By David Owen
January 2 – Chelsea, the West London club whose new young team has surprised many this season with the spirit and consistency of their play under former talisman Frank Lampard, has reported a hefty loss for the year to end-June 2019.
January 3 – Serie A’s Roma looks set to change hands between American owners with James Pallotta (pictured) reportedly having agreed a €780 million deal with the Texas-based Friedkin Group run by billionaire Dan Freidkin.
January 3 – Belgian Roland Duchatelet’s foray into English club ownership is over with the sale of English Championship side Charlton Athletic to Abu Dhabi-based consortium East Street Investments (ESI) for an undisclosed amount.
December 30 – US investors buying European clubs has become commonplace but European investors moving into the US to acquire a stake in club soccer is not.
December 16 – The loss of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) contract has knocked between €210-€240 million off the sales price of the Lagardère Sports.
December 12 – The Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) in its new budget for 2020 is predicting a 41% growth in revenues to €316 million, primarily fuelled by the new money from the estimated €120 million deal with Saudi Arabia to stage its revamped Super Cup competition.
By Osasu Obayiuwana
December 11 – Suketu Patel, a former leading official of the Confederation of African Football (CAF), who was at the centre of negotiations for the 12-year $1 billion marketing deal with French company Lagardere Sports (LS), is predicting that the contract’s recent cancellation will lead to “a very difficult period” for CAF.
December 11 – With the winter transfer window looming, KPMG Football Benchmark has updated its players’ value estimates and ranked players by most increased value since the start of the season.
By David Owen
December 8 – Struggling Arsenal have slumped into the red after the bumper profits on player sales that substantially boosted the bottom line in 2017-18 were not replicated in the most recent season.
By David Owen
December 5 – Brighton and Hove Albion, the south coast club winning plaudits for their adventurous style under new head coach Graham Potter, slipped back into loss in their second season in the Premier League.
December 4 – Juventus fans are being given the opportunity to vote on the new goal celebration song that will be played when their team score at the Allianz Stadium in Turin.
Life has certainly not been peaches and cream for former CAF finance director Mohamed El Sherei over the last seven months. In a one-hour exclusive conversation, at the Heliopolis Sports Club in Cairo in November, El Sherei, who has been without an income for several months, spoke frankly, to Insideworldfootball’s Osasu Obayiuwana, on what he says has been a tumultuous period, for him and the organisation to which he once belonged.
City Football Group (CFG)’s business strategy always seemed rather baffling. Yes, OK, assemble a collection of similar businesses – in this case football clubs – inside the same tent and you can shave back-office costs. You might be able to engineer a less wasteful talent development pipeline than one-legged rivals. And if the real aim is soft power, well, the Abu Dhabi flag has been well and truly planted in outposts of the beautiful game from Melbourne to Mumbai.
By David Owen
November 29 – Nearly two years after he put the club up for sale, the Roland Duchâtelet era at Charlton Athletic finally looks to be over.
By David Owen
November 28 – City Football Group (CFG) may step up its hunt for new football investments around the world, following agreement of a $500 million equity investment in the business by Silver Lake, a US private equity firm.