Football Finances

1

Couple of tables to post:

1. Annual Rent earned by stadia in the Bundesliga for naming rights:

ESTDIO CLUBE DETENTOR DOS DIREITOS DURAO VALOR ANUAL

Allianz-Arena FC Bayern Munique Allianz Arena Munchen Stadion GmbH 2005/2021 6.000.000
AWD-Arean Hannover 96 Sportfive 2007/2012 2.000.000
BayArena Leberkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen Sportfive desconhecido 2.500.000
Commerzbank Arena Eintracht Frankfurt Sportfive 2005/2015 3.000.000
DKB-Arena FC Hansa Rostock FC Hansa Rostock / Sportfive 2007/2017 1.500.000
easyCredit-Stadion 1.FC Nurnberg Stadion Nurnberg Betriebs-GmbH 2006/2011 1.200.000
Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadion VfB Stuttgart Stuttgart Marketing GmbH desconhecido 5.500.000
HSH Nordbank Arena Hamburguer SV Sportfive 2007/2013 4.500.000
rewirpowerSTADION VfL Bochum VfL Bochum 2006/2011 1.500.000
SchucoArena DSC Arminia Bielefeld Sportfive 2007/2010 650.000
Signal Iduna Park Borussia Dortmund Sportfive 2005/2010 4.000.000
Veltins-Arena FC Schalke 04 FC Schalke 04 2005/2015 3.000.000
Volkswagen Arena VfL Wolfsburg Volkswagen AG / IMG desconhecido 2.000.000
Allianz-Arena TSV 1860 Munchen Allianz Arena Munchen Stadion GmbH 2005/2021 6.000.000
badenova-Stadion SC Freiburg SC Freiburg at 2010 900.000
osnatel-Arena VfL Osnabruck VfL Osnabruck 2004/2009 250.000
Playmobil-Stadion Greuther Furth Greuther Furth GmbH / Co.KGaA desconhecido 450.000
RheinEnergieStadion 1.FC Koln IMG GmbH 2002/2010 2.100.000

2. Value of TV Rights deals for 2007/08

LIGAS DIREITOS TV DURAO INCIO VALOR POCA

Premier League Sky/Setanta 3 anos 2007/08 1.335.000.000
1.Bundesliga Sirius 6 anos 2009/10 500.000.000
Ligue 1 Canal Plus/Orange 4 anos 2008/09 668.000.000

3. Value of TV rights deals by club

CLUBES DIREITOS TV DURAO INCIO VALOR POCA

Man.United Premier League 1 ano 2006/07 47.600.000
Chelsea FC Premier League 1 ano 2006/07 45.900.000
Arsenal FC Premier League 1 ano 2006/07 42.900.000
Liverpool FC Premier League 1 ano 2006/07 42.200.000
Real Madrid Mediapro 7 anos 2006/07 155.000.000
Barcelona Mediapro 7 anos 2006/07 145.000.000
Valncia RTVV 5 anos 2009/10 30.000.000
At. Madrid Telemadrid 5 anos 2009/10 42.000.000
AC Milan Mediaset 2 anos 2007/08 110.000.000
Juventus Mediaset 3 anos 2007/08 110.000.000
Internazionale Mediaset 2 anos 2007/08 100.000.000
AS Roma Mediaset 2 anos 2007/08 65.000.000
Bayern Munique 1.Bundesliga 3 anos 2006/07 26.300.000

2

There’s quite a disparity between England the rest there. Even the Spanish sides’ revenue is for a 7-year period and €150m over that timeframe works out at c.€21m per year which is less than half of what the top 4 in England make. I hadn’t realised the Italian clubs had such significant tv revenue streams but it brings home how affluent all these clubs are in comparison to Celtic’s €2m per year from Setanta. Interesting to see Bayern Munich earn €6m a year for selling the naming rights of their ground to Allianz and it’s a recurring income stream too. I don’t think I’d be in favour of Celtic doing similar but eventually, in order to ensure we can continue to compete with Europe’s elite, it’s something we might have to strongly consider.

