In the end, between banks and financial companies rushed to the bedside of football, he won citicorp. Today UEFA will present to its associates the agreement with the US bank which provides for loans for European clubs of up to two billion dollars, which will soon rise to 7 billion dollars. Waiting for developments, why not the financial emergency ends here Friendly which, due to the pandemic, has already lost nine billion in box office receipts this year. But the small football revolution represents only one move in the game for control of the financial and political levers of the most popular sport. A move signed by Aleksander Ceferin, the Slovenian lawyer who, with this operation, strengthens the axis with the emirs of the Gulf. In fact, since 2015 Citicorp is a sponsor of Manchester City, the club chaired by businessman Kaldun Khalifa al-Mubarak, number one of the Mabadala fund, on behalf of the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi Zayed El-Mansour.
The same organizational scheme followed for the Paris Saint Germain: President Nasser al-Khelaifi, leading the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar who, among other things, controls Lionel Messi's club, On behalf, of course, of Sheikh Khalifa al – Thani, a rival in politics, but an ally in the conquest of the football levers. Thanks to Ceferin who worked to ensure that the PSG president took the place of the outgoing Andrea Agnelli, overwhelmed by the failure of the Super League, at the head of the ECA, the association of European clubs.
It is not surprising, in this context, that Ceferin has chosen Citicorp, the bank closest to the interests of the Gulf states, compared to the offers from Goldman Sachs and the private equity firms Apollo and Macquarie while Unicredit, already among the institutes in pole position, did not want to participate in the last round of the auction for the contract. Football of the sheiks thus scores another point in the challenge with US finance intent on conquering the leadership in one of the potentially most lucrative fields for entertainment. And you are even less surprised that the theme of the financial fair play, “frozen” waiting for solutions that are not unwelcome to the sheikhs' clubs, Psg and Manchester City, always ready to widen the purse strings in the hunt for the Champions League. Maybe a super tax that could be triggered for clubs that exceed a spending limit.
While waiting for a solution, however, the way of football is floundering an aggravated structural crisis (but not provoked) from the pandemic which in recent weeks has blown up the calendars of the most powerful federations, starting with the Premier League: Manchester United, Brentford, Burnley, Watford and Antonio Conte's Tottenham have had to give up on the league match as the list of infected people grows by Covid -19, amid controversy and recriminations, despite the wise Juergen Klopp, helmsman of Liverpool, thunders in the Guardian that "it is madness to invoke privacy: transparency is the basis of sport". Furthermore, Germany is also among the leagues most affected, especially due to the restrictions on the usability of the facilities, well known also to the clubs in the Italian Serie A.
In short, the emergency looms. And favors the search for new balances of power. In Spain, La Liga has reached an agreement with the American partner CVC Capital which acquired 8,2% of the capital in exchange for two billion, a deal bitterly contested by Barcelona and Real Madrid. The theme is topical here too, where, however, the node of TV rights: the transmission problems have complicated the start of the collaboration with Dazn which in the coming weeks will be busy reviewing the terms of the collaboration with Telecom Italia, the immediate cause of the imminent exit from the scene of Luigi Gubitosi, "guilty" of having overestimated the championship appeal.
The operation of UEFA, which will in practice act as guarantor for, fits into this framework a $7 billion relief fund at favorable conditions reserved for clubs participating in the Champions League, the Euroleague or other events managed by UEFA. It is certainly not a solution for a system that floats on debts without addressing the real problems. But for the lords of the Gulf (and Ceferin) that's okay for now.
