FootBiz newsletter #96: Automatic relegation wage cuts, TV battles and UEFA screw Crystal Palace

I woke up on Monday to an unusual amount of messages, which immediately told me (due to being eight hours behind Europe for the next few days) that Crystal Palace’s appeal against their farcical demotion from the Europa League had been unsuccessful. 

So really the only thing left to do was to discover how exactly people had chosen to tell me.

There were those who were sorry. Those who thought it was funny. Those who were angry and wanted blood. All were valid in their own way. 

It doesn’t really make a difference to me but it will, eventually, for UEFA.

In my mind, a couple of things are fairly self-evident. 

If you’ve been reading FootBiz for a while, I would certainly hope that you had noticed that I pay a fair amount of attention to how clubs are run, and that applies especially to the club I am a supporter of. 

John Textor did not have decisive influence at Crystal Palace. Of course he didn’t. 

Anyone who has been paying attention knows that. 

Given the absolute fucking disaster that has unfolded at Lyon, it’s just as well he didn’t, something he voiced his displeasure about on several occasions, while the lack of incredibly questionable deals involving his other clubs (which are easy to identify in their respective market strategies) is evidence in any normal sense. 

So I’m sure that what should really feature below is a legal analysis of why Crystal Palace (a small club, in the wider framing) got bounced from UEFA’s second-tier competition even though they don’t actually do a thing that UEFA allows lots of other clubs to do. 

I won’t waste my time. 

Instead it’s better to just focus on the silver linings on all these clouds. 

One is that Palace get to have a season in the Conference League (which they could legitimately win) completely fuelled by grievance. There is kerosene, there is diesel and there is ethanol but human beings have yet to discover a fuel as powerful as being pissed off by the footballing authorities. 

On top of that, we have seen a (surprising?) amount of support from fans of other clubs, who see not only how farcical the whole situation has been in a vacuum, but additionally how absurd it is that Palace would be replaced by Nottingham Forest - an actual multi-club operation who are engaged in a number of eyebrow-raising transactions with… John Textor himself, the man who cost Palace the Europa League. As much as these people think we are, football fans aren’t stupid. 

You can point to your rulebook, but when everyone has seen you bend over backwards to accommodate Red Bull teams directly playing against each other, or Manchester City and Girona both competing in the Champions League, they aren’t going to buy what you are selling. Genuine MCOs are playing in the same competition but Palace can’t do the same with a team where their former investor is no longer even chairman?

And so while it changes nothing long-term for Palace, it does change something for UEFA. 

Losers like me who actively pay attention to football governance have known for a while exactly who you are and what you are doing. Most people don’t. 

Organisations like the UEC, who hold up a magnifying glass to the (ahem) cosy relationship that makes it impossible to work out where UEFA ends and the ECA begins, are only going to be further validated by decisions like these. Evangelos Marinakis benefited from his ECA relationships while Palace were left out of the boys’ club.

Aleksander Ceferin may have arrived with notionally good intentions but has been drifting away from reality for a while, following the pathway of Michel Platini before him and Gianni Infantino at a global level. Those who present themselves as reformers always seem to become the exact thing they had claimed they would reform. 

And now even the normal football fans are paying attention.

Table of Contents

• Sheff Weds update

• United stadium plan gets boost

• Ligue 1’s latest TV battle

• La Liga closing on US match

• PL clubs’ legal fee concerns

• The Rock is cooking

• Azteca work delayed

Automatic relegation wage cuts in Italy

All Serie A players will have their salaries cut by 25 per cent next season if they are relegated from next season following a historic collective bargaining agreement struck by the league, the Italian FA and the Italian Footballers’ Association. 

Under the terms of a new five-year agreement all salaries of players relegated to Serie B will be automatically reduced, unless there is an exemption clause in the player's contract. Agents indicated to FootBiz on Monday that they wouldn’t let a player sign in Italy without such an exemption, but the reality may be more complex than that.

The new regulation will apply to all contracts signed from the summer transfer window onwards, with the terms of previous deals still applying.

While players and their agents will be able to negotiate exemptions in future it is expected that compulsory wage cuts will become the norm in Italian football.

In a rare display of harmony, the authorities have acted together to formalise a policy of sustainability and restraint after Italian clubs have been plagued with financial problems in recent years. For that alone, they should be applauded even if the measures promise significant l

Former Serie A champions and European Cup finalists Sampdoria came within a play-off game of being relegated to Serie C last season following years of financial mismanagement, while Brescia have fallen even further and must start again in the amateur leagues after being expelled from Serie C due to bankruptcy proceedings after chronic mismanagement from serial offender Massimo Cellino.

Sheff Weds update

The EFL is engaged in discussions with Sheffield Wednesday over a potential sale of the club, seeking promises of further funding from beleaguered owner Dejphon Chansiri if he is to retain control.

Employees were not paid their full wages for June or July, which has cost the club potentially millions in fees after Josh Windass and Michael Smith submitted their notice and walked away from the club for free - as it their right in case of non-payment.