3

Typically anti-EPL there Bandage. Why highlight the English disparity when Inter and AC earn more than any of the English on an annualised basis? Prick.

4

I didn’t concentrate on the Italian club figures as I believe them to be incorrect. I was under the impression English clubs’ TV revenue under the latest Sky / Setanta deal had blown all other leagues out of the water. I can’t be bothered checking this out though but Rocko is a nerdish geek who has a strong interest in numeric tables and expect he’ll clarify one way or the other later on today.

5

Apology accepted.

6

Italian tv deals are not centrally negotiated so there’s a greater degree of cash at the top level. Mediaset are owned by Berlusconi who’s unlikely to be shy about giving Milan a generous deal anyway.

Juve deal confirmed here: http://www.goal.com/en/Articolo.aspx?ContenutoId=567421

Those are the old EPL deals, they’re set to get far, far bigger under the new deal.

7

Good article from an Everton site about the downsides of a club selling out.

deal or no deal

By mooncat - 08/09/2008 07:37
Wheel out the banker, dust down your mam’s old phone and jump into your bad Noel Edmonds flowery shirt as we’re ready to play Deal or No Deal, the Everton version.

500 billion. 500,000 fans. 50 players. One question: deal or no deal?

This is the deal. Everton get taken over by a Middle Eastern billionaire who ploughs an unlimited amount of money into our club. We can pay all the debts off; buy whichever players we want; pay them what money they desire and change our manager/kitman/cleaner as we please. Our new stadium can be made out of fucking gold and built on top of the Liver Buildings if we so wish.

Kaka, Ronaldo, Torres, Fabregas, Cech, Messi and even Stephen Hunt will now come and play for us. They will queue round Goodison to get here and stay with us for as long as we want them to. We have the money. Fucking loads of it. We could even buy players to sit in the reserves so others couldn’t have them. Start our own campaign group, Cousins Of Catterick and Kendall, or COCK as we’d affectionately name them, to sweep before them, buy expensive football memorabilia and obviously dig up the park.

We could win trophies - home and abroad - and be the first team name down when the breakaway of the European Super League is announced. We would be the talk of the nation - even the world. Everyone would know about Everton - from Walton to Walthamstow - they would all follow our team. We would be front, middle and back page news and no longer last on Match of the Day. We would be Match of the Day. We would be football. Football would be us.

“Deal, deal. Just fucking deal will yer,” I hear you cry. But before you tell Noel your answer, just listen to what the banker has to say. Hey, you could always do a ‘sweep of the West Wing’ if you wanted.

True, when you deal you incur untold wealth, solve your money worries overnight and make the chances of glory far, far higher. But what have you dealt? And what else comes with selling your club. Our club.

For many of us, watching Everton is as much about being an Evertonian as it is about the football club itself. Sure the matches count, the results are important and the players form a big part in what we are - but that’s only 90 minutes of the week - you’re an Evertonian in work, in school, in the pub and even when you go for a shite.

That means something to me and I like that. In fact when I think about it, it means everything to me. By selling Everton we open the doors to any daft cunt to come and play with us, dance with us and sit at our table. They become Evertonians just like us - forget your 40 years of service; generations of support and your stories to boot - Danny from Devon is as blue as the rest of us if he wants to be. He’s one of us. One of you. And Danny will not be coming alone.

You’ve seen it already - look at the embarrassment of whoppers who follow that shower across the park or the assortment of footballing freaks that go to Old Trafford every other week. And where were the 1,000 city fans, queuing up for season tickets on Wednesday morning three weeks ago? Is that what you want?

Never has the adage of 1=20 ever been as relevant and important as it is now.

Do you want everyone talking about Everton - your Everton - every day, every minute and in every walk of life? People who haven’t got a clue, talking about your club as though they know it better than you? Talking like it’s theirs. Hangers on wearing jester hats, people dressed in royal blue Arab robes, games in Dubai against Bolton, 1,000 a season ticket and a ban on ale? That’s if you can even get in.

