FootBiz newsletter #92: The biggest kit deal in history and the FA support protesting Palace

And so to the off-season it is, then. The Club World Cup final surely, finally, signals the end of the 2024/25 football season and we have a couple of weeks until European football gets going again.

Now, ideally the Premier League would drop the Manchester City verdict right about now to take us through to the action resuming. There is no expectation of that, however, and in fact the entire case has gone exceedingly quiet.

The opposite is true for the Lyon-Crystal Palace-Nottingham Forest situation, which is apparently destined for the Court of Arbitration for Sport but further destined to be a story for far longer.

Interestingly, having declined to comment publicly on the Palace case, the FA did write a letter to UEFA in support of the south London club, per Mike Keegan. 

Who knows if it will make any difference to UEFA — or more specifically the CFCB — who, in the end, essentially decided that John Textor’s stake at Palace was too big to be swatted away as non-influential.

The only natural conclusion to all of this is Palace lifting the Conference League trophy in Leipzig next June and being presented the trophy by Aleksander Ceferin himself while their fans chant “fuck UEFA” in a booming, synchronised chorus.

And so to the newsletter…

Table of Contents

• La Liga deny Madrid request

• FIFA vs FIFPro

• Palace take UEFA to CAS

• Forest take Spurs to task

• Textor counter-sues investors

• Barca’s DRC deal

• M&A Murmurs

• Axel to grind

• City strike £1bn Puma deal

• Spurs seek commercial boost

• Leicester opt for Cifuentes

• Programming update

La Liga deny Madrid request

Apart from the obvious benefits ($82.5m and an opportunity for Xabi Alonso to get to know his team and some new signings) the Club World Cup has ended up being a bit of a pain for Real Madrid.

For one, it extended their season right into the scorching heat of mid-July.

In that scorching heat, they were ransacked by Paris Saint-Germain in the semi-final, prompting some soul-searching in the Spanish capital and some questions over the performance (and commitment) of some of their biggest stars, namely Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Jr.

The exhausted players will now go on holiday, but they can’t get too carried away on their sun loungers as La Liga have now confirmed they declined Madrid’s appeal to have their first league game postponed. The league’s stance is that it had already delayed the fixture (vs Osasuna) as long as possible by scheduling it for the Tuesday night.

ESPN first reported Madrid’s request, which La Liga later confirmed that Javier Tebas had declined.

The president of the Spanish top flight has been a vocal critic of the Club World Cup and the disruption it causes to the calendar.

For what it’s worth, the Premier League was also clear in advance that it would not postpone week one games for Manchester City or Chelsea. Ligue 1 regularly schedules Paris Saint-Germain games on a Friday to help them get adequate rest ahead of midweek matches in continental competition, but selected PSG’s visit to Nantes as the season’s opening game and the French champions have not requested a postponement.

FIFA vs FIFPro

FIFA’s ongoing dispute with global players’ union FIFPRO escalated on the eve of the Club World Cup final with a bizarre row breaking out over mandatory rest periods. 

FIFA released a statement on Saturday announcing their support for a 72-hour gap between games during the season, as well as a three-week break during the summer, but FIFPRO denounced their intervention as sham.

In an extraordinary outburst FIFPRO president Sergio Marchi compared Gianni Infantino to Roman emperor Nero, saying that a “lack of protection” for players left the Club World Cup as a modern equivalent to “bread and circuses”.

Marchi was unhappy that Infantino failed to attend a scheduled meeting with FIFPRO in New York on Saturday, and instead held talks with former player union leaders from Brazil and Ivory Coast who have been expelled from the organisation due to governance issues.

“FIFPRO cannot fail to point out, with absolute clarity, that this competition hides a dangerous disconnect with the true reality experienced by most footballers around the world,” Marchi said. “What was presented as a global celebration of football was nothing more than a fiction created by FIFA, promoted by its president, without dialogue, sensitivity and respect for those who sustain the game with their daily efforts.

“A grandiloquent staging inevitably reminiscent of the ‘bread and circuses’ of Nero’s Rome, entertainment for the masses while behind the scenes inequality, precariousness and the lack of protection for the true protagonists deepen.”

Palace take UEFA to CAS

Crystal Palace will appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) after UEFA denied them entry to the Europa League, but chairman Steve Parish also called on UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin to personally intervene and overturn the injustice meted on Palace.

