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Browsing Archive: December, 2013

Wage Spend versus points achieved

Posted by Ed Thompson on Friday, December 27, 2013,

Article and table updated 3 Jan 2014

After West Ham lost to Manchester United just before Christmas, their manager Sam Allardyce remarked that “where you actually finish in the league depends on the money you’ve spent. It’s a statistical fact that”.  This raised an interesting point; clubs will spend money to gain a competitive advantage, but, how by much does a high spend influence results? And what kind of spending? It also raises the question of to what extend a team's performance a...


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EC to formally investigate Spain for providing State Aid to clubs

Posted by Ed Thompson on Monday, December 16, 2013,

The European Commission has opened disciplinary proceedings against Spain for giving illegal State Aid to 7 clubs (Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao, Osasuna, Valencia, Elche and Hercules). The proceedings could have a significant impact on Spanish football.

Independent journalist Sam Wallace originally broke this story. See his articles here and here and here.

There are three areas in which the rules may well have been breached:

Member status

Whilst all other clubs were obliged by the Span...


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Premier League clubs - 'Loss per ticket' analysis

Posted by Ed Thompson on Monday, December 9, 2013,

A study of Premier League club accounts shows that most paying fans effectively have their match-day-experience subsidised by club losses. The table below shows how much extra fans would have to pay for their match tickets if clubs worked on a Break Even basis, with fans making up any deficit.

Obviously the big 'Loss per ticket' figures are the ones that stand out – there probably wouldn’t be too many Liverpool or Man City fans who would continue to go to the game i...


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Player contract disclosure - a lesson we can learn from the Italians

Posted by Ed Thompson on Thursday, December 5, 2013,

One of the most frustrating parts of the transfer window is finding that a player has been sold for 'an undisclosed fee'. Whereas some clubs are happy to disclose the amount that has been paid, increasingly clubs prefer to keep the figure confidential; hoping that it will somehow improve their future bargaining position or possibly avoid the wrath of their fans. As the Guardian reported, only 5 of 115 transfers made in the summer had an officially disclosed fee - a concept they felt was 'an i...


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Paris Saint-Germain and the thorny RPT issue

Posted by Ed Thompson on Sunday, December 1, 2013,

At the weekend, PSG became the first french team to field an all foreign line-up in a league game (in England this first happened with Chelsea in 1999). Their opponents Lyon fielded 7 french players and were hammered 4-0. This triggered inevitable debates about whether the scenario was a good thing, with 63% of respondents in one survey finding it 'shocking. However it looks like something they are going to have to get used to.

Off the field it has been an interesting week for the club.  A sen...


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