So before you deal, remember what you’re dealing with, as money can’t buy you love but it looks like it can buy you happiness. For the time being at least - well, until our new heart throb gets fucked off with football and dumps us like a love sick teenager who’s found something else. Probably involving fast cars.
Mo

Love Everton. Hate Football.

8

bohs finances

Simply put

  • Bohs sold a section of land on the shopping centre end to Albion Homes about 5 years ago in exchange for a new stand.
  • They then sold the whole stadium, in principal, to Liam Carroll
  • Bohs have gone to court to try and weasel out of the Albion deal.
  • Carroll has said no money will be forwarded until thats sorted. Case is to be heard after this season finishes
  • Bohs know this but budget for the money from him anyway. with the €1m due from him they are under 65%, without it, over.
  • Bohs (or at least one of their board) also borrow up to €4m on the back of the property deal with Carroll that a chimpanzee can tell them is not acutually going to happen.
9

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/oct/07/premierleague.westhamunited

West Ham may soon not be the only club where bubbles burst

It’s about a dozen years since I sat on the desk of a financial journalist and refused to move until he’d explained what hedge funds did and how short selling worked. So when spread betting caught on, the inherent danger was clear: if you’re putting your money on someone losing, all sorts of opportunities for dirty tricks open up. And in the end, as we’ve seen on a much grander scale in the last couple of weeks, little good can come of betting on failure.

Sport doesn’t always mimic the workings of the wider world, but sometimes the parallels can’t be escaped. So yesterday I persuaded our economics editor to break off from discussing the plight of Tottenham Hotspur to tell me how and why the Chinese government came to own such a large proportion of the United States’ national debt that they could, if they were feeling mischievous, wipe out that country’s economy with a stroke of the pen. The point of this, since you ask, is that the current indebtedness of England’s leading football clubs ought to be filling everyone involved with profound unease.

Reduced to its essentials, the answer was that the US made itself vulnerable by spending more on imports than it earned from exports, thanks to the erosion of its industrial base following the end of protectionism and the derestriction of capital controls. A similar self-indulgence can be seen in the English clubs’ willingness - also in the wake of deregulation - to imperil their financial stability by paying transfer fees and running up wage bills amounting to an unhealthy percentage of their turnover, while also needing to spend money on upgrading their facilities.

In that state, the only recourse is to outside capital: foreigners buying treasury bonds in the case of the US economy, foreign ownership of the clubs in the case of the Premier League. So now virtually every club that is not already foreign-owned is dreaming of the arrival of billionaires from abroad, with Spurs, Newcastle United and Everton leading the queue.

But already the danger signs are turning from amber to red. The price of oil has fallen sharply in the current crisis, along with that of steel and other minerals; none is likely to recover soon. Football, a direct beneficiary of those industries’ prosperity, will find that the investors of the Persian Gulf, China and Russia are no longer wandering around with open chequebooks.

Liverpool’s American businessmen have put the plans for a new stadium on hold, and the American Insurance Group, whose initials adorn Manchester United’s strip, have just become the beneficiaries of the largest government bailout ever awarded to a private company. West Ham United actually lost their shirt sponsor as a consequence of last month’s collapse of the XL leisure company, in which the Icelandic businessman Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, who owns a majority of the club’s shares, had an interest. This week Iceland’s banks have gone into meltdown, which may be much worse news for Upton Park than the team’s failure to get a point from a home match against Bolton at the weekend.

The swirling financial currents are even threatening to cause disruption in the Championship, supposedly a repository of the values of “real football”. Until the sovereign wealth of Abu Dhabi descended upon Manchester City, the combined funds of Lakshmi Mittal, Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore enabled Queens Park Rangers to describe themselves as Britain’s richest club. The value of Mittal’s family holdings in steel, however, dropped from 33bn in June to 16bn this week. That still makes him as rich as Roman Abramovich, but possibly more inclined to watch the pennies for a while.

