The Business of Football: Fitting in the Finalissima, Ligue 1 ponder D2C, and EFL ‘less distressed’

What would you do if you could create some more time in your schedule? Learn how to play the drums? Teach yourself a foreign language? Get your golf handicap down?

For football’s governing bodies, the answer is obvious: play more games.

Take UEFA, for example. In the last decade, it has expanded the Euros, introduced the Nations League, added a third club competition and increased the number of teams and games in the Champions League. And three years ago, it signed a memorandum of understanding with its South American equivalent CONMEBOL to revive the Artemio Franchi Cup.

Do not beat yourself up if this competition is not ringing any bells. England fans will not have paid much attention to it as it is contested by the respective champions of Europe and South America, and it was only played twice — in 1985 and 1993 — prior to its rebranding as the Finalissima in 2022, when Argentina beat Italy 3-0 at Wembley. Another of those “look at what you could have won” moments for English football, then.

There was, of course, another of those last Sunday, when Spain beat England to win Euro 2024 and qualify for Finalissima 2025. Later that same day, much later, Argentina booked a return ticket to the match thanks to their Copa America victory over Colombia.

That ticket, however, remains short on details. We have the headliners — Lionel Messi versus Lamine Yamal — but we do not have a date or stage, and finding them will be tricky.

What The Athletic can say is that both signatories of that MoU remain committed to playing the Finalissima and it is meant to take place in South America which, admittedly, does not narrow it down much. The when is not much clearer, either.

The 2022 edition took place on June 1 as the first week of European football’s summer holiday is currently the only available window for such one-offs. In Europe, the next three international windows — in September, October and November — are being used for Nations League group-stage games, with the March 2025 window shared between Nations League quarter-finals/play-offs and the start of the 2026 World Cup qualifying tournament.

The early June slot is reserved for the Nations League semi-finals/final and the third and fourth rounds of World Cup qualifying. And while there is definitely still a lot of football to be played, you would have to say there is a reasonable chance that Spain, the defending Nations League champions, might be double-booked in June.

Things do not get any better for either Argentina or Spain later in June or July, either, as nine of Argentina’s Copa America squad and five of Spain’s Euro winners play for teams that have already qualified for FIFA’s new and improved Club World Cup.

Could these two star-studded outfits get together outside of an international window? They might… but why would their regular employers release them for a match that risks injury and jet lag without any discernible benefit for the clubs?

For those wanting to see this match, let us hope that American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein was onto something when he noted “two things are necessary for great achievement: a plan and not quite enough time”.

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To continue with the theme of time being short, the column would like to send its congratulations to Ligue de Football Professionnel (LFP) for finally selling Ligue 1’s domestic media rights to beIN and DAZN for… about half what it promised the clubs only six months ago.

Oh well, these things happen. Especially in France. But could this be the last time it happens?

Having upset its long-standing broadcast partner Canal+ by running off with a rival (and then compounding that betrayal by doing it again when the rival failed to stick around), LFP only had two options as the clock ticked down to the start of the new season: go with the safe but slim offer on the table or leap into the unknown with European football’s first direct-to-consumer (D2C) offer.

The latter would have cut out the middlemen of beIN, Canal, DAZN et cetera, and given French fans an opportunity to buy a season ticket from the league to view all the games they want to see. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Unfortunately, there are several hurdles to clear before the LFP, Premier League or any other league tries it. For example, who fronts the money the clubs need while you wait for the subscriptions to roll in? Who handles billing and IT complaints? What else do you offer to stop customers leaving as soon as they have seen the games they want? Do football administrators know anything about how to broadcast/stream live sport? Can your country’s IT infrastructure cope with millions of people streaming live content?

Plenty to ponder, then.

But, with Ligue 1’s domestic deal now worth only €500million (£420m; $547m) a year, the French have relatively little to lose. And they have also negotiated a break clause in the five-year deal with beIN and DAZN after two seasons.

RC Lens chairman Joseph Oughourlian made his feelings on what the league should do very clear in a well-received post on his LinkedIn page.

Noting that the deal means fans will have to shell out for two subscriptions, one to beIN to watch the best game of the weekend and another to DAZN for access to the other eight, Oughourlian asked if this is a “sustainable way forward for the most popular sport”. The temptation to watch illegal, pirated feeds will be huge, he wrote.

He then explained that Lens, who finished seventh in Ligue 1 last season, are likely to receive only €9million per year from the domestic rights, which is 1/14th of the amount the worst team in the Premier League receives from its domestic deal.

“At a time when the absence of a broadcaster should have led us to seize the opportunity to manage our own TV offering — one that is clear, plural and affordable — this stubborn focus on fixed amounts sends me back to the mirages of the past,” he concluded.

Paolo Pescatore, an independent media consultant based in the UK, agrees.

“While delivering sport at scale is a major undertaking, France has good connectivity infrastructure,” Pescatore wrote in his latest newsletter. “If D2C is to succeed, France is a good testbed.

“Inevitably, there are loud voices within the LFP that say D2C was the way to go and an opportunity has been missed. There is reportedly a 2027 exit clause in the new agreement and it would not be surprising to see D2C back on the table once more.”

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Regular readers will know that the last UK government ran out of time to get its much-trumpeted Football Governance Bill into law, which disappointed many in the game but pleased some.

For the former group, it was another delay on the path to creating a more financially sustainable professional pyramid, with a fairer distribution of the game’s riches, better owners and a greater focus on protecting every club’s unique heritage, all of which would be overseen by a new, independent regulator.

