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New edition published March 2005
ContentsIntroduction: Football boom or bust What Happens When The Bubble Bursts? Big Business -- Saviours Or Sinners? Big Business Dressed In Shorts Prawn Sandwiches In The Highbury Library Crystal Balls International Game Of The Masses Folk Football Money, Money, Money Directors, Players And Agents Who Owns The Grounds Anyway? Supporters Direct Super Swans Fight Back Corporate Hospitality Disasters Past Reclaim The Games Campaigns Around The Grounds Review Of Reclaim The Game Campaigns Against ID Cards Campaigns Against Racism And Fascism Fans Against Big Business Images Of Football QPR Wembley Nick Hornby And Stanley Matthews The Rich Get Richer Racism And Football Hooliganism British Isolation It's A Man's World The Future About The Socialist Party Bibliography |
UPDATE NOVEMBER 2005 INTRODUCTIONSince the last edition, written in March 2005, a lot has happened in football. Chelsea are dominating the Premiership with their main challengers being Wigan Athletic. Spurs, Charlton Athletic, Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers, are also challenging. This just shows the effect good managers (as well as money) can have at a club. Manchester United and Arsenal are rallying, but they are so far behind Chelsea at the moment it would seem the title is already in the bag for the team from south-west London. Roman Abramovich is boasting that Chelsea will dominate football for a hundred years: I cannot wait to see the decline and fall of this particular Roman Empire. Across the borough at QPR we had the spectacle of a director allegedly being held up at gunpoint by a rival faction in the boardroom. Liverpool won the European Champions League, without first winning the Premiership, in one of the most exciting finals ever played. The duopoly of Manchester United and Arsenal has been broken in England by Chelsea and the billions of Abramovich. In Scotland the duopoly of Celtic and Rangers is being challenged by Heart of Midlothian. Hearts are financed by the millions of the Lithuanian Romanov family- who gained their fortunes by plundering the economy of the ex-Soviet Union - although the wheels seem to be coming off Hearts’ challenge due to the Romanov family forcing out the manager, chief executive and Chairman. The ex-Chairman of Hearts, Foulkes was quoted as saying: "I brought in Vladimir Romanov and I’m regretting that very much now… Romanov is behaving like a dictator and if he continues to do that then there will be a revolution against him." Nick Harris writing in the Independent (02/11/05) states: "Roman Romanov, the new chairman and acting chief executive of Hearts, yesterday attempted to defend Monday's extraordinary boardroom purge at Tynecastle but failed to allay fears that his family could make millions from an asset-stripping exercise if they failed to turn Hearts into major contenders in Europe. Speaking at Tynecastle yesterday, Romanov Jnr seemed genuine in his desire to transform Hearts. The concern for fans is who will pay the price if his family fails. Although Roman's father, Vladimir, owns 55.5 per cent of Hearts and is bidding for the rest, it had never been revealed before yesterday how much of his own £260m fortune he had personally risked in the venture. Romanov's legal adviser, Iain Young, confirmed the answer is £6m." "Yet the club has saleable assets of more than £30m. Even accounting for the £19.2m debt that Romanov inherited when he took his initial 29.9 per cent stake in Hearts in February, he is in a no-lose situation. The failure of his Hearts dream would cost him nothing, or even be personally profitable, while Hearts could be left without a home or any players of significance. Tynecastle is worth more than £20m to property developers and the playing squad has a conservative transfer value of £12m-plus." "Another twist is that Hearts' debt is now held by the Ukio, Lithuania's first independent bank, which was co-founded by Romanov Snr, who remains a major shareholder. So Ukio is earning interest from Hearts' debt, but is also in a position to call in that debt, triggering a sale of assets. A doomsday scenario, certainly, but not impossible and not one that Roman Romanov refuted with any conviction yesterday."
AFCThe AFC bandwagon continues. FC United of Manchester was formed in protest against Manchester United being taken over by the Glazer family and AFC Telford was formed after the collapse of Telford United. Good luck to these clubs and to AFC Wimbledon. BRIGHTONCongratulations to Brighton and their fans who have won the battle to build a new ground at Falmer. THE RICHEST LEAGUE IN THE WORLDThe Premiership generated £1.326 billion in season 2003/04, up 6% on 2002/03. Football League clubs’ revenue increased by 7% to £440 million. Attendances across the three Football League divisions were up by 7%. The Football League attracted cumulative attendances of 16.4 million in season 2004/05; no other country can boast such strength of support in the lower divisions. Attendance figures at football are the highest since the 1960s. Premiership attendances fell by 1% in season 2003/04 whilst Championship attendances rose by 10%. The average Premiership club generated revenue of £66 million in season 2003/04 compared to £12 million for the average Championship club. Premiership clubs’ total wages grew by 7% in 2003/04 to reach £811 million. (Chelsea has a published total wages and salaries bill of £115 million, £38 million higher than Manchester United). The Premiership saw a rise in players’ earnings of 6%.If Chelsea’s players’ wages are excluded there would have been a fall of 3%-4% (£15-20 million). The average cost of paying the yearly salary of a Premiership player rose to £900,000 (again this is distorted by the Chelsea factor). In the Championship players’ earnings fell by 7% to £138 million (from £149 million in 2002/03). Players’ earnings also fell in League 1 and 2, by £8 million (17%) and £1 million (4%) respectively. Transfer fees have rocketed upwards again thanks to the phenomenal amounts spent by Chelsea. Chelsea spent £175 million in transfer fees in 2003/04. This pushed total spending on