In the short term, football’s only reliable source of major revenue is likely to be television. The networks need the audience the game delivers and will pay handsomely to secure the supply line. But if broadcasting rights brought in enough money to keep the clubs in the style to which they have become accustomed, the likes of Mike Ashley and Bill Kenwright would not be lifting their skirts to investors. At Reading, John Madejski failed to find a buyer last year and saw the club relegated.

Football, our economics editor concluded, is the one bubble that has yet to burst. It may be a while before the Rooneys and the Lampards need to downsize, but for the fans of those clubs who yearn to join the big four but have not quite managed it so far, the frustration is likely to get worse

10

From bbc.co.uk/football

West Ham insist they will not be affected by Iceland’s second-biggest bank, Landsbanki, being placed into receivership on Tuesday.

Club chairman Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson is a major shareholder in both West Ham and Landsbanki, and was chairman of the bank until he was sacked on Tuesday.

“This is not affecting West Ham,” a senior boardroom member told BBC Sport.

“One of Mr Gudmundsson’s investments has gone bad, but he is still standing and has a lot of other investments.”

Another board member said 67-year-old Gudmundsson had made it clear that Landsbanki’s predicament had “no implications, no impact” for the club.

“West Ham is protected by Mr Gudmundsson,” he said. “He has considerable personal wealth in a number of sectors, such as construction and shipping, and most of these assets and investments are overseas.”

A weekend newspaper report claimed that Indian billionaire Anil Ambani was interested in buying West Ham and had been told the club was available for 150m.

But the board member said: “West Ham is definitely not for sale. Mr Gudmundsson is not looking to sell the club and he is as committed as ever.”

The Icelandic government took control of Landsbanki on Tuesday to prevent it collapsing and sacked the bank’s board.

There are now fears that the bank could become insolvent, although it released a statement saying: “Landsbanki would like to stress that the bank has not been put into liquidation but is in receivership, which gives it a temporary protection from payment of debts and obligations as they fall due.”

Gudmundsson had experienced a testing few months even before the news that Landsbanki was being placed into receivership.

West Ham’s shirt sponsor, XL, went bust last month, leaving the club with a potential shortfall of 5m.

It also emerged that Gudmundsson was the guarantor of a 207 million Euros (163m) bank loan given to XL.

Then, two weeks ago, an independent tribunal ruled against West Ham in the Carlos Tevez affair, leaving them liable to a 30m compensation claim.

Gudmundsson, who bought the Hammers for 85m in November 2006, was listed as one of the 1,000 richest men in the world in the 2007 Forbes Rich List.

He is the second richest man in Iceland, behind his son. In an interview with The Observer last year he said: “I have interests in companies all over the world. Our operations in Iceland are minimal. Most of our money comes from abroad.”

11

Any thoughts on this (admittedly from The Daily Mail)? Their debt level is incredibly high and, despite their huge revenue streams, they’ve incurred a significant loss. I don’t know if they’ll have to begin selling assets to service the debt over the next few seasons.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/article-1169116/Des-Kelly-The-hidden-horror-Glazers-United.html

The hidden horror of Glazers’ United

When Manchester United slapped AIG on their shirts you might have thought they were merely the sponsors. It appears they were secretly acting as the club’s business advisers as well.

What is happening at Old Trafford? The so-called ‘richest club in the world’ club has been revelling in the most successful period of its entire 131-year history and yet it is still posting an annual pre-tax LOSS of 44.8million.

How? Everyone knew the Glazer family’s buy-out of United with an unprecedented pile of borrowed money was a disgraceful and reckless gamble, but stark reality of the numbers being bandied about are almost beyond comprehension.

The club’s marketing clout and the success of the team under Sir Alex Ferguson generate a whopping annual turnover of 256m. But that windfall is being swallowed by the need to service interest on loans totalling 699m — a debt that is rising every year.

