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The Guardian
a day ago
- Sport
- The Guardian
As Club World Cup gifts its riches a proper plan is needed for those left behind
While a dozen of Europe's elite clubs were chasing the American dream, 170 of their less garlanded peers gathered for a barbecue next to Lake Geneva. They had converged on Uefa's headquarters to attend the qualifying round draws for next season's continental competitions; Tuesday night was time to get together, perhaps to speed-date representatives of the team you had been paired with or simply to cut loose before a labyrinthine summer spent journeying in search of league-phase football. Borussia Dortmund were slugging out a goalless draw with Fluminense while the meat hit the grills, but 'Club World Cup' is a dirty formulation in Nyon's corridors of power. Any available screens showed action from Uefa's own Under-21 Championship and alternative sources of entertainment roamed the pastel green lawns. A caricature artist did the rounds, stopping at the table occupied by Aleksander Ceferin and putting his pencil to work. The picture for these smaller clubs may be similarly distorted, but the humorous aspect is lacking. Uefa were correct to trumpet the event's symbolism in their pre-draw publicity: a vibrant collage of European football life was present, from the storied names of Red Star Belgrade and Rangers to Iberia 1999 of Georgia and Estonia's Paide Linnameeskond. However, beneath the collegiality it is impossible to escape the sense of a majority being left far behind, with ideas to redress the balance painfully few and largely inadequate. Most of Europe's clubs stand no chance of keeping pace with a top-level juggernaut that has unhitched itself and careered away. Some occupy an untenable half-space, unable to seriously challenge those in the big five leagues while crushing domestic opposition with the money on offer from the Champions League, Europa League or Conference League. Nobody is squarely to blame for trends that owe much to late-stage capitalism and geopolitical forces but there may be a less charitable outlook towards those who fail to act. There is particular concern that the revamped Champions League, for all the triumphalism around its 36-team group format, will have the variety squeezed from it. Nineteen of its slots will be filled by English, German, Spanish and Italian clubs in 2025-26, six from the Premier League alone. For proud institutions such as Malmö, Dynamo Kyiv and Panathinaikos the hopes of tracing a path to one of the seven playoff qualifying berths are achingly remote. European football's top-heaviness is little secret but alarm bells ring louder when consequences begin to rear up lower down. In this season's qualifying rounds only the Armenian club Noah and Pafos, from Cyprus, are debutants in the Champions League. That is the lowest figure for 14 years, according to research carried out for the Union of European Clubs (UEC), and indicates that the monotony felt closer to the summit is becoming a consistent theme domestically. Should that be exacerbated the fear is that, as one figure at a leading club suggests, national leagues in their current form will be living on borrowed time. The example of Serbia is instructive. Red Star, who have won eight consecutive titles, will earn a basic £16m if they follow projections and reach the league phase this summer. If the qualifying rounds proceed as expected their three compatriots in the Europa League and Conference League will fail to get that far. Novi Pazar or Radnicki 1923, their representatives in the latter, would take no more than £1m from that best-case scenario of elimination at the playoff stage. The pattern would only be reinforced. There will always be clubs of wildly varying size but the disparity in funding has never been starker. For Red Star's part, they and their equivalents can only gawp at the bare minimum $12.81m (£9.6m) European sides will receive from appearing at the Club World Cup. In most cases that figure will be multiplied several times over by its conclusion. The clear danger is that three strata are emerging in Europe, separated by financial chasms that have become impossible to mitigate. Solidarity payments, a subject of fierce bargaining annually, are one of Uefa's ways to soften the divide. Clubs absent