July 3 – Scottish top-flight club Hibernian are the latest team to be taken over by American investors with the announcement that multi-millionaire businessman Ronald Gordon, whose grandfather emigrated from Scotland in 1908, now in charge.
By David Owen
July 1 – Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s big money move to Manchester United may have come as a disappointment but not a surprise to financially literate Crystal Palace supporters.
June 28 – Italian giants AC Milan will not play in Europe next season. The club and UEFA have struck a deal that will see the Milanese serve a one-year ban from European football for breaching financial fair play rules, CAS confirmed.
June 25 – Market value estimates put England and Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho as the player with the highest increase in value in the world since the last transfer window – up €49.6 million to a transfer value of €95.7 million.
June 25 – Amidst the hype of the Women’s World Cup, Real Madrid have disclosed plans to found a women’s team for the 2019/2020 season. The Spanish giant have reached an agreement with CD Tacon that will see them take the club over.
June 25 – OL Groupe, owner of Olympique Lyonnais’ men’s and women’s teams, is expanding into basketball with the acquisition of 25% of Asvel.
June 24 – New Fiorentina owner Rocco Commisso has wasted no time getting his feet under the desk at the Serie A club saying he will refurbish the stadium.
June 21 – Tokabot, a tracker that monitors and collects data on where sports fans are most digitally active, has received seed funding from HYPE Capital
June 18 – The United States women’s national soccer team (USWNT), in dispute with their national federation (USSF) over equal pay and conditions, generated more revenue than the men’s side in the three years after their 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup win according to analysis of US Soccer’s audited accounts for the past three years.
June 14 – Strikers top the latest transfer valuations of players in the five leading European leagues with PSG’s Kylian Mbappe now estimated to be worth a staggering €252 million, though his Brazilian teammate Neymar having lost more than 40% of his value dropping to €124.7 million.
June 12 – Lionel Messi is now officially the world’s highest paid sport star earning $127 million in the past 12 months, according to the Forbes top 100 ranking.
June 11- English League 2 club Stevenage has turned to sports investment platform Tifosy to raise £1.2 million by offering 12% equity in the club.
June 10 – Premier League Everton made another financial readjustment in its shareholding structure with billionaire owner majority owner Farhad Moshiri increasing his ownership from 68.6% to 77.2%.
June 10 – US businessman Rocco Commisso has completed his $180 million acquisition of Serie A side Fiorentina.
By Paul Nicholson
May 30 – The European football business has never had it so good. Latest data from Deloittes puts the overall market value at a record €28.4 billion, driven primarily by a 6% rise in revenues across the increasingly dominant Big 5 European leagues and their ‘super’ clubs to €15.6 billion.