In an effort to cover June’s delayed payroll, the club sold its biggest asset, Djeidi Gassama, to Rangers for a fee of around £2.2 million having previously quoted clubs more than double that amount. With the cut-price departure of Gassama and others exiting for nothing, only 16 senior players remain at the club, and just one goalkeeper among them.

Head coach Danny Röhl also left the club for nothing, a fitting conclusion to his tense relationship with Chansiri but another significant loss for the club not just because they’d previously turned down multi-million pound approaches from other clubs but also because Röhl had impressed as a young coach since taking the reins at Hillsborough.

Perhaps some good news is that Wednesday’s transfer embargo, originally until 2027, was lifted late last week but the situation remains grave.

As it turns out, the situation is so bad that fans are excited at the prospect of John Textor potentially buying them.

Undeterred by the implosion of Olympique Lyonnais, Textor has joined forces with the football financier Keith Harris in an attempt to buy Wednesday. Harris, a former investment banker, has brokered takeovers at West Ham, Manchester City and Aston Villa and put together a consortium to buy Everton last year, although that bid was unsuccessful.

Textor was granted exclusivity in his attempt to buy Everton through his investment vehicle, Eagle Football, but also failed to complete. The American was not working with Harris, but they got to know each other through the Englishman’s work for Sportsbank, which this year offered Textor £230m to buy 45% of Eagle in a potential transaction that also did not take place.

Sportsbank is not involved in the bid for Wednesday, with Harris working with Textor to source funding elsewhere.

Wednesday owner Chansiri has held talks with several potential buyers this summer and said in June that he had rejected an offer of £40m from an unknown American consortium, which is not connected to Textor. Chansiri’s asking price is thought to be closer to £100m.

United stadium plan gets boost

One of Manchester United’s significant struggles with building ‘New Trafford’ is acquiring the necessary land from neighbouring owners in order to build Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s ‘Wembley of the North’.

Freightliner have reportedly demanded £400m for the large plot of adjacent land, a figure that United have baulked at, but the Premier League club has been handed a potentially significant lifeline by the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham.

Burnham has been supportive of the huge project, and when asked about forcing the sale of the land to United via a compulsory purchase order he said he would consider the option “if needed”.

That the mayor is willing to potentially use the mechanism to facilitate the building of the new mega-development is a sign of how important the plan is to the future of the city. Northern cities in England have struggled economically in recent years, with promised investment from the previous government as part of their “Levelling Up” agenda failing to materialise.

Ligue 1’s latest TV battle

Ligue 1+, the first streaming platform launched by a major European league, will debut on August 15.

But as exciting, innovative and scary as this new future may be for French football (and beyond?) there are still external hassles for the new LFP Media CEO Nicolas de Tavernost to deal with.

For the league’s delicate peace agreement its sole remaining third-party broadcaster is threatening to break, with BeIn Sports now withholding part of a payment due to the league in a row over match selections.

As has been covered ad nauseam by FootBiz, Ligue 1’s broadcast situation has been a complete shitshow (technical term) since they broke their long-term partnership with Canal+ to sign a deal with MediaPro in 2019, only for that to blow up during Covid. Ligue 1 has since had a patchwork quilt of broadcast partners, including Amazon Prime and others, leading to DAZN buying the rights last year but then pulling the ejector seat after just one year of incredibly poor numbers.

BeIn Sports have helped bail out the league on a number of occasions but PSG’s rivals are, quite understandably, concerned at the potential conflict of interest. That situation piqued in a meeting of league owners last summer which Nasser al-Khelaifi attended as PSG chairman where other clubs spoke up about the evident conflict and Al-Khelaifi snapped back, resulting in John Textor’s now-infamous description of LFP president Vincent Labrune as Nasser’s “lap dog”.

Since then, BeIn’s relationship with the league has been somewhat more combative. There was conflict over a Qatari tourism deal with which some clubs refused to comply.

The newest issue, per L’Equipe, is that BeIn is pissed off at certain limitations over which games they’re allowed to broadcast. BeIn have just one game per week (with the others all broadcast via the league’s new platform) but have bristled at the restrictions being placed upon them.

Under their deal, BeIn get the first or second choice of matches in any given weekend. The arrangement alternates, so in most weeks BeIn had expected to either show PSG or Marseille, the country’s two biggest brands by far. Only, LFP Media have instituted some new rules that dictate they can only show a team on eight occasions per season and never twice in a row (effectively guaranteeing a certain amount of PSG and OM for their own streamer).

The result: BeIn only paid €14m of their €18m obligation this month.

LFP Media offered as some sort of bizarre olive branch that BeIn could perhaps broadcast a team in back-to-back weeks but a letter leaked to L’Equipe suggests BeIn have turned it down.

"We have taken note of your 'proposal' to amend the Memorandum of Understanding by removing only the ban on choosing the same club for two consecutive matchdays, a proposal which is - quite surprisingly - conditional on the advance payment of €20 million under a so-called sponsorship contract for the 2025-2026 season. This proposal is, once again, completely disconnected from reality: the €20 million sponsorship contract you refer to was never agreed, never signed, and never saw the light of day between LFP Media and Qatar Tourism. It is also not necessary to remind you that many clubs vigorously rejected this hypothesis from the outset."