from European competition receive 7% of the annual £3.7bn revenue from those flagship events, a further 3% being allocated to those eliminated in the qualifying phase. It is certainly well meant, and has increased markedly for the current three-year cycle, but will not unseat the status quo. Creative solutions are needed and it caught the attention last month when the UEC, formed in 2023 to represent non-elite clubs, unveiled its plan for a 'player development reward'. Under that scheme, a further 5% of revenue from club competitions would be redistributed to the teams whose academies developed those competing in them. It has been taken seriously enough for European Leagues to have discuss it in depth last week. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion Any European club not playing in the Champions League proper could benefit. UEC's formula, devised with Transfermarkt, takes into account the on-pitch time each player has spent and the prize money they have helped generate. The Italian fourth-tier club Pavia, where Federico Acerbi came through the ranks, would have earned £275,000 through his playing 670 minutes en route to last month's final with Inter. In 2023-24 nearly 1,500 clubs would have benefited from this kind of payment. Jude Bellingham's success with Real Madrid would have handed Birmingham City £827,000; Vorskla Poltava, struggling in Ukraine, would have received £679,000 for their club's successes; MSK Zilina, trailing behind Slovan Bratislava's Champions League earnings in Slovakia, would have taken £1.3m. At the top end Ajax's remarkable production line, picked off so frequently, would have earned them £4.6m. Neither UEC's plan nor any other, including Uefa's welcome £200m pot for clubs with players at the past two European Championships, will mend things alone. But it would be a step in the right direction, perhaps helping narrow the gap between those two layers under the elite. Football beneath the ultra-privileged minority will only thrive with integrated incentives that reward clubs for their contributions to the ecosystem. Maybe that, even more than the prospect of a Champions League winner from those clubs assembled by the lake, is a pipedream. In greeting the new European season Ceferin rightly hailed the diversity of the scene he oversees; perhaps Uefa's appointed artist could have warned him what happens when, for all anyone's good intentions, a work of beauty is defaced for ever.
Irish Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
LIVE: Uefa Conference League 2nd qualifying round draw
4 minutes ago And here's St Pat's potential opponents should they reach the second round. The winner of our tie with FC Hegelmann will be drawn to play one of the following in the 2nd qualifying round: 🇨🇿 Sparta Praha 🇧🇪 Charleroi 🇱🇻 Riga FC 🇩🇰 Silkeborg Winner of 🇪🇪 Nomme Kalju v 🇦🇱 FK Partizani The draw will take place at 1pm today — St Patrick's Athletic FC (@stpatsfc) 6 minutes ago Here's the possible opponents for Shamrock Rovers in the second round of qualifying. 🇪🇺 UEFA have confirmed our potential opponents in today's UEFA Conference League 2nd Qualifying Round Draw at 1pm 👇 🇸🇲 La Fiorita 1967 / 🇲🇰 FC Vardar 🇭🇷 NK Varaždin 🇲🇹 Floriana / 🏴 Haverfordwest County 🇬🇮 St Joseph's / 🔴 Cliftonville 🇱🇺 FC UNA Strassen — Shamrock Rovers FC (@ShamrockRovers) 14 minutes ago Rovers are through to the second round of the Conference League already, following the ruling that removed Drogheda United from the competition. Here's more details on why the Louth club were expelled. [ Drogheda United's expulsion from Conference League confirmed as court appeal fails ] 26 minutes ago Hello and welcome to live coverage of today's Uefa Conference League second qualifying round draw in Nyon, Switzerland. There's plenty of Irish involvement in the draw, with three teams finding out potential opponents. Shamrock Rovers and St Patrick's Athletic will find out they could face in round two of qualifying. Rovers are already through to the second round, while Pat's will need overcome Lithuania's FC Hegelmann in the first round. Shelbourne will also find out who they would face if they lose to Linfield in the Champions League qualifiers. Earlier today, Shelbourne discovered that they would play Qarabag FK of Azerbaijan in the second round of Champions League qualifiers should they get through.