‘I don’t know what these figures tell you,’ said Ferguson yesterday. Run, perhaps? Admittedly, the accounts are horribly obtuse; deliberately so, no doubt. It’s a tangle of holding companies, parent companies, ‘secured’ borrowing, ‘debt streams’ and ‘payment in kind’ loans that would require the services of a professional expert to unravel, the kind of professional expert who helped lead us all to the brink of global financial disaster in the first place.

If you like calculus then they may be bedtime reading. But here is the scenario for you in a nutshell.

The Glazers are basically using their American Express card to pay off the 699m shopping bill they ran up on their Visa card. And next year, they’ll shove it all on Mastercard.

In the meantime, they are turning up at the casino and hoping the cards continue to be kind so they can cover the interest payments with their winnings.

What could possibly go wrong? Football is cyclical. Although the wheel turns much more slowly at the top than in years past, there will inevitably be a period when United are less successful. Ferguson mentions retirement more and more these days and other clubs will surely seize the initiative when that moment finally comes.

And then what? United are a bad season or two away from doing a Lehman Brothers, or a Northern Rock. The club is a sub-prime horror story, where hidden commitments, myriad loans and debts are complacently excused and numbers are crunched until they are unrecognisable.

These accounts don’t even cover the period when the credit crisis started claiming real victims, including the failed conglomerate AIG. The figures appear to show the Glazers aren’t paying off their massive debt and it’s not even clear if they’re covering all the interest.

More worryingly, the ledger seems to suggest huge repayments are due, starting in four years’ time, with bills landing on the doormat of between 75m-150m every 12 months, followed by a massive 600m final demand in eight years.

(Note for diary: ‘January 1, 2017 — United go bust’.)

What does this mean in the short term? It means season ticket prices will probably go up in the midst of a recession. It could mean the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo are sold, as it’s hard to turn down 75m when there is a black hole in the books.

We can only guess at the implications. The Glazers decided to remain undercover in Florida and say nothing about these figures, the ignorant cowards. Supporters deserve better than that.

But to help explain the situation to the worldwide fan base their debt empire is built upon, here is a helpful Q&A with one of the family’s trusted advisers:

Q. Where is Malcolm Glazer? He is never seen in public. Is he even alive?

A. We believe he is alive because his face still appears on packets of Quaker Oats. Malcolm Glazer does venture out in public but only when disguised as John McCririck, and to date nobody has dared to approach him due to concerns over hygiene.

Q. Do the Glazer family actually understand United’s history or the English game?

A. Yes, of course they do. To use the football vernacular, this is a family that knows how to step up to the plate, adjust the groin cup of caution, swing the bat of success in the fourth down and dunk the hoop of victory — even if they then pull the hamstring of recklessness and fall face down on the pitch of stupidity with the snot of greed dribbling out of their nose. Yeah, these guys live and breathe football, from their base in Tampa.

Q. How confident are you that the Glazer family have a real grip on these nightmare numbers?

A. On a scale of one to 10, I’d say they’re at eleventeen.

12

ah come on - the daily mail? FFS they just make up news stories

13

I don’t disagree with you generally but they are the actual figures/results that were released last week.

14

fair enough. looks like the daily mail finally got a story correct.

15

West Ham are in more bother…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/apr/17/west-ham-united-iceland-banks-zola

16

[quote=“Bandage”]Any thoughts on this (admittedly from The Daily Mail)? Their debt level is incredibly high and, despite their huge revenue streams, they’ve incurred a significant loss. I don’t know if they’ll have to begin selling assets to service the debt over the next few seasons.

Don’t know if theres essentially anything wrong with how the Glazers are running the club. The article made out like they were aloof and obtuse and they do look like stupid thick yanks alright but everything they’ve done/are doing is standard enough business practice. Im sure they or their accountant’s would have relatively realistic business plans based on passed results.
Ronaldo will go this Summer and he would have been sold whether they were in debt or not. So what? Along comes Macheda and theres another 50mill in the bag about 5 or 6 years down the line.
Ferguson is the one real irreplaceable.

