By Andrew Warshaw
January 2 – The increasing practise of experienced European, especially Premier League, stars moving across the pond to Major League Soccer for a final career hurrah has come under fresh scrutiny as a result of Frank Lampard’s controversial decision to temporarily snub New York City.
By Mark Baber
December 16 – The multi-billion pound auction for Premier League television rights, which kicked off on Friday, has led to a 4.4% fall in the share price of Sky plc on Monday on fears the company could be outbid by BT on a number of packages, and predictions the total bill could be as high as £5 billion, An Ofcom investigation, initiated by Virgin, has added to the lack of stability in the market.
December 15 – The idea of playing a Premier League match overseas, heavily mooted a few years ago, will not take place in the foreseeable future.
By Mark Baber
December 9 – Manchester City’s new £200 million youth development and first team training centre – the City Football Academy (CFA) – was on officially opened Monday by former manager and captain, Tony Book, with club chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak and the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne in attendance.
By David Owen
December 4 – A halving in the number of football staff employed by the club has helped Manchester City to report much-reduced annual losses and added to the growing impression that 2013-14 will bring a marked improvement in Premier League club finances.
By Paul Nicholson
December 4 – Success on the pitch can sometimes be a fickle financial master in football, but Burnley’s loss of £7.6 million for the year to June 2014 is looking like value-for-money. The Premier League new boys actually announced a £300,000 profit for their promotion season. But when you add in staff bonuses of £7.9 million due on elevation to England’s top flight, the profit becomes a £7.6 million loss.
December 1 – Chelsea is reportedly “edging closer” to a deal with Turkish Airlines. According to unnamed sources the new Chelsea deal will be worth £25 million a year to the South London club, £7 million more than Samsung (whose contract expires at the end of the year) currently pay.
November 19 – Manchester United are now feeling the pain of failure to qualify for the Champions League in the boardroom. The club has announced a revenue fall of almost 10% (£9.8 million) for the three months to September 30 in comparison to the same period in 2013.
November 19 – The debate over how much English Premier League football should be televised live domestically is back on the agenda. UK broadcasting watchdog Ofcom has opened an investigation into how the Premier League sells media rights following a complaint from Virgin Media, which claims more matches should be available for live broadcast.
November 14 – Chelsea FC have announced a profit of £18.4 million on a record turnover of £319.8 million for the year ended 30 June 2014. This is the econd and largest profit the largest profit the club has made since Roman Abramovich became owner of the club in 2003. Two years ago the profit was £1.4 million.
November 5 – As racism in football shows no sign of abating in Russia and elsewhere in eastern Europe, the problem continues to tarnish the game in multi-cultural countries where racial tolerance is supposedly part of society – including England.
By David Owen
November 2 – Everton, whose shirt sponsorship deal with Chang, the Thai beverage company, is now the longest-running in the Premier League, has become the latest top-flight English club to report a pre-tax profit for the 2013-14 season.
October 30 – On the pitch Chelsea were denied a win in the Premier League against Manchester United last weekend by a last gasp equalizer by Robin van Persie. Off the pitch commercial results are far from evenly matched with Man Utd this week adding two new sponsors, while Chelsea have put faith in new signing Christian Purslow to lead the line in a bid to boost their global commercial activity.
October 22 – Chelsea chief executive Ron Gourlay is leaving the club after 10 years, five of them as chief executive. The split is amicable, Gourlay is said to be leaving to pursue “new business opportunities”.
By Mark Baber
October 17 – Arsenal’s AGM held on Thursday was a happy affair, following the club’s FA Cup triumph and sound financial figures. Arsene Wenger scotched rumours of a move to Monaco and reiterated he intends to buy a defender in January, but the club was keen to stress suggestions of a £200 million cash pile are well wide of the mark.