transfers in the top four divisions up from £203 million in 2002/03 to £414 million in 2003/04 (way above what I predicted thanks to Chelsea inflating the transfer market). Indeed, Arsene Wenger pleaded with Chelsea to hurry up and buy all the players they need so the rest of us will know who is left to buy. (Information for this section from Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance) CLUB V COUNTRYThere is a major battle between the G14 clubs and FIFA. The G14 are backing Charleroi of Belgium who are currently going through the courts with a claim that FIFA’s rules, which force them to release players to their national associations without payment or compensation for injury, contravenes European law. Charleroi have gone to court in a test case in respect of Abdelmajid Oulmers, the Morocco player who was out for eight months after tearing ankle ligaments in a ‘friendly’ against Burkina Faso in November 2004. Charleroi subsequently missed out on qualifying for the lucrative Champions League, and are seeking compensation from FIFA. The G14 argue that tournaments such as the World Cup and European Championship generate hundreds of millions of pounds, but the clubs get no compensation for providing their players free of charge. Clubs also have to pay the insurance for players released to play in internationals. This case could be as significant as the Bosman case which, if successful, could lead to FIFA having to pay huge sums to clubs in compensation for the services of its players in international tournaments. It could lead to the end of ‘friendly’ internationals. BLATTER BLASTS THE G14The power struggle between FIFA and the G14 clubs is reaching fever pitch. Sepp Blatter, who has made millions out of football, has used populist phraseology to attack the fat cats of football. In an article in the Financial Times, October 2005, he states that the owners of some clubs have created "A wild west style of capitalism" which is threatening the game. He has stated that a FIFA taskforce will examine the "pornographic amounts of money" that have divided the sport. "The time has come to curb the excesses". It is a veiled attack on Chelsea who have spent £330 million since Roman Abramovich took control in 2003. Blatter goes on to say: "What makes it a matter of concern is that all too often the source of this wealth is individuals with little or no history of interest in the game, who have happened upon football as a means of serving some hidden agenda" "What is interesting about a League whose Champions can be predicted with confidence after about five games?" "Why is it good for football to take the excitement away from the fans by overcharging them for tickets to see ‘their team’?" "It is simply insane for any player to earn £6-8 million." The FIFA president condemns the practice whereby commercial rights to young players are bought by speculators who generate a profit each time those players are subsequently sold, branding it "a new type of slavery". "What we are faced with is a football society of have and have nots…this cannot be the future of our game. FIFA cannot sit by and see greed rule the football world. Nor shall we." Fine words, but will Blatter really take the sword to slay the fat cats? CRICKETThe Ashes victory of England during the Summer of 2005 drew record audiences on Channel 4. Unfortunately, viewers without Sky will be unable to watch the next Ashes series due to the fact that the England and Wales cricket board have sold the rights of Test cricket to Sky until 2009 for the princely sum of £220 million. THE BLUE TSAR GETS EVEN WEALTHIERAs I predicted in the last edition, Abramovich is continuing to transfer his wealth out of Russia. He sold his last major business interest in Russia, Sibneft, for £7.4 billion to the state controlled gas group Gazprom. He may well have got double that figure for his shares if he had been allowed to sell them on the international market. It is rumoured that he may well have been made an offer that he couldn’t refuse; to sacrifice his shares in Sibneft in exchange for his freedom. Mikhail Korchemkin who owns East European Gas, stated: "This is in exchange for his freedom, not being in jail. Everyone knows he’s not getting the £7.4 billion in cash". Abramovich has just been reappointed by the Kremlin as Governor of Chukotka. (He had said that he would not stand for Governor again). EUROPEAN AND WORLD FOOTBALL BODIES TO INVESTIGATE CHELSEAFIFA and UEFA are investigating Chelsea’s billionaire owner Roman Abramovich. The inquiry was sparked by an article in a Dutch magazine, Football International. The fourteen page report makes allegations about Chelsea’s transfer dealings and financial links with other clubs, including CSKA Moscow, PSV Eindhoven, Porto, Benfica and Corinthians. UEFA and FIFA are concerned that Abramovich not only owns Chelsea, but Sibneft the company that until recently was owned by him, is a major sponsor of CSKA Moscow. UEFA Chief Executive Lars-Christer Olsson stated: "If Abramovich’s investment is in one club…we don’t have a problem…but we cannot allow one individual, or a group to have a dominant position in more than one club participating in our competitions." SKY AND FOOTBALLSky’s 13-year monopoly of televising Premiership football is coming to an end. A deal negotiated between the Premier League and the European Commission will ensure that more than one broadcaster will be able to screen Premiership football from 2007. THE 92 CLUBSince the last edition I have been to see QPR play at Hull and Aldershot. I forgot I had also visited Chester’s ground to see the R’s, when we played Vauxhall Motors in the FA Cup, enough said about that game. Only six League grounds to go! Although the excessive cost of football is slowly pricing me out, I faced a 50% plus price hike in my season ticket at QPR. It costs around £22 to go and watch the R’s, when I went to watch my favourite Breton team Stade Rennais in this year’s UEFA Cup match against Osasuna it cost only £11. BIBLIOGRAPHYThis edition drew on articles in the Times, Guardian, Observer, Independent, The Scotsman, Financial Times, Evening Standard and Reuters.
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