17

[quote=“Lazarus;158892][QUOTE=Bandage”]Any thoughts on this (admittedly from The Daily Mail)? Their debt level is incredibly high and, despite their huge revenue streams, they’ve incurred a significant loss. I don’t know if they’ll have to begin selling assets to service the debt over the next few seasons.

Don’t know if theres essentially anything wrong with how the Glazers are running the club. The article made out like they were aloof and obtuse and they do look like stupid thick yanks alright but everything they’ve done/are doing is standard enough business practice. Im sure they or their accountant’s would have relatively realistic business plans based on passed results.
Ronaldo will go this Summer and he would have been sold whether they were in debt or not. So what? Along comes Macheda and theres another 50mill in the bag about 5 or 6 years down the line.
Ferguson is the one real irreplaceable.[/quote]

If United were to miss out on Champions League qualification in the near future, what would happen I wonder?

18

[quote=“KIB man;158898][quote=Lazarus”]

If United were to miss out on Champions League qualification in the near future, what would happen I wonder?[/quote]

Nothing much KiBman. The point I was getting at is that the likes of UTD probably budget for every 4 out of 5 champions leagues or something so missing the odd one should be accounted for. The interesting thing will be the sale of Ronaldo. I reckon they could 90mill for him. Fergeson sayd he won’t sell a virus to Real but he knows well the arragont little fuck is out the door in July.

19

Decent article from David Conn in Guardian on Wycombe’s future:

Wycombe vote will end supporter ownership at original members’ club

Tonight Wycombe Wanderers supporters are being asked to vote away the last remnant of the supporter-ownership which served the club so well on its remarkable rise from the Isthmian League to League One, originally under a young manager cutting his teeth, by the name of Martin O’Neill.

Wycombe rose from part-time status to the Football League, and built the new Adams Park stadium, while owned by a structure in which ordinary fans who had held season tickets for three years could pay just one pound to become members. That gave them a stake in the club’s ownership and they could vote to elect the directors.

The first change came in 2004 when Wycombe’s then directors argued the member system was holding the club back from securing new investment and called for it to become 75% owned by individuals, with fan-members holding just 25%. Some fans at the time criticised the directors for presiding over 2.2m of debts being accumulated, and argued there was no guarantee that any new investment would be well spent. The change, though, was approved.

Since then a multi-millionaire businessman, Steve Hayes, who also owns Wasps rugby union club, has arrived to fund Wycombe, lending the club 6.893m to run at a considerable loss every year. Now Hayes has offered to reduce that debt by 3m - if he is given 100% control of the club. Were the vote to go against him, Hayes has said he will withdraw his financial support. The directors have warned that without Hayes’ backing, the club would fall into insolvency, and urged members to vote in favour. Hayes has said he has plans to put further investment into the club and will work with the supporters trust in future, even though he will wholly own the club.

This is an important story because it reflects on the viability of football at League One level - it seems staggering for a club like Wycombe to have managed to soak up almost 7m in loans from one backer. It is also of wider significance because if the vote goes in favour of Hayes tonight, it will mark the end of the democratic, supporter-owned structure which many people - from ordinary fans to Uefa, via Supporters Direct - believe to be the right one, in principle, for football clubs.

Barcelona, it seems, can win the European Champions League while still proudly owned by its members, but the finances of the Football League are such that supporter-owned clubs come under tremendous financial pressure. Clubs, competing tooth and claw against each other, increasingly rely on businessmen to put millions in, largely to pay players wages which the clubs would otherwise not be able to afford. And for that, the businessmen-backers generally want to own the clubs, 100%.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2009/jul/06/wycombe

Apparently the sale of the club will also result in the sale of the ground so Wycombe will become tennants in a ground they used to own which will be used primarily for Wasps, also owned by Steve Hayes.

20

Stop Football