"Moreover, LFP Media is now attempting to take advantage of a contractual breach - not by remedying it or finding a simple solution - but by imposing an unenforceable tripartite arrangement on beIN, which constitutes a form of pressure that can easily be considered coercive and abusive. The only constructive element of your letter is the fact that LFP Media is now itself attributing a value of €20 million to one of the current restrictions on match selection - the one preventing beIN from selecting the same club on two consecutive matchdays - which we note with great interest."

This one is going to run and run…

La Liga closing on US match

The much-anticipated first competitive European league fixture to be staged abroad appears to be inching closer, with news that La Liga have received the first layer of approval to move Villarreal’s home game against Barcelona in December to Miami.  

Spain’s Football Federation (RFEF) discussed La Liga’s request at a meeting yesterday [Monday], which was granted and will now lead to formal proposals being submitted to UEFA, FIFA and the US Soccer Federation, who must all give their approval.

"At its meeting on 11 August 2025, the RFEF board of directors received a request from Villarreal CF and FC Barcelona to play their match on matchday 17 of the first division in the United States," the RFEF said.

"The Royal Spanish Football Federation will submit the request to Uefa to begin the process for subsequent authorisation by Fifa for the match to be played at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami on 20 December 2025."

La Liga first attempted to move a match abroad in 2018 with a proposal for Girona’s home match against Barcelona to be played in Miami. But the efforts were blocked by both the RFEF and FIFA, as was a similar attempt for Atletico Madrid to meet Villarreal in the US the following year.

Relations between La Liga and the RFEF have improved since then, however. Just as significant peace deals have also been agreed between the event’s would-be promoter, sports marketing agency Relevent Sports, and FIFA and US Soccer 

US Soccer and Relevent settled an antitrust lawsuit earlier this year, with the federation saying they would no longer block competitive games taking place in the country.

Relevent also dropped their legal action against FIFA, who responded by forming a working group to explore the possibility of allowing domestic league matches to be played in other countries. While the working party has yet to report, senior sources at the world governing body expect them to give the green light in principle.

Serie A have also made it clear they want to stage matches in the United States, but the Premier League insist they will not do so despite pressure from individual clubs.

La Liga obsessives in the UK will have to take out another subscription if they want access to every game this season after Disney+ secured a three-year deal to show one game per week last week.

The American streaming service will broadcast the Saturday 8:30pm kick-off each week, starting with Real Sociedad’s visit to Valencia on Saturday, with Premier Sports continuing as La Liga’s main broadcaster in a deal that gives them over 300 matches each season. 

Disney have won the rights to an enhanced version of the package that was previously owned by ITV, who have broadcast 10 of the biggest La Liga matches per season for the last three years. It is the second significant set of UK rights bought this summer by Disney, who in May secured a five-year contract for the Women’s Champions League from next season. 

In another new development, Gary Lineker’s production company, Goalhanger, have bought a clips and goal package, which they will use in a new video podcast, The Rest is Football: La Liga, which launches next week.

PL clubs’ legal fee concerns

Premier League clubs are growing increasingly concerned about the rising cost of legal bills due to the executive’s investigations into alleged financial malpractice at Manchester City, Chelsea, Leicester, Everton and Nottingham Forest.  

The league's operating expenses rose by £81 million over the 2023-24 season to £216.5m according to their annual accounts, with "an increase in legal fees due to club regulatory matters" given as the primary reason.

This increase was on top of a £44 million rise in operating expenses over the 2022-23 season, with further significant growth in costs expected when last season’s accounts are published in the winter.

The Premier League's legal spending in 2023-24 was about £48m, six times the amount originally budgeted for according to The Times, and will have increased further last season with the City case finally heard, Leicester charged with breaching PSR rules and historic allegations against Chelsea still being investigated.

The Rock is cooking

Wrexham have bought a local stadium to house their women’s team as the Dragons’ mens outfit begin their first campaign back in the Championship.

The Rock, which Wrexham women have shared with Welsh league side Cefn Druids since 2023, is now owned by the Hollywood club but Cefn Druids will stay on as tenants.

In the Europa League in recent memory, Cefn Druids (formerly NEWI Cefn Druids) have slipped down from the Welsh Premier and into a local amateur league after some financial difficulties.

The Rock is around seven miles from the Racecourse Ground, where the men’s team host West Bromwich Albion on Saturday lunchtime.

Azteca work delayed

Barcelona aren’t the only club who will have to wait longer than they’d hoped to move into their renovated stadium.

Club America will almost certainly have to wait until after the 2026 World Cup before returning to the Azteca, with work on the historic Mexico City stadium now only expected to be ready by April.

The two month buffer to the World Cup’s opening game is not a concern for local tournament organisers or FIFA but means that America face another short tournament, the 2026 Clausura, playing at the Ciudad de los Deportes which is every bit as cramped and unwelcoming for fans as Montjuic was for Barca.