Southampton Solent University

SCHOOL OF COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING

Supervisor : Steve MenaryDate of presentation : May 2016

Sport Journalism2015-2016

Jordan Scearce – Q10151711“The mass influx of broadcasting income has changed the way football is played,

run and shown in Europe’s top five divisions during an era of globalisation”

Contents

1. Acknowledgements 2

2. Abstract 3

3. Introduction

3.1. Introduction 4

3.2. Literature Review 5

3.3. Methodology 7

4. Chapters

4.1. A global television market 8

4.2. The money League of Champions 15

4.3. Forgotten Fans 19

4.4. Blank cheques 25

5. Conclusion 31

6. Bibliography 34

7. Appendices 40

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1. AcknowledgementsI would like to send my biggest thanks to my tutor Steve Menary, whom of which gave me the guidance and helped generate ideas, which enabled me to broaden my thought process and help find the adequate resources which advanced my learning.I would also like to thank Jim O’Brien and Max Mauro who have also offered their support and knowledge during the process and helped me to be organised and have the broadest possible range of sources in the build up to writing.Next, I would like to thank Gabriele Marcotti, Antonia Hagemann and Jonathan Johnson for taking the time out of their incredibly busy schedules to answer questions that I had, which had been vital in the findings throughout the main body of my dissertation.Finally, I would like thank my friends and family for pushing me on and putting up with me during a time where I had spent long periods devoted to researching and writing.

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2. AbstractThe ever-growing popularity of the Premier League has intrigued me and I have often pondered why clubs from around the country are so well supported in nations from the other side of the world. Television money has fundamentally changed the way football has been played, managed and watched with huge sums paid for the services of elite players and coaches, yet it has adversely meant that as a fan, domestically, it is harder than ever to affordably watch football. In light of the new broadcasting deal that comes into effect from next season, I wanted to compare the English game with the rest of Europe’s elite and seek to find what differences and similarities they both share.This dissertation investigates the effects television money has had on the Premier League and the top five European leagues in football as a whole (Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1). I have focused my research and attention on four different themes, which have a direct correlation with the ever-inflating sums that are being paid to broadcast the most beautiful game across the globe. These themes include, the Premier League’s domination and how it has become the wealthiest and profitable league in the world. The increasing importance of the Champions League and how it is hugely lucrative not only for the leading clubs but those who play on the peripheries of European football. Fandom and how supporters are being unfairly treated due to the increase in foreign investment, which has been a catalyst from the huge television income. Finally, the inflation of transfer fees and wage bills in the current market and how top division clubs can afford to pay vast sums of money for players that aren’t necessarily worth the price they have been bought for.

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3.1. IntroductionThis dissertation focuses on the hypothesis ‘The mass influx of broadcasting income has changed the way football is played, run and shown in Europe’s top five divisions during an era of globalisation’ which has been tested over four different subject areas and have been identified within individual chapters.The first chapter provides context on the globalisation of football by looking at how television is sold and shown both domestically and internationally and discusses the different models across Europe’s top five leagues, which have been set up as a result of cultural differences. However the main focus studies the ever-growing Premier League model with a comparison to the rest of Europe’s five elite leagues; La Liga, Serie A, Ligue 1 and the Bundesliga.The second chapter focuses on the importance of the UEFA Champions League and how essential it is that Europe’s leading sides consistently qualify each year due to the increase in television and prize money distribution. The chapter also studies the peripheries of European football and why even making it to the qualifying rounds means smaller sides from far out nations can meet revenue targets before the domestic season has even started.Chapter three looks at the relationship between fans and television money by discussing the increase in price for attending and watching football on television and whether or not fans are still the most important thing. It also looks at how reliant clubs are on match day revenue against broadcasting revenue. This chapter’s main theme investigates how there is a correlation between television money and the increase in match day ticket prices.The final chapter investigates the inflation of transfer fees and wage expenditure and how the increase in television income has swelled the market. The passage also discusses the relationship between pay and performance and how it is still possible to succeed even on tighter budgets. There is a key focus on the comparison between the top five leagues in Europe and how their transfer spend and wage expenditure relates next to respective television deals.

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3.2. Literary reviewMark Doidge (2015) Football Italia: BloomsburyFootball Italia was incredibly relevant to my dissertation as it delved deep into the history of Italian football and its 21st century struggles after prospering from a successful hosting of the 1990 World Cup. Mark Doidge compares and contrasts the relationship struggles fandom has had with policing and media outlets and uses the upturn in English football, as inspiration in a potential revival of the Italian game. One of the book’s main strengths is Doidge’s interpretation of the political network, which has had a huge influence in the running of clubs, its role in the match fixing scandal, which has defaced reputation abroad, and their part in a complete mismanagement in the negotiation of television rights which until 2010 was centrally negotiated. Doidge has gathered an impressive range of sources from personal communication with Antonio Conte and Jose Mourinho to findings from experienced Italian journals and journalists who help the dissertation to find a balanced point of view across the board.David Goldblatt (2014) The Game of our Lives: the meaning and making of English Football. Penguin BooksSimilar to the aim of Football Italia, David Goldblatt gives a rich insight into the evolution of English football, at a time when it needed a serious re-think in the late 1980’s after the stadium disasters of Hillsborough and Heysel and the national side’s need to capitalise on an encouraging performance at Italia ’90. Goldblatt superbly embodies football to the social, political and economic changes of post-Thatcherism, which is represented by the formation of the Premier League as a clean slate for British football. The main strength of the book is how it has added context to the dissertation by discussing how television has emerged from being in the shadows of fandom in the 20th century to now becoming the single most important aspect in the globalisation of English football. This book however is weak in that it is

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historically weighted and perhaps lacking football content, with too much emphasis on what is happening in Britain at the time instead of focusing on what the rest of Europe are doing which is either instrumental or detrimental to the English game.Steve Menary (2015) One rule for one: The impact of Champion’s League prize money and financial fair play at the bottom of the European club game. Soccer and SocietyHistorically, Football Italia and The Game of Our Lives were vital for the dissertation, however to get a secondary perspective for specialised themes within the dissertation academic journals were required to further understanding. This journal along with Game On: the commercialisation and corruption of the pre-season friendly (Menary), Game On: the commercialisation of the pre-season friendly (Menary) and the battle for revenues (Solberg), gave qualitative data and different perspectives from authors who had undertaken key specialised research on a specific theme. This journal sums up how important the Champions League is not only from the top level but a lower level too and that could be compared to the previous two books. Menary’s argument that the Champion’s League could be detrimental to domestic leagues from high prize monies helped the dissertation to be more balanced and helped to create an against argument which changed the whole dynamic of the chapter. One weakness in terms of my dissertation is that it was too specialised on the peripheries of European football, whereas my hypothesis focuses on the top five leagues.

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3.3. MethodologyThis dissertation was written to investigate the effects television is having on the globalisation of football and how that is affecting a number of issues and themes within the game. All data received, needed to be relevant to the hypothesis and had to ensure that there was a balanced argument throughout each different theme brought up throughout the main body. Primary data has been essential to form arguments presenting ‘for’ and ‘against’ formulas, however secondary data has been just as important to ensure opinions are backed up with concrete facts from reliable online sources.Primary data was initially collected through the use of books and academic journals which has given the dissertation a context to the historical backgrounds of television deals and themes related within from differing cultural backgrounds such as governance and fandom. As the dissertation moved forward