FootBiz newsletter #93: What are the 'big six' doing in the transfer market?

It is that back to work feeling for much of the football world, as even the later pre-seasons get underway and those money-spinning tours (which must, apparently, always be described as money-spinning) get underway.

Manchester United landed here in Chicago on Tuesday, where they will be based for their US tour that will include games against domestic opponents in the Premier League Summer Series held in Chicago, New York (New Jersey, really) and Atlanta.

They will be able to present new signing Bryan Mbeumo in front of American United fans this week, fresh off the back of a month-long negotiation in which they ended up paying what Brentford wanted in the first place.

The Old Trafford club swiftly briefed the local pack on how disappointed they were in Brentford’s conduct, but the west London club simply stuck to their guns and United, without much in the way of a Plan B, ended up giving in.

It’s always interesting seeing the themes in each different club’s recruitment and how reactive or strategic they appear to be.

United’s transfer policy this summer seems to be laser-focused on restoring their Premier League position among the European places at the very least. In Mbeumo and Matheus Cunha, United have spent around £125m on two proven Premier League performers at virtually the age of peak performance. The chances they make a profit on these players are minimal to non-existent (the Saudi Pro League being the edge case) but given Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s comments about the club’s lack of sophistication in the data department and the major cuts to their scouting network, it appears United have played it safe in trying to buy proven, instant output rather than seeing recruitment as an investment and/or trading opportunity like Chelsea’s new owners have.

Chelsea’s game of buying up the best U-23 players they can find has continued, with nearly £200m of players arriving this summer and all coming under that age barrier. Tottenham, on the other hand, appear to be playing the same game as United, which makes sense given they finished in 17th.

Liverpool’s plan appears to be to step on the neck of their rivals, breaking their transfer record to sign Florian Wirtz and seemingly trying to add Hugo Ekitike on top for nearly £90m. Add in Jeremie Frimpong’s arrival as a replacement for Trent Alexander-Arnold and Liverpool will be explosive next season, and likely favourites for the title.

The first of two teams who would hope to rival them are Manchester City, whose makeover this summer has continued the trend of City bringing in more athletic, slightly less technical players. Tijani Reijnders as the effective replacement for Kevin De Bruyne is the best example of this, though the creativity of bargain buy Rayan Cherki will restore a sprinkle of magic to a team that has got faster and stronger but likely less fun.

And the other is Arsenal, whose first window under Andrea Berta has been far more pragmatic in pursuit of a first title in over 20 years. I maintain that a few years ago when they were choosing between £70m man Nicolas Pepe and Wilfried Zaha, who was available for closer to £50m, they chose the path that cost them a title. Pepe was younger and seen as a better investment but turned out a complete disaster, while Zaha continued to perform as the best player in the Premier League not at a top six club.

This time around, Arsenal chose Viktor Gyokeres over Benjamin Sesko, opting for elite performance now over the vague promise of it sometime in the future, and the additions of Christian Norgaard, 31, and Martin Zubimendi, 26, betray Mikel Arteta’s urge to win now. Especially in the season after Liverpool, Chelsea, Newcastle United, Crystal Palace and (worst of all) Tottenham Hotspur all won trophies.

There will be more additions, but the biggest clubs in England have already done much of their work. Big spenders in recent seasons like Aston Villa and Newcastle United are shackled somewhat by their previous outlays and Financial Fair Play while Brighton are being Brighton and everyone else appears to be a bit dependent on outgoings.

But that’s enough of that, here’s your mid-summer news dump…

Table of Contents

• Apollo Madrid

• Everton in Pursuit

• UEFA against VAR reform

• Palace appeal to CAS

• Regulator update

• Rash decision

• M&A Murmurs

• Qatar’s Olympic bid

Apollo Madrid

New York-based private equity giant Apollo Global Management is in talks over a significant investment into Atletico Madrid, per local reports in the Spanish capital.

Expansión first reported the news, and that the club’s valuation would be in the region of €3bn.

Talks began as Atleti looked to raise €800m to develop the land around their Metropolitano stadium, but soon moved onto a full investment into the holding company which currently owns 70% of the club.

When they left their wonderful-yet-crumbling home in the city to move to a spaceship-like arena out by the airport, Atleti didn’t pay much attention to the stadium surrounds. Now, with the help of major institutional investors, they are looking to build a multi-purpose leisure and entertainment complex.

Ares Management are already investors in Spain’s third-biggest club, who were in the relegation zone when Diego Simeone took over as coach in 2011 and are now one of the world’s most valuable sides.

In more Apollo news, the New York-based PE firm made its first known move into the football world by providing Nottingham Forest with $80m of debt.

The Financial Times described the 8.75% interest rate on the loan as “pricey”, but Forest makes an operating loss of roughly £80m a year and needed cash pay off “other liabilities” including £55m to David McKnight’s Rights and Media Funding group.

Everton in Pursuit

Everton’s new owners The Friedkin Group have formally launched a multi-club group to be named Pursuit Sports.

This is not necessarily huge news in the sense that TFG bought Everton while already owning AS Roma and French club Cannes. While there hasn’t been any player movement between the three clubs, TFG was planning on centralising some services and not only does Pursuit Sports now have a name but it has a CEO too.

Dave Beeston will be joining as the chief executive. The former Fenway Sports Group executive joins from Clearlake Capital, co-owner of Chelsea.

Pursuit Sports also owns Cannes as part of its $1bn+ portfolio of clubs, but plans to broadly run them as individual entities according to Sportico.

“The launch of Pursuit Sports marks an exciting new chapter in The Friedkin Group’s vision to elevate and empower world-class sports organisations,” said Dan Friedkin.

