Football is a Beautiful Business

Money and soccer. Like peas in a pod.

It’s time to go around the leagues and see what we find in the business of football. Everything from clubs changing their ownership, to running out cash to run their teams, or just good old gamblers and soccer mixing. Then there is Notts County. It’s all good clean fun.

Gambling: Poland wants to limit gambler’s sponsoring football teams and leagues. Unibet sponsors the second tier league, while Bet-At-Home and BetClick are shirt sponsors. They are not the first country in the EU to do this – France, Greece, and Sweden have led the way. The EC has been complaining this is an example of restraint of trade, and have issued a multitude of findings on the issue. They released a white paper on sports that attempts to address this ‘inequality’ in trade.

Furthermore, in the same ruling, the Court responded to the question whether national legislation, restricting access to and/or provision of services with regard to gambling, can be justified, inter alia, by the financing of public interest activities. The Court, after recalling the need to analyse the restrictions imposed by Member States on a case-by-case basis so as to assess the need for these restrictions and their proportionality, stated that even if it is not irrelevant that lotteries and other types of gambling may contribute significantly to the financing of benevolent or public-interest
activities, that motive cannot in itself be regarded as an objective justification for restrictions on the freedom to provide services. Moreover, the restrictions cannot be justified by financial needs, which can constitute only an incidental beneficial consequence and not the real justification for the restrictive policy adopted

The end result will work its way through the very slow EU legal process. I think that many countries can make sure there is no malfeasance between gambling concerns and football club or league support.

Finances: Audi is buying a stake into Bundeslinga club Bayern Munich, purchasing 2.5 million shares at a price of $135.64 million dollars.

In a Scrooge-like move, London Championship League team Watford is claiming it will run out of cash before Christmas if they can not raise more money. The club ispublicly traded vehicle, but with loans of 4.9 million already outstanding, they are looking for another 5.5 million pounds to pay their bills and keep the lights on through the end of the season. I would hate to see a club with such history on the ropes.

Agent transfer fees are a sore spot for many mid-table teams. When the report was released on
agents fees, Manchester City topped the list, along with Chelsea, Spurs, Liverpool and West Ham. The whole adage of you have to ‘spend money to make money’ is not suiting Mark Hughes right now, as his club is struggling to return to early season form. But EPL punching bag ManU is actually near the bottom of the list.

Notts County: So great they need their own subheading. The league has started inquiries into the exact ownership structure of Notts County. It’s so convoluted, that the Guardian has put together a very long investigation into the structure of the deal that created the ownership group. They did such an awesome job they put together a PDF on the issue. Meanwhile, our man Sven is demanding his king’s ransom for being recruited to make the Notts County team relevant, or at least newsworthy.