Tottenham Hotspur throw down gauntlet to Arsenal with Newcastle thrashing April 3, 2022 Over to you, Arsenal. On a weekend when Manchester United lost more ground in the race for the Champions League places and West Ham United moved to within a win of the top four, Tottenham Hotspur threw down the gauntlet with a 5-1 rout of Newcastle United. Spurs dislodged the Gunners from fourth place on [...]
Christian Eriksen: How January gamble on Denmark midfielder saved Brentford’s season April 3, 2022 Brentford owner Matthew Benham made his fortune from shrewd gambling but even he couldn’t have foreseen how emphatically the club’s punt on Christian Eriksen would pay off. The Bees took a chance on Eriksen in January, just weeks after his release by Inter Milan and seven months on from his near-fatal on-field cardiac arrest at [...]
Premier League to reintroduce five subs from next season March 31, 2022 The Premier League have voted to reintroduce five substitutions – originally bought in during the Covid-19 pandemic – after reverting back to three for the 2021/22 season. Teams had previously voted against keeping the number of substitutions at five following the behind-closed-doors season but have since changed their minds. In a statement, the Premier League [...]
Manchester United named top of the league for digital value generated by sports teams March 31, 2022 Manchester United generated the most digital value of any sports team in the world last year, according to a new report published today. The Digital Value of Fans 2022 report is based on social media performance and was created by audience platform Horizm, which works with leading teams in several sports. Despite a fourth consecutive [...]
Government recruits Oliver Wyman consultants to craft new football regulator March 29, 2022 The government have drafted in top consultancy Oliver Wyman to help design a new independent body that will be charged with regulating English football. According to reports from Mark Kleinman, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has hired the New York-based firm to help build a response to Tracey Crouch’s contentious review of football’s [...]
Everton FC registers £120m loss after pandemic impact and suspension of Usmanov support March 29, 2022 Everton Football Club registered a £120.9m loss in 2021, meaning it’s almost £400m down over the last four years. The beleaguered Merseyside club attributed its loss to the pandemic as it published annual accounts this week, against the backdrop of severed sponsorship with a sanctioned Russian oligarch. It said there were £170m losses despite a [...]
Opinion: Crypto brands’ sporting land-grab is only just beginning March 29, 2022 As Lionel Messi and Fifa become the latest to do huge deals with cryptocurrency and blockchain-related brands, sports sponsorship expert Henry Nash of Octagon assesses the major new player in the market. I suspect I wasn’t alone in thinking the Nielsen 2022 Global Sports Marketing Report would be a story of Covid’s brutal impact on [...]
Spanish football’s LaLiga backs financial fair play shake-up as “major step forwards” March 29, 2022 Spanish football chiefs LaLiga have welcomed the proposed overhaul of European football’s financial fair play rules. New regulations set to be phased in from next year will see clubs’ spending on wages, transfers and agents’ fees capped at 70 per cent of their income but a greater tolerance for loss-making clubs. LaLiga, which represents the [...]
European football club chiefs defend controversial changes to Champions League qualification March 29, 2022 European football club chiefs have defended proposals to give more Champions League places to historically successful teams, saying they are “fair, add value and make sense”. The changes are set to take effect from 2024, when the competition’s group stage expands from 32 to a single 36-team league. Under plans approved by leading clubs, two [...]
Europe’s top football clubs back new spending cap in place of financial fair play March 28, 2022 The influential European Club Association (ECA) has backed the proposed scrapping of football’s controversial financial fair play (FFP) rules in favour of a new cost-control system based on a soft spending cap. Uefa’s planned shake-up is the biggest change to the financial regulation of European club competitions such as the Champions League and Europa League [...]