As expected after Lyon’s relegation was overturned, UEFA decided to find the teeth they’d never previously shown evidence of to make an example of the FA Cup winners, demoting them to the Conference League.

FootBiz contributor Kieran Maguire hit the nail on the head when he described it as “a bonkers decision”.

“To deny Palace [Europa League football] for a breach of rules which gave them no sporting advantage yet other clubs have been given token fines for overspends which did give them a sporting advantage.”

So Palace will try their luck at the Wheel of Fortune that is CAS and Nottingham Forest - an actual multi-club operation - will take their place. How fitting.

Not only do the Eagles now drop to the Conference League but they must play a two-legged qualifier to reach UEFA’s third-tier competition.

And in between those two legs? A Premier League game against Nottingham Forest.

That should be spicy.

Fans at a London protest against UEFA on Tuesday evening sang: “Fuck UEFA, fuck John Textor, fuck Marinakis.”

Forest take Spurs to task

Speaking of whom, Evangelos Marinakis is continuing to work Nottingham Forest’s lawyers hard with the club last week submitting a complaint to the Premier League over Tottenham Hotspur’s attempts to sign Morgan Gibbs-White.

Marinakis is unhappy that Tottenham appeared to be aware of the terms of the release clause in Gibbs-White's contract at the City, submitting an offer of £60m that triggered it for the England midfield player last Thursday.

Forest’s legal team have written to both Tottenham and the Premier League asking how the north London club knew of a release clause that had not previously be made public, although it is unclear if their apparent shock is genuine.

While there have been suggestions that Tottenham could be reported for allegedly making an illegal approach to Gibbs-White, even Marinakis would be reluctant to follow through on this threat without possessing compelling evidence that the 25-year-old was tapped up. For all their suspicions any number of people could have passed on details of Gibbs-White release clause, not least his many friends and contacts on the playing staff at Tottenham. (And if you ask any owner, virtually every club taps up players)

Marinakis certainly likes to make Forest’s legal team earn their money, appearing just as happy demanding that they get on the front foot, as he is asking them to defend him against FA and Premier League charges. Forest’s lawyers have had a busy summer, writing to UEFA to insist that Crystal Palace be denied access to the Europa League shortly after banning Gary Neville from the City Ground and threatening to take legal action against the Sky Sports pundit.

In the circumstances it may be just as well that Forest’s chairman is a leading KC, Nicholas Randall.

Textor counter-sues investors

We recently covered some of John Textor’s investors in Eagle Football, Iconic Sports, suing the American over a failed IPO/SPAC.

Well now it has been reported that Textor is suing them right back.

Bloomberg had it first, and Textor’s grounds for counter-suing are that one of the Iconic partners, Alexander Knaster, had a (separate) firm with ties to Russians who had been sanctioned by the US and EU.

Barca’s DRC deal

FC Barcelona have signed a bizarre-sounding sponsorship deal with the Democratic Republic of Congo which will see the Spanish champions put the initials of the African country on their training kit.

The four-year deal will bring in €11m per season for Barca, who are seeking any and all avenues for sponsorship deals as they — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — seek to register new signings that currently have no way of playing in La Liga.

Local paper Mundo Deportivo reports that the sponsorship deal ensures “RDC, coeur de l’Áfrique” will be available on official club merchandise

M&A Murmurs

Bloomberg reports that Everton’s newish owners The Friedkin Group are considering a minority sale of their women’s team.

TFG took the (pretty cool) decision to not demolish Goodison Park and instead make the historic ground into a home for their women’s side.

Everton Women recorded around a loss of around £500k on £3.5m in revenue last season, but with a new permanent home and a raft of new faces in the squad appear to have a more promising near-term future.

As far as returns in football investing go, there aren’t many teams on Earth who can show a 50x increase in valuation in just three years.

But the NWSL’s Utah Royals reportedly changed hands for $100m, according to Sportico.

That would represent a 5000% increase on the $2m expansion fee David Blitzer paid to relaunch the team in 2022.

The $100m valuation came as part of a big double deal done in April by Gail Miller, the richest person in Utah, who also took a 40% stake in Real Salt Lake of Major League Soccer.

Sportico reported the value of the total transaction as being $580m, including $150m of debt.

