OL completes share issue to make up balance of player wages
July 21 – OL Groupe, owner of French Ligue 1 club Olympique Lyonnais, has issued €800,000 in new shares to members of its men’s and women’s playing squads as part payment for wages.
Finance
€175m Mbappé tops world’s players by value; Isak, Foden and Torres stock increases
July 9 – Kylian Mbappé may have missed a penalty at the Euros, but he is still the world’s most valuable player at €175 million, according to updated player market value estimates by KPMG Football Benchmark.
Will Premier League clubs exceed £1bn of red ink? It’s all down to Newcastle
By David Owen
July 8 – Irish playwright Samuel Beckett might have called it Waiting for Newcastle.
French football’s financial regulators send Girondins and Angers to Ligue 2
July 5 – Lurching from crisis to crisis, French football has been rocked again after the Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (DNCG) temporarily demoted both Bordeaux and Angers to Ligue 2 and placed Nantes under supervision.
Orkila spend €50m on Belgian champions Club Brugge
July 2 – Belgian champions Club Brugge have a new backer, with investment fund Orkila Capital pouring €20 million of working capital into the club.
Juve turbo charge finances with €400m of new money and an ex-Ferrari F1 exec
July 2 – Juventus say they expect to lose €320 million because of the coronavirus pandemic and are planning to raise €400 million in capital through a share sale as they look to redress the financial balance.
Atletico Madrid sells off 33.9% of club for €181m to see it over debt crisis
June 29 – Atletico Madrid has had a capital injection of €181.8 million from private equity investor Ares Management who will take a 33.96% stake in the Spanish club.
Derby fined £100K but Championship status looks safe as new owner sought
June 24 – Derby County have been fined £100,000 for breaching English Football League (EFL) accountancy rules but look set to escape a points deduction that would see them relegated to League One and Wycombe Wanderers keep their place in the Championship.
Danish Superliga’s Viborg takes on new money and an owner link to Notts County
June 24 – Danish investment group Better Collective has acquired a majority stake in Danish Superliga club Viborg FF.
Former Lille owner Lopez steps in to save Girondins from bankruptcy
June 23 – Former Lille owner Gerard Lopez has stepped forward to save plagued Girondins de Bordeaux from going bust after an agreement was reached according to the Ligue 1 club for an undisclosed sum.
LaLiga tops €5bn in revenue for 2019-20; confident it can ride out covid cash crisis
June 22 – LaLiga has reported total income of €5.045 billion for the 2019-20 season, a 3.6% increase on the 2018-19 despite the impact of the start of the covid pandemic. It is the only one of Europe’s Big 5 leagues of Spain, Italy, England, France and Germany to report income growth.
Barca gets greenlight for €500m+ Goldman Sachs loan
June 21 – Barcelona’s socios have given their approval for a €525 million loan as the club battles with the financial fallout from the pandemic, the failed European Super League attempt, a sky-high player wage bill and infrastructure projects it can’t afford.
Covid-19 pushes major football sponsor Emirates to first-ever annual loss
By David Owen
June 17 – Emirates Group, the Dubai airline which pumps significant sums into football via an impressive quiver of sponsorship agreements, has posted a heavy loss for the strongly Covid-19-impacted 12 months to end-March 2021 – its first ever annual deficit.
Demand for Argentina Fan Token sees extra launch batch sell out in 30 seconds
June 14 – Socios.com have had an overwhelming response to the launch of the Argentina national team Fan Token, increasing its all-time record of users on the app by 50% and triggering a decision to launch an extra batch of tokens.
Foden tops Euro transfer value ranking at €190m, followed by Greenwood and Rashford
June 11 – Manchester City starlet Phil Foden tops a ranking of European Big-5 league players by transfer value, coming in at a whopping €190 million.