“Through this platform, we can do more than support our teams at a high level—we are investing in their long-term success by bringing together the full strength of our global expertise, resources, and pursuit of excellence.”

UEFA against VAR reform

UEFA will oppose moves to increase the use of VAR to rule on corner kicks and second yellow cards due to fears it would lead to further delays.

As first reported by The Times last week, global lawmaking body the International FA Board (IFAB), are considering widening the scope of VAR with a final decision to be made at their Annual General Meeting in March. In another more radical proposal, IFAB are discussing changing the laws of the game so that if goalkeeper saves a penalty the ball is declared “dead,” meaning a goal could not be scored from a rebound.

Those in favour of widening the scope of VAR argue it should be used to correct all factual errors, such as overturning a decision when a corner has been wrongly awarded. Allowing VARs to intervene for second yellow cards more radical as they are often subjective decisions, while the possible change to penalty protocols would be more controversial still.

Any law changes approved next March would come into effect before the 2026 men’s World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada. Given UEFA’s opposition and reservations held by certain IFAB Board members it would be a surprise if changes are introduced.

Palace appeal to CAS

Not too much more we can say about this one, but Crystal Palace formally filed their appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) asking for UEFA’s decision to be annulled in a bid to be reinstated to the Europa League.

Palace argued that John Textor did not have decisive influence at the club but UEFA did not accept their defence.

Crystal Palace ultras nonetheless turned up at UEFA HQ in Switzerland offering briefcases of cash as part of an ongoing protest against the “UEFA Mafia”.

Regulator update

The Independent Football Regulator (IFR) will begin work later this year after the Football Governance Act became law on Monday. The IFR will cover the top five tiers of the men's game, but have no jurisdiction over women’s football, with a brief to ensure clubs are run sustainably and are accountable to fans. Its powers will include implementing a stronger Owners' and Directors' Tests, backstop powers to ensure a fair financial distribution between leagues and new statutory protections to prevent changes to home shirt colours, club badges and stadium moves.

A Shadow Football Regulator has been in place since last year, and a new leadership team will be appointed later this summer. TV rights specialist and Labour donor David Kogan is set to become Chair of the IFR despite opposition from Conservative MPs, but the identity of the chief executive is seen as more significant.

Sky News reported last weekend that Richard Monks, a partner at leading accountancy firm EY, is the leading contender to become the chief exec. Monks spent 18 years at the Financial Conduct Authority and its predecessor regulator, the Financial Services Authority, before becoming chair of the G20/OECD Taskforce for Consumer Financial Protection.

The report claimed that Monks has already held talks about the role with Kogan, whose appointment has been delayed by an investigation sparked by his previous donations to Labour politicians.

William Shawcross, the commissioner for public appointments, is investigating the process through which Mr Kogan was recruited, but the outcome is not expected to change. 

Rash decision

Sometimes you get things wrong, and Marcus Rashford joining Barcelona would be one of those times.

While Rashford’s brother and agent has made it clear via his media friends that the Manchester United forward was keen on a move to the Nou Camp, it was never clear how the Spanish champions would bring him in in January, resulting in a loan move to Aston Villa that went fine, but not well enough for them to trigger his £40m permanent option.

Barca, famously, love to spend money they haven’t got. They’ve already signed one player (goalkeeper Joan Garcia) that they can’t even register yet because of La Liga’s financial rules and thus the idea of Rashford’s monstrous wage fitting into their budget seemed absolutely impossible in my mind.

Well, apparently not.

In a smart move on his part, Rashford has agreed to take a 15 per cent pay cut to facilitate a loan move to Barca. The (former, but probably future again) England striker completed a medical at the Nou Camp yesterday and will be unveiled today after agreeing a deal which gives the Spanish club the option to sign him permanently next season for £26m.

Rashford’s willingness to accept a reduction on the £315,000-a-week wages he was receiving at Manchester United was crucial to getting the deal done.

Now over to Barcelona’s accountants to sell off some oxygen from the Nou Camp or the sunlight they captured at the training ground.

For the player it’s a great move, playing in an elite team that scored 102 league goals last season and will put him in the best possible position to recapture his form. In general, players that began playing regularly as teenagers (perhaps unsurprisingly) seem to decline a little earlier so Rashford does have something to prove in Spain — that he’s still got it — but he’s managed to engineer a move to almost the ideal environment to do that in.

Good news for Thomas Tuchel, too, in a World Cup year.  

M&A Murmurs

MLS valuations continue to astound, as Austin FC recently took investment at a valuation of $900m.

Inner Circle ran the process to find minority investors for the team, which began playing in 2021.

The new investors are the co-founders of PEAK6 Investments, Jenny Just and Matt Hulsizer, Tench Coxe of Nvidia, Magnetar Capital managing partner Dave Snyderman and Tanuj Gulati, the co-founder of AI company Securonix.

American rapper Snoop Dogg has become the latest celebrity to invest in Championship club Swansea.

As with the investment in the club from Luka Modric, who joined AC Milan from Real Madrid earlier this month, Swansea did not disclose any financial details, with sources indicating that his financial commitment is nominal.

Snoop Dogg helped launch Swansea's new home kit last week, with the club continuing a recent trend of American owners bringing in celebrity backers. NFL icon Tom Brady has joined Birmingham’s ownership group, while film stars Will Ferrell and Russell Crowe and golfers Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas have invested in Leeds.

Qatar’s Olympic bid

Qatar has confirmed a bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games.

The host of the 2022 World Cup will use much of that infrastructure to argue it can put on the greatest show in sports, though it faces competition from Santiago (Chile), Nusantara in Indonesia, Istanbul and the Indian city of Ahmedabad.