Money, Money, Money
This week it was announced that Manchester City’s parent company has been valued at $3bn (£2bn) after selling a 13% stake, worth £265m, to a consortium of Chinese investors.
This group includes New York City FC, Melbourne City FC and Yokohama Marinos. The advantages of the Chinese influence are immense in terms of giving Manchester City the chance to grow its fanbase in East Asia and beyond. In turn, this grows the club’s captive market for its products and merchandise accordingly.
It’s the kind of opportunity for brand expansion that Aston Villa’s CEO would Tom Fox would dream about given his background in the Asian markets.
The Birmingham Mail ran an article on the wealth of the owners of Premier League clubs, placing Randy Lerner at 13th in the list
The gulf in wealth between clubs like Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea, and the rest of the Premier League teams, is increasingly frightening. The Financial Fair Play rules do NOTHING to create any fairness in football and you’re left asking yourself, where has the ‘sport’ element in football gone?
At least in the NFL, for example, with the squad wage caps and also the draft system, checks are in place to help balance the competition element of the sport.
With football bodies like the Premier League, UEFA and FIFA, money is always the prime mover and main concern, the actual game often is secondary. Why haven’t video replays been brought in for key decisions – like other sports – for example? The game has to evolve as the stakes rise, but football remains primitive (and open to cheating), while the money involved is huge.
The below table shows you how much Premier League football clubs are worth using the equation of:
Premier League Clubs Worth Table
Aston Villa Worth
On the sportingintelligence.com article the above table is from, they describe Aston Villa like this:
‘Aston Villa: Sold best players and squad needs major overhaul. Large wage bill (£69m) in 2014 for limited squad that was embroiled in relegation battle. The £178m owed to Randy Lerner is significant for a club that has seen two attempted takeovers fall apart in a year.’
Interestingly, the current league leaders Leicester City endeavours on the pitch are even more amazing when you consider they only stand in 18th place in the above wealth table. It gives every team hope and proves to the Villa board that where there’s a will, there’s a way.
Left Behind
With all increasing television revenue involved in the game now, Villa under performing on the pitch has led to them falling down the league in terms of their financial revenue and other ‘smaller’ clubs catching them up and even surpassing them.
The size of Villa Park is increasingly becoming less relevant as a revenue stream with it dwarfed by the TV money in the Premier League, while also other team’s stadiums are getting bigger – West Ham, Spurs and Liverpool will all increase their capacities in the coming seasons with moves or developments.
Another factor for once considered small teams leap-frogging Villa is that Lerner isn’t one of the big gun chairman anymore.
The Birmingham Mail this week ran an article on the wealth of the owners of Premier League clubs, placing Randy Lerner at 13th in the list with a worth of £640 million. Which suggests further that Aston Villa are not even a top-half team anymore in terms of financial muscle.
While Villa have suffered drastically on the pitch, the club have shrunk off it. With the stench of potentially relegation thick in the air, do not overlook the seriousness of Villa’s current situation. It’s a BIG worry – in both the short and long term. UTV
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4 years ago,
Mcfc warned the league against voting for ffp,you all laughed at us .you now made your bed so lie on it!
MCFC didn’t want FFP for obvious reasons. But what I’m saying here is it does very little to even up the playing field. Squad wage caps would certainly help.