Wednesday 12/13

Franklin Munoz
December 13, 2023

☃️ 🎁⚽️ Good Morning and welcome to the last day of Champions League group stage matches! A team is always better than a group of individuals. Last night, the first set of group matches finished, and we witnessed the magic that is Champions League Soccer. In a group with Bayern Munich, Manchester United, and Galatasaray- FC Copenhagen manage to qualify in second place getting themselves into the knockout stage with Bayern breezing through the group in first place. FC Copenhagen are the only Danish club to have qualified out of the group stage in the tournament’s history, having done so once before in 2010.

Giveaway: Wake up and smell the coffee. Just in time for the Holidays, our next giveaway will be a $30 gift card for our favorite coffee brand- Kickoff Coffee. As always, each friend that you refer to subscribe to the newsletter is an entry to our raffle. Best of luck!

Champions’ League Recap
Tuesday 12/12

via FotMob

Business
German Soccer Clubs To Sell TV Rights

Photo by Kaysha on Unsplash

💸📺German clubs are betting on a new marketing strategy. The name of the game is modernization. There is big money flowing into other leagues, and German clubs have decided that they need an outside investor to help them stay relevant. The Bundesliga is a historic league, proudful of their roots and so it’s no surprise that this vote was met with strong opposition by fans. The investment would be an 8% stake in the TV rights for Bundesliga matches and the deal is expected to be around €1Billion once the league finds its investor.

🚫💼 Down with private equity. In Germany, most clubs are owned and controlled by their members. This model has allowed for clubs to charge cheaper prices for tickets, especially season tickets where they can be as low as €280 at Borussia Dortmund. The introduction of an outside investor risks diluting the ownership of the fans that they take tremendous pride in. With the current market conditions, this financial decision by the league may be a necessary evil if they hope to compete and grow against the big money competitors.

Matches to Catch
Wednesday 12/13

Atletico goes 1st with a win or Tie, Lazio needs a win

Second place is up for grabs

Transfer News
Premier League Falls out of Amor-ization

gif via Tenor

🤯🫢Clubs buzz amorization deals. The Premier League announced the clubs have voted to limit amortizing transfer fees to a maximum 5-year term. (ICYDK: amortizing fees is the cost of long-term assets i.e. if transfer fees are spread evenly over the course of a contract, it means the longer it is, the smaller the annual payments recorded on the club’s accounts are) Previously, clubs could amortize the cost of a transfer fee over the full length of any contract they set. Most Premier League clubs have taken advantage of amortization of costs, allowing them a much longer period in which they can write off the transfer fees.

Indirectly, this allowed most clubs to get around Premier League Financial Fair Play regulations whereby clubs were permitted to lose a maximum of $131.76 million over a three-year period. The clubs also approved a rule amendment to place teams under a transfer ban if they owe a transfer debt to another Premier League or EFL Club until the outstanding payment has been made. However, clubs are breathing a sigh of relief *cough cough Chelsea* as the rule change will not be backdated and change won’t affect contracts already put in place.

🦁🔵 Chelsea FC votes in favor of amending amortization. Recently Chelsea have been a beneficiary de facto of the prior amortization rules. You may recall Chelsea’s owners, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital have signed a handful of players on eight-year contracts or more, allowing them a much longer period in which they can write off the transfer fees. The Blues have spent €1Bn over the past 18 months, but have managed to adhere to Financial Fair Play rules with big kudos to amortization.

Just this past transfer season, Chelsea spent more than €400m on signings and broke the transfer record when buying Moises Caicedo from Brighton for €115M. However, in a surprisingly turn of events, Chelsea FC agreed to the amoritsation cap, thus severely undermining their transfer strategy, and voted in favor of the motion to amend. Motions require the support of 14 clubs to be passed, and Chelsea were one of the 14. Chelsea’s compliance could be an indication that they must be eyeing European competition in the near future.

🔙 🔙 In June UEFA Closed Amortization. UEFA has previously cut the loophole that allowed clubs to spread a fee over a longer period. UEFA has restricted clubs to amortizing deals up to five years. In a statement on UEFA’s official website, UEFA provided amortization of the player’s registration will be limited to five years in order to ensure equal treatment of all clubs and improve financial sustainability.

However, after UEFA announced their decision, Chelsea subsequently bought Caicedo and Mykhalio Mudryk each for 8-and-a-half-year-deal. Chelsea posted a loss of €121M in their most recent accounts and are currently being reported by both the league and Football Association after allegedly reporting “incomplete financial information” during former-owner Abramovich’s tenure.

Quick Bites 🍕

ESPN: A List Of The Best Tifo’s This Season

The Tifo. A large choreographed display organized by home fans usually making its presence in big matches such as rivalries or Champions League nights. ESPN goes over some of the best one’s we have seen so far this season and you can tell that some of these took some big spending to pull off.

See the list here

Sky Sports: Turkish League suspended after attack on Referee

Horrible scenes out of Turkey this past Monday night. The Turkish Super Lig has been suspended after the match referee was attacked by Faruk Koca, the president of one the Turkish clubs. The attack occurred after Ankaragucu conceded a game tying goal in the 97th minute of the match.

Read Full Article here