The Independent
07-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Crystal Palace's European dream is at risk – it's time for football to wake up
Steve Parish 's face at Uefa this week probably said enough. He didn't need to repeat a view he has pressed on people in private - and now to Uefa executives in Nyon - that Crystal Palace are technically not part of a multi-club ownership. A very different interpretation may now cost his club a place in the Europa League, or perhaps European competition altogether. The challenge for the club this week has arguably been more complicated than beating Pep Guardiola's Manchester City in the FA Cup final. They have had to convince Uefa that John Textor does not have 'decisive influence' on the club. This is due to his 43 per cent stake in Palace, while he also holds 88 per cent of fellow Europa League qualifiers Lyon. That situation could fall foul of Uefa's rules that no one may be simultaneously involved in the management, administration or sporting performance of another club in the same competition. The rules evolved out of EU competition law, which is where the definition of 'decisive influence' is so important. In reality, as Textor himself insisted in Switzerland this week, everyone knows that is just not the level of control the US investor has. His 43 per cent equity only translates into 25 per cent of the votes, where it's basically known that co-owners Josh Harris and David Blitzer go with Parish, who has the casting ballot. Textor himself has publicly complained about this many times. That doesn't necessarily hold much weight, however, next to the legal documents that show his stake. It is quite a grim next chapter to one of the most romantic stories of the season, and yet the real tragedy is that this was one of modern football's inevitabilities. The sport is working against itself as a game, and a cultural value, due to its insistence on business. Palace fans themselves warned of this over a year ago, holding up a banner complaining about 'multi-club ownership', and directly criticising Textor. Parish, Blitzer and Harris might now regret leaving the situation unresolved for so long. This is still the kind of mess football was long headed for, because it is not governed properly, and has a lack of proactive regulation. Uefa's ongoing failure to deal with multi-club ownership is the most pressing illustration. And these situations are simply going to become increasingly more common. Current estimates suggest more than 400 clubs around the globe are involved in almost 150 multi-structures. Like state ownership, it was a problem that became embedded before football even realised it existed, let alone the need to address it. There is frustration even within Fifa about this specific issue, as detailed in this writers' book 'States of Play', with one source claiming 'everyone could see multi-clubs coming'. When some staff raised this, there was pushback. It really goes even deeper than that. Despite the club operating as the basic unit of football, due to its social importance, Fifa has never defined exactly what one is. That is one of many reasons that football has developed what is really an ownership problem, which has been discussed on these pages at length. A multi-faceted issue like multi-club ownership is a natural evolution from that. Football has long since been taken over by capitalist and political interests, so this was always going to the next level. The worst part is not just how the clubs are used. It is how their identities are subsumed. They are not just Strasbourg or Troyes anymore, after all, but Strasbourg and Troyes that serve bigger structures in Chelsea and City Football Group. And the model is almost always going to best serve the biggest club in those structures. Now, we reach the next stage of this, where a club's actual dreams might be denied. It should be a wake-up call for football, but will it be? A further problem is that multi-club ownership straddles so many of the game's major faultlines. Above anything, industry sources complain about the 'vagueness' of the enforcement of regulations around this. There's no legal framework in place. Some in football were already pointing to how 'this never happens to the big clubs'. Others have referenced how Parish worked with the Union of European Clubs, a body casting itself as a voice for those clubs not represented by the European Club Association. Paris Saint-Germain's Nasser Al-Khelaifi is, of course, the chair of the latter, who has been locked in a number of battles with Textor in France. It is ultimately galling that Palace may miss out because they didn't meet the March deadline to put the club in a blind trust, as Evangelos Marinakis did with Nottingham Forest to avoid a similar clash with his Olympiakos. On the other hand, Palace's oversight could just be cast as another consequence of the modern game. The wealthiest clubs almost always win, so why tempt fate - and potential schadenfreude - by opting for a blind trust as early as the FA Cup quarter-final? It would certainly have gone against the sense of romance and defiance. And while multiple lawyers and football officials might point to the absurdity of such a sentiment, it is surely all the more absurd that the situation even exists. There is still hope. Uefa might come down on Palace's side, given the pressure, given the sense of romance. Fans didn't want this. Only a certain type of investor wants it. Multi-club ownership goes against everything football should be, to the point it might somehow sour one of football's great modern stories. It's an almost fitting parable for the modern game.