Brentford owner Matthew Benham has sold a minority stake in the club to British businessman Gary Lubner and filmmaker Sir Matthew Vaughn. The duo have pledged to provide funds to strengthen the playing squad, as well as using their business and celebrity contacts to boost the club's global profile and secure more lucrative commercial deals.

Lubner and Vaughn are understood to have bought less than 20 per cent of the club's shares, with Benham retaining majority control. The investment has been made by Lubner's holding company This Day and MARV, a production company controlled by Vaughn and his wife, supermodel Claudia Schiffer.

Sky News’ City editor, Mark Kleinman, revealed that the deal had been agreed on Monday, with Brentford confirming the investment yesterday. The club appointed Rothschild to handle a potential sale 18 months ago and the bank have delivered new partners whose investment values Brentford at around £400m.

Lubner is a former chief executive of Belron, the parent company of Autoglass. Before last summer’s general election he donated £4.5million to the Labour Party.

Vaughn is one of Britain’s most successful independent filmmakers, whose films include the Kingsman franchise, Kick-Ass and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

Brentford's existing leadership team of chief executive Jon Varney, director of football Phil Giles and chair Cliff Crown will remain in place, with Benham also retaining a very hands-on role.

Axel to grind

Burnley defender Axel Tuanzebe has brought a legal case against his former club Manchester United for alleged medical negligence two years after leaving Old Trafford. The 27-year-old from Congo, who signed for Burnley as a free agent two weeks ago after his contract expired with Ipswich Town, submitted the case to the High Court late last week.

Tuanzebe played just 37 times for United in six years between 2017 and 2023 with the youngster plagued by injuries. He continued to suffer from injury at Ipswich, although did manage 40 appearances in two seasons after establishing himself as Kieran McKenna's first-choice right-back as they were promoted to the Premier League in the 2023/24 season.

The claim states he is suing on the basis of "legal advice," but there are no further details at this stage. Tuanzebe and United declined to comment.

City strike £1bn Puma deal

Manchester City have signed the biggest kit contract in Premier League history with Puma extending their sponsorship by another decade in a remarkable deal worth up to £1bn.

The German manufacturer have sponsored City since the 2019/20 season with the initial deal worth up to £65m-a-year before an extension up to 2030 increased its value to £80m-per-season.

City’s new deal eclipses Manchester United’s £90m-a-year kit deal with Adidas, although their neighbours will only receive £80m next season after failing to qualify for the Champions League.

Adidas are also kit manufacturers for Arsenal and Liverpool, although those contracts are worth significantly less at £75m and £60m respectively.

Spurs seek commercial boost

Tottenham have hired a team of commercial experts who left Manchester United last year as a result of the cost-cutting instituted by Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that Tottenham have appointed the agency Altius8 to overhaul their sponsorship portfolio.

Altius8 were set up earlier this year by four ex-United employees, including former commercial director Victoria Timpson, who brought lucrative commercial deals to Old Trafford with the likes of TeamViewer and Snapdragon.

Timpson will be joined on the Tottenham contract by former United colleagues Ali Edge, Florence Lafaye and Tom Liston-Jones, working with the club’s chief revenue officer Ryan Norys.

Tangentially, Spurs are suing Ratcliffe’s INEOS after they allegedly pulled out of a sponsorship contract unilaterally.

Leicester opt for Cifuentes

Leicester City have finally hired a new manager. After looking at Chris Wilder and Danny Rohl, the Foxes landed on QPR boss Marti Cifuentes as the man to take over from Ruud van Nistelrooy.

Cifuentes was put on gardening leave at the end of the season after effectively telling QPR that he wanted to go elsewhere.

This hasn’t put off Leicester, however, who are banking on him to take them back to the Premier League.

Programming update

I (in this case, I being Ed) should probably include in the newsletter that on Friday Innovatio Capital closed a deal to purchase Liga MX club Querétaro FC.

I mention it as I am a partner in Innovatio Capital, which means I am now fortunate enough to be a part-owner of the Gallos Blancos and dedicating most of my time to the important work we have there now.

But given a few people have asked me this week, this newsletter will continue. There might just be a few things I can’t/won’t talk about!

If you’re interested in the deal and why we’re so excited by the opportunity in Mexico, Forbes did a good write-up.