By Paul Nicholson
November 19 – Private equity money looking to make a play in the football business is not being discouraged by the pandemic with investors increasingly looking at opportunities outside the higher priced top tiers of the Big 5 league clubs.
By Samindra Kunti
November 18 – La Liga has acted to keep club spending under control by reduced salary caps across its two leagues by more than €600 million because of the coronavirus pandemic. Clubs are currently on track to overspend their income by €500 million.
By David Owen
November 13 – Higher broadcasting revenue was not enough to prevent inconsistent Manchester United from reporting a pre-tax loss of £27.1 million for the first quarter of 2020-21, as coronavirus continued to exact a heavy toll on football club finances.
November 12 – The annual player demographic census by the CIES Football Observatory shows the immediate impact the coronavirus pandemic has had in slowing down the movement of players and “strengthening” the gaps between the elite clubs and league and the rest.
November 6 – The Swiss government has earmarked loans totalling CHF175 million ($194 million) per year 0 for 2020 and 2021 – for sports clubs in the country to enable them to survive the financial impact of the coronavirus.
November 5 – Scottish Premier League leaders Rangers have announced a second share issue in less than a month, with the second issue set to raise £4 million with the club having last month raised £4 million from an Asia-based investor.
By David Owen
November 5 – Norwich City, the club known as the Canaries, managed to record a small profit in their brief return to the Premier League, in spite of finishing a distant last in the table.
November 4 – With the world in various stages of lockdown and fans in most countries unable to attend matches in stadia, the opportunity of engaging with fans via esports has not been lost on clubs or leagues.
November 3 – At €180 million, Canadian and Bayern Munich starlet Alphonso Davies has the highest transfer values for big-5 league players born in the 2000s. He outranks England and Dortmund star Jadon Sancho (€125 million) and Spain and Barcelona’s Ansu Fati (€123 million). The CIES Football Observatory has ranked the top 100 players by a transfer value calculated using their own proprietary algorithm.
October 29 – KPMG Football Benchmark have updated their player valuation tool that shows since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic the aggregate value of the 500 most valuable football players has decreased by 10.3%. But, there are signs of recovery.
October 29 – A consortium led by lawyer Chris Farnell and Egyptian businessman Mohamed El Kashashy looks to have taken pole position amongst the bids to buy Premier League Burnley.
By David Owen
October 27 – Celtic, the perennial Scottish champions who look like facing a run for their money this season from fierce local rivals Rangers, managed to stay narrowly in the black last year, in spite of the impact of Covid-19.
By David Owen
October 21 – Manchester United today fired the first shot in what is set to be an extremely sobering Premier League financial results season, reporting a pre-tax loss of £20.8 million for the year to end-June 2020.
By Andrew Warshaw
October 21 – Yet another audacious challenge to the Champions League is reportedly being plotted behind the scenes involving Europe’s biggest clubs and altering the entire landscape of the game at elite level. It is a repeating narrative in Europe but this time round appears to have FIFA’s encouragement.
October 21 – With the uncertainty surrounding club revenues in domestic leagues, particularly around match day revenue, clubs that have qualified for the UEFA Champions League will be grateful for the relative the financial stability that competition brings.