The Guardian
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Crystal Palace's Europe place in balance after Uefa rejects owners' blind trust move
Uefa has rejected offers from Crystal Palace shareholders John Textor and David Blitzer to put their shares in a blind trust to ensure the club can compete in Europe next season. Palace's participation in the Europa League has been cast into doubt as the club's largest shareholder Textor is also the majority owner of Lyon, who have also qualified for the second tier competition. And to compound matters, Blitzer's Danish club Brøndy have qualified for the Conference League, so the prospect of the FA Cup winners dropping into that competition is also not an option due to the European governing body's multi-club rules. Palace executives, including Textor and chairman Steve Parish, met with Uefa officials in Nyon on Tuesday to try to broker a solution without reaching a resolution. The Guardian has learned that the so-called blind trust option in which Textor's Palace shares would be placed in the hands of trustees next season was rejected by Uefa, as the as the club missed the deadline for registering the trust. Manchester City and Manchester United both used blind trusts to ensure compliance with Uefa multi-club rules last season after their partner clubs, Girona and Nice, both also qualified for the Champions League and Europa League respectively, while Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis also transferred his shares when Nuno Espirito Santos' side and his Greek club Olympiacos looked on course to qualify for next season's Champions League. Uefa rules state that such ownership changes must take place before 1 March to take effect in time for the following season, however, with Palace told this week that they will not be shown any flexibility. European qualification was not on the agenda for Palace before March, as they were mid-table in the Premier League and had not progressed beyond the FA Cup fifth round. Palace are in danger of paying a heavy price for their lack of foresight, leading to considerable frustration at Uefa's lack of flexibility. Uefa declined to comment, but sources at the European governing body stressed that given more than 300 clubs take part in its competitions each season, it has to ensure that the regulations are applied consistently. Textor told the Daily Mail after Tuesday's meeting that he is looking to sell his 45% stake in Palace, but there is little realistic prospect of that happening in time to influence Uefa's decision, with the Europa League qualifying draw due to take place on 17 June. Just three weeks ago on the eve of the FA Cup final, The Guardian revealed that Textor was seeking to buy out fellow American shareholders, Blitzer and Josh Harris, who own 36% of the club between them. The two parties have previously held on-off talks about buying each other out, but have never got close to an agreement on price. Textor also signalled his intention to sell Palace when he was attempting to buy Everton last summer without making any discernible progress. Sign up to Football Daily Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football after newsletter promotion With a quick sale and the transfer of shares seemingly off the table, Palace's best hope of playing in the Europa League for the first time appears to be persuading Uefa that Textor has no influence at Selhurst Park, although this may not be straightforward. In addition to his 45% stake Textor has 25% equal voting rights with Parish, Blitzer and Harris, and is known to have played a key role in the appointment of the manager Oliver Glasner last year. Textor has declined to comment. Uefa rules make clear that any influence at two clubs in the same competition is prohibited. 'No one may simultaneously be involved in any capacity whatsoever in the management, administration, and/or sporting performance of more than one club participating in a Uefa club competition,' the regulations state. 'No individual or legal entity may have control or influence over more than one club participating in a Uefa club competition, (including) holding a majority of the shareholders' voting rights; having the right to appoint or remove a majority of the members of the administrative, management or supervisory body of the club; being a shareholder and alone controlling a majority of the shareholders' voting rights pursuant to an agreement entered into with other shareholders of the club; or being able to exercise by any means a decisive influence in the decision-making of the club.' In the event of Palace being barred from the Europa League, Forest could be promoted to take their place after qualifying for the Conference League by finishing seventh in the Premier League. Palace's rivals Brighton, who finished eighth, could then replace Forest in the Conference League. Palace's European position is under threat rather than Lyon's, as Uefa rules state that the club ranked highest in its domestic championship will be given entry to the competition. Lyon's sixth-place finish in Ligue 1 gives them precedence over Palace, who came 12th in the Premier League.
