Pride tinged with sadness for devoted AFC Wimbledon fans locked out of Plough Lane homecoming party November 3, 2020 This isn’t how AFC Wimbledon’s long-awaited first match back at Plough Lane was meant to be. The return of football to this corner of Merton on Tuesday evening, when Doncaster Rovers visit the Dons in League One, should have been a huge party for supporters. Instead, the only fans present will be the cardboard cut-outs [...]
Drop in drama comes at bad time for Premier League’s pay-per-view push October 26, 2020 Who remembers the good old days of a few weeks ago, when the Premier League was all goals and madcap scorelines? Leicester smashing five at Manchester City was soon eclipsed by Tottenham’s six-goal romp at Manchester United and then, giddily, Aston Villa putting seven past champions Liverpool. Gameweek Two had set the tone, ushering in [...]
FC Nordsjaelland: How a Danish club’s global outlook has helped it to weather the Covid crisis October 23, 2020 An Englishman with no experience of running a football club and no track record in Scandinavia was always going to attract scepticism when he took over one of Denmark’s top teams. Throw in a wildly unconventional ownership model and radically idealistic notions of how the sport should be run and it is no surprise Tom [...]
The Week in Sportbiz: Rugby fans in ticket rush for Lions’ Japanese Test, plus Uefa’s Euro 2020 delay silver lining October 22, 2020 Demand for attending live sport remains very strong in the time of coronavirus, if the British and Irish Lions are anything to go by. Some 35,000 rugby fans have already registered interest in tickets for next July’s home Test against Japan, which was only announced yesterday, City A.M. has learned. That means Murrayfield’s 67,000 seats [...]
Manchester United chief throws down gauntlet to Premier League over Project Big Picture October 21, 2020 Manchester United chief Ed Woodward has publicly warned the Premier League that the club have not given up on plans to reshape English football. Project Big Picture, a radical overhaul of the domestic game drawn up and championed by United and Liverpool, was defeated in a vote of top-flight clubs last week. Woodward called on [...]
Manchester United lose £23m as coronavirus cuts revenue by £120m October 21, 2020 Manchester United suffered a £23m loss as revenue plunged by almost 20 per cent for the year ending 30 June. Annual income fell to £509m, from £627m the previous year, as the coronavirus outbreak saw football suspended. All three of Manchester United’s main revenue streams were hit during the fourth quarter, when most games were [...]
Champions League 2020-21: How prize money is calculated and why the winners don’t always get paid the most October 20, 2020 Winning the Champions League is not just about the glory; it also comes with a major prize money windfall of more than €100m for the eventual winner. Last season Bayern Munich earned an estimated €130m for lifting the trophy, while Liverpool pocketed €111m in 2018-19. But precisely how much a run in European football’s top [...]
Champions League behind the numbers: Richest clubs, most valuable squads and players 2020-21 October 20, 2020 The Champions League begins again in earnest this week when the cream of European football kick off the group stage. It comes less than two months after Bayern Munich lifted the trophy in a coronavirus-delayed conclusion to last season. Despite that success, the German club do not have the most valuable squad in this year’s [...]
Premier League teams reject controversial Project Big Picture reforms October 14, 2020 Premier League clubs have renounced controversial plans for English football’s biggest shake-up in almost 30 years. ‘Project Big Picture’ proposed reducing the number of teams in the top division and giving the six biggest clubs sweeping powers in exchange for a major package of financial aid for the wider game affected by Covid-19. But clubs [...]
English football clubs ‘will not be allowed to go bust’ due to Covid-19 October 14, 2020 Clubs in the English Football League (EFL) will not be allowed to go bust as a result of the coronavirus crisis, a senior government minister has said. Oliver Dowden, secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, said he had received assurances from both the EFL and the Premier League that they had the [...]