16 exit to Al-Hilal at the Club World Cup could cost the club nearly $75m in prize money.

By winning all three of their group matches (and coming from the region with the biggest market pool allocated by FIFA) City banked more than any other club in the opening stage with $51.7m in prize money, but have left far more on the table after a surprising extra-time defeat to the Saudi club.

There is $40m on offer for winning the final alone, with the overall prize fund of $125m for winning seven matches only slightly less than Paris Saint Germain received from UEFA for their victorious 17-match Champions League campaign.

PSG remain in the hunt, but face a difficult quarter-final against Bayern Munich on Saturday.

Overall, though, it is Chelsea who stand to benefit most from the prize money on offer given the PSR challenges that led them to sell property at Stamford Bridge and their women’s team to related-party companies in the last two years.

Enzo Maresca’s side face Palmeiras in the quarter-finals and City’s surprise elimination has opened up their side of the draw, with Al-Hilal or Fluminense awaiting the winners in the semi-finals.

Not only did City’s exit cost them money, it may have put a lot more of it in Chelsea’s pocket.

Sheff Wednesday in crisis

Sheffield Wednesday failed to pay any of their first-team players or staff members on time for the third time in four months earlier this week and are facing another disciplinary charge from the EFL.

The Championship club are suffering major cashflow issues with owner Dejphon Chansiri appearing unable or unwilling to obtain any more funding for Wednesday from Thai Union Group, his family business who are the world’s biggest suppliers of canned tuna.

Chansiri has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in Wednesday over the past decade, but after previously being reluctant he is now seeking to sell the club and appears unable to meet its operating costs. Only Wednesday's under-21 players received their salaries on time and most of the senior players will be able to cancel their contracts if they are not paid in full within 15 days.

Wednesday were banned from buying players until January 2027 last week for being over 30 days late in paying players, and will now face another charge. A longer transfer embargo, a big fine or even a points deduction next season are the options open to the independent commission who will hear the case.

Head coach Danny Röhl has already had enough and is negotiating his departure.

Ful backing 

Fulham owner Shahid Khan has put another £70m of equity into the club this week by converting loans to shares.

£48m has been put into Fulham Stadium Limited, the holding company that owns Craven Cottage where the new £100m Riverside Stand opened last season, with £22m injected into the football club.

The new share issue takes Khan’s total investment in Fulham to around £764m since he bought the club from Mohamed Al Fayed for £150m 12 years ago.