Telegraph
04-06-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
Crystal Palace mess sums up football's multi-club ownership problem
After six historic wins, culminating in victory over Pep Guardiola's Manchester City, it appears that the biggest obstacle to Crystal Palace's first European campaign can actually be found at the Uefa offices in Nyon. Palace 's multifaceted ownership structure, which includes the American John Textor's 43 per cent stake, is under intense scrutiny due to Uefa rules which forbid clubs with shared owners competing in the same competition. Textor also holds an 88 per cent stake in the French club Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League. The situation is potentially further complicated by another Palace shareholder – David Blitzer – also holding a stake in Brondby. The Danish club have qualified for the Uefa Conference League and it had been suggested that Palace could yet find themselves 'demoted' to that competition. Talks continue as they search for a solution, with Textor suggesting on Monday night that his stake in Palace is now up for sale. But one thing is at least clear within this mess. The explosion over the past five years in the number of multi-club ownership (MCO) structures means that such situations will arise with increasing frequency. It is barely a month, after all, since it emerged that Evangelos Marinakis had placed his Nottingham Forest shares into a 'blind trust' to satisfy Uefa rules which would preclude him from having 'influence' should Forest have qualified alongside another of his clubs, Olympiacos, for the Champions League. The same move was made last year by Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos at Nice and City Football Group at Girona, after Manchester United and Manchester City joined their sister clubs in respectively the Europa League and Champions League. Chelsea, who are owned by the Todd Boehly-fronted BlueTech investment vehicle, had faced the same looming issue in respect of Strasbourg and were in talks with Uefa in case the French club also qualified for the same European competition. Fifa has also just expelled Leon from the Club World Cup after ruling that they could not participate alongside fellow Mexican club Pachuca because of the potential conflict of interest from shared owners. Prior to the pandemic in 2020 there were less than 60 clubs worldwide operating within such an arrangement. That number now stands at more than 400. And research by Jason Stephens, an MCO adviser and lecturer at the University Campus of Football Business in London, has found that there are now 147 MCO operations in the world. Familiar examples include the City Football Group, in which Manchester City stand at the top of a 13-country, five-continent structure and Red Bull, one of the innovators of a concept that has brought shared playing styles and brand identity across countries. The prospect of heading up one of these multi-faceted operations was apparently sufficient to lure Edu from his job as Arsenal sporting director to a widely expected global director of football role across the Marinakis's empire. The Greek businessman, who is worth an estimated £3 billion, has since been in talks to add a controlling stake in Brazilian side Vasco da Gama to his network in England, Greece and Portugal. It is also notable that Marinakis's Forest are currently working on a deal that links them again with Textor's clubs. Forest are hoping to tie up a remarkable triple de al with Brazilian side Botafogo for striker Igor Jesus, centre-back Jair Cunha and left-back Cuiabano. The completion of those transfers would likely open the way for Danilo to leave Forest and join Lyon. Botafogo are owned by Textor, the owner and president of Lyon, as well as co-owner of Palace. If the deal progresses, Danilo would be the third player Forest have sold to Lyon in the past year. Last summer the French club paid £27 million for defender Moussa Niakhaté and about £15 million for midfielder Orel Mangala. Liverpool's Fenway Sports Group has also been actively exploring options that include buying a stake in Málaga in Spain, after pulling out of a deal last year for French club Bordeaux. Brighton owner Tony Bloom bought a 19 per cent stake in Melbourne Victory last month and has just submitted a bid for almost a third of the Scottish club Hearts. Brentford's controlling group, Best Intentions Analytics (BIA), bought the Spanish club Asociación Deportiva Mérida last month and Stephens believes that major recent investments at Aston Villa and Chelsea, respectively by the companies Atairos and Ares Management, will be used to widen existing MCO portfolios. It is a booming alternative transfer market with huge implications and yet it has gone largely unnoticed by the majority of football supporters. 'Cheaper to buy a club in Europe than pay £30m for a young player' So what explains this trend, and should fans be worried? Simon Leaf, who is a partner at legal firm Mishcon de Reya, which has advised clubs on their MCO structures, says that it is 'almost a development on' from the situation in South America two decades ago, when agents began owning the economic rights to players, most famously Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tévez. 'Rather than having agents owning players or clubs you now have clubs owning clubs, and there are multiple benefits that can bring,' Leaf says. These include reducing costs by centralising resources and expertise in key staffing areas, notably scouting and data analytics to optimise player recruitment and development, with MCOs potentially able to develop global academies across entire regions through a handful of clubs. 