For the latter, it was a chance to persuade the incoming government that football was quite capable of achieving all of that without politicians looking over its shoulder.

Well, on Wednesday, we found out which of these camps has the new regime’s ear and it is not the one telling it to keep its nose out of the game, because the Football Governance Bill was included in the King’s Speech, which is literally a speech delivered by the king that sets out his new government’s legislative programme.

“Football is in urgent need of change and the commitment to progress a reworked Football Governance Bill is music to our ears,” said Niall Couper, the chief executive of Fair Game, a group that represents 34 men’s clubs who very much sit in the pro-regulation camp.

“The Labour government is making all the right noises about the remit of an independent football regulator and today’s proposal looks to go further than the previous Conservative bill.”

The English Football League, another group happy to be regulated, “very much welcomed” the news that the bill would be returning to parliament for its transformation into law very soon.

The Premier League’s response was a little more measured, as you would expect from a group in the “mind your own business” brigade.

“We look forward to working with the new government and discussing the detail of the bill,” a league spokesperson told The Athletic.

“The success of the Premier League model enables us to support the best-funded football ecosystem in the world, including substantial investment into grassroots and communities. It is critical that the regulation of this industry is proportionate and effective, to ensure that English football can continue to be world-leading and deliver for millions of fans.”

What we do not yet know is if the Labour bill is any different to Conservative one, which had got about halfway along the parliamentary process before former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak decided to chance his arm on a slightly surprising summer election.

Our guess is that it will have a bit more to say about fan engagement and the game’s equality, diversity and inclusion issues. There is also likely to be more emphasis on the owners’ and directors’ test, with new Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport Lisa Nandy being something of an expert on unsuitable club owners from her experience as the Member of Parliament for Wigan, home of League One’s Wigan Athletic.

What is less likely is any major beefing-up of the regulator’s ability to impose a new financial settlement on the game — in other words, making the Premier League share more of its media rights income with the EFL and non-league football — as this Labour government does not appear to be as interested in radical redistributions of wealth as previous Labour regimes.

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We shall see, though, almost literally, as the legislative process either takes place in the main debating chamber of the House of Commons, which is streamed online and broadcast on the BBC Parliament channel, or the transcripts of its committee debates are published on the parliament website.

If only we could say the same thing about football’s debates, hey?

Not only do we not get to see them, or read everything that was said, we are never told when or where they are. And, until recently, we did not get much more than a few paragraphs explaining what these private arbitration hearings had decided.

But maybe those days are over. After all, why is football so secretive about its decision-making?

This is a question asked by Nick De Marco KC, perhaps the most famous sports lawyer in the UK, in a blog published on his Blackstone Chambers’ website.

“Speaking to other sports lawyers recently about when we might finally find out the decisions in the Manchester City/Premier League disputes (or even who sits on the tribunals)… I sense a growing consent among lawyers who regularly act in sports cases that we should, and we shall, move further towards public hearings in sport in the next few years.”

De Marco, who has been involved in some of the biggest and most contentious football disputes in recent years, then sets out six reasons why public is better than private.

The first is the long-established principle that “sunlight is the best disinfectant” and by holding these hearings in public, you will make them more accountable — even experts can be prone to bias or make mistakes, particularly when nobody is watching.

His next reason is about public confidence in the process, the idea that “sporting justice should not only be done, it should be seen to be done”. Letting us in on the secrets would also aid public understanding of the game’s rules.

De Marco’s fourth and fifth reasons are linked to the idea of public interest, in that the public clearly does have a legitimate interest in making sure sport is fair and free from corruption, and is also very interested, in a more fundamental way, in how sport is played and run. He points out that sports cases are far more popular than “routine court proceedings”.

And his final argument is that by holding these disputes in public, the whole sector should be “enriched” as everyone interested in sport will learn something.

“These arguments are, in my view, so compelling as to easily outweigh the objections of some traditionalists in the sector who seek to cling onto private decision-making,” De Marco concluded. Correctly, in our view.

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Let us finish, as we often try to, with some good news.

The annual Football Distress Survey conducted by business recovery specialist Begbies Traynor is normally the tale of financial woe its title suggests.

But this year’s survey, published on Wednesday, is… OK.

It notes that “financial distress is at an all-time low in the English Football League, now affecting just two of the 72 clubs in the league, a reduction of 91 per cent from a year ago when 22 clubs showed signs of distress, and down from a record high of 34 in October 2021”.

Begbies Traynor, which has provided administrators for numerous football insolvencies over the years, believes the recent spate of investigations and points deductions for breaches of the game’s financial fair play rules has had a positive effect on sustainability.

This is also not a case of one swallow making a summer (the chance would be a fine thing in the UK this year) as Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance, which was published last month, found that Championship club revenues exceeded their wage costs for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

This means they combined to spend only 94 pence of every pound they earned on wages. Unfortunately, football clubs have to pay a lot of other bills, too, so the Championship clubs combined to make an operating loss of more than £300million, with none of them making a profit without selling players.

However, this is an improvement on what went before!

“In terms of comparison with the UK’s wider economy, which is facing the pressure of rising costs, wage inflation and lower consumer spending, the sport is in good shape,” said Begbies Traynor partner Julie Palmer.

“But there are challenges around the huge gulf in revenues that remain between the Premier League and the lower divisions. As that gap widens, the temptations to risk everything on getting into the world’s highest-profile league obviously increases and we have seen clubs risk penalties this year.”

And while that has given this column plenty of things to write about, it is not how anyone should choose to spend their time.

(Top photo: Jose Breton/Pics Action/NurPhoto via Getty Images)