Ahead of the Game: Hundred franchises set to choose their investors
The eight Hundred franchises have been asked to name and rank at least two preferred bidders from the private investors who have submitted offers for a 49 per cent stake in the third and final round of the auction process which is currently taking place.
All of the Hundred teams attracted multiple bids in the second round of the auction last month, which the England and Wales Cricket Board is confident will raise more than £500m to invest into the domestic game and secure the long-term future of the 18 first-class counties.
Several of the franchises are planning to nominate at least three would-be investors in what is an unusual two-way bidding process, to ensure they are paired with an investment group they want to work with.
It is anticipated that some of the investors, which are dominated by Indian Premier League franchise owners and private equity firms, will attract several nominations.
The ECB and US bank the Raine Group will manage the process of matching the Hundred franchises with investors.
In the event of clashes the highest bid for the particular franchise in question is likely to win, although other factors will be considered.
The process will be run sequentially, with each Hundred team being sold one at a time.
Textor still wants Crystal Palace takeover
Crystal Palace’s biggest shareholder John Textor retains ambitions to take majority control at Selhurst Park through his investment vehicle, Eagle Football, despite last week signing an exclusivity agreement with investment fund Sportsbank.
The Sportsbank consortium – led by two London-based Palace fans Zechariah Janjua and Navshir Jaffer but including investors from the UAE, America and Canada – has agreed to invest around £230m in Eagle Football, which owns 45 per cent of Palace as well as French club Lyon, Brazilian side Botafogo and RWD Molenbeek in Belgium.
The Sportsbank announcement last week followed reports two days earlier that Textor had agreed a separate deal to sell Eagle Football’s stake in Palace for nearly £150m to a different group including Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd, former Morgan Stanley executive Bejan Esmaili and the former Roc Nation executive Wajid Mir.
That deal, which has been brokered by Saudi Arabia-born brothers Mansoor and Haider Syed, remains on the table but Textor’s preferred option is to take Sportsbank’s investment and retain his Palace shares.
Textor has made a habit of negotiating with multiple parties simultaneously on related transactions over the last 12 months.
The American media entrepreneur signed an exclusivity agreement with former Everton owner Farhad Moshiri last summer shortly after seeking to buy the Palace shares of fellow shareholders David Blitzer and Josh Harris.
Completing both deals would have been prohibited by Premier League rules, and neither came close to completion.
One intriguing proposal that has emerged during discussions with Sportsbank is for Textor to keep his Palace shares but resign from the club’s board, leaving negotiations over Eagle Football’s takeover attempt to his fellow investors.
Having failed to agree a purchase price on several occasions Textor has a difficult relationship with Blitzer and Harris, while he has also clashed with Palace chairman Steve Parish over the former’s desire to embrace a multi-club model.
Tamworth count cost of FA Cup changes
The Football Association increased the prize money available to clubs in this year’s FA Cup by £2.5m after taking the controversial decision to scrap replays last year – but that rise will be little consolation to National League Tamworth, whose share of the uplift following their third-round defeat to Tottenham in extra-time will be £33,000.
While the larger pot was introduced with the aim of benefitting smaller clubs by bringing in payments for the first time for the losing club from the first round proper onwards, the sums involved are relatively modest.
Tamworth will receive £25,000 from the FA after being knocked out in the third round, having already banked £75,000 for beating Burton Albion on penalties in the second round, an increase of £8000 on last season’s fee for reaching the third round.
By contrast the club have estimated that a third-round replay at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium would have earned them around £850,000, more than three quarters of their wage bill for the entire season.
FA’s show of faith in women’s game
The Women’s FA Cup finalists will both receive increased ticket allocations of around 20,000 this season in a sign of the Football Association’s growing confidence in the prospect of selling out Wembley for the showpiece fixture in May.
In previous years most of the tickets were put on sale before Christmas in an attempt to increase the chance of a large crowd, which left many Tottenham Hotspur fans in particular disappointed last season when they reached their first final, as the game was already sold out.
The FA has put back the start of the ticket sales process until quarter-finalists are known next month, and 40,000 tickets will be held back until the finalists are known in April.
While the 20,000 allocation remains less than the 30,000 tickets given to each competing club in the men’s FA Cup final, it shows increased confidence that Women’s Super League clubs are developing committed support who will want to buy tickets at short notice.