'It is actually cheaper to buy a club in Europe than to pay £30 million for a young player,' says Stephens, who says that you can then 'house multiple talented young players, control playing style and development minutes, ensuring they are prepared to play at the appropriate level.' This pooling and internal movement of players clearly has huge potential upsides in minimising what are often astronomical agents' fees, as well as dealing with local immigration rules, such as the UK's post-Brexit ban on bringing in players under the age of 18. At a commercial level, shared sponsorship deals and unified merchandise platforms across diverse regions are also estimated to enhance income by up to 30 per cent. Multiple concerns have been raised, however. Fans (more commonly outside of England's dominant Premier League) fear their club potentially becoming a lower-order concern within a structure that might ultimately be about maximising the 'mother' club. There is also the fear of lost identity – would Leeds United fans want their club rebranded if Red Bull ramps up its investment? – and the potential loss of proximity to an owner. Fan protests While certain collaborations may make sense on a practical level, is that compatible with the emotional one-club mindset of so many football followers? Fans at Nice, Troyes and Strasbourg, respectively linked via their owners to Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea, have all protested in recent years. 'Fans [from clubs] at the top of the model are not so bothered, but lower down they are,' says Niamh O'Mahony, chief operating officer at Football Supporters Europe. Strasbourg supporters wrote a stinging letter in 2023, outlining their fears over the 'senseless' recruitment and 'over exposition' of very young players. 'Fans don't relate to their team at the moment,' they said, warning that the MCOs risked reducing most clubs 'to a simple objective of developing young players and helping the few clubs at the top of the pyramid.' For regulators such as Uefa, the major concern relates to potential conflicts of interest. The Uefa rule book says that no one may be simultaneously involved 'in any capacity' in the management, administration or sporting performance of another club in the same competition. Owners have so far satisfied Uefa by placing shares of one club in a blind trust to be operated by independent directors or, in the case of Brighton and Union Saint-Gilloise in 2023, a reduction in Bloom's stake in the Belgian club. Few experts, however, believe that governing bodies can easily enforce rules around control or influence. Blind trusts are 'token gesture' 'It doesn't matter what measures you put in place – reducing stakes or creating temporary blind trusts – you are never going to control influence,' says Stephens. 'This blind trust rule is a token gesture. The owner is still funding the club, and do the football regulators really believe that conversations are not taking place in the shadows on the strategic direction?' Research last year by Nicholas Lord and Peter Duncan of the University of Manchester laid bare the complexities of Premier League ownership structures. Of the 20 clubs in 2023-24, more than half had five or more different entities within their ownership structure, including six clubs with 10 or more entities, of which many are based outside the UK in jurisdictions with higher financial secrecy. Lord says that it would not be difficult theoretically for an investor who wanted to 'mask' any conflicts of interest. 'I think currently it's very straightforward to do that by using these various legal entities and arrangements,' he says. Duncan says that he is not particularly concerned from the point of view of sporting integrity, but questions whether it is desirable for clubs to be concentrated among a more select group. 'It seems indicative of this pattern of concentration of wealth among an ever smaller proportion of the population,' he says. Potential for hidden MCOs Arguably of greatest concern is the fact that ownership rules in England require only someone above a 25 per cent shareholding to take the Owners' and Directors' Test and more than 10 per cent to have their identity declared. It would suggest that the real worry might not be those MCOs which are out in the open but the possibility of investors accumulating multiple interests that are not publicly declared and having almost a hidden MCO. According to Lord and Duncan, who work in the department of criminology at Manchester, that is perfectly possible. 'You don't have to declare who is a shareholder unless they have more than a 10 per cent stake in a club and, even if they do have greater than 10 per cent, it is possible to hide that,' Duncan says. Lord adds: 'You might have a situation where you have lots of investors, investing in lots of different clubs, and no one would be aware. How much sway and influence they can have over these different clubs and activities, their transactions, is very difficult to determine. It is still straightforward to circumnavigate [the 25 per cent 'control' and 10 per cent 'significant interest' thresholds]… in that you can simply split your investment across different vehicles.' Player trading in MCOs has been another area of concern, particularly in the context of meeting various financial rules on spending and the subjective nature of valuing players. Allan Saint-Maximin's move from Newcastle to Al-Ahli (also owned by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund) for an undisclosed fee in 2023 is one deal that came under scrutiny. City Football Group, says Stephens, has come to be seen as a benchmark, not just for its on-field success at Manchester City, but also its work within communities surrounding its clubs. He also cites Core Sports Capital, with its growing structure in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, and the Black Knight Football Group, which includes Bournemouth in its portfolio, as other currently successful examples. It certainly feels like we are witnessing a permanent shift rather than a passing fashion. Asked if he sees this trend continuing, Stephens has a simple answer: 'Yes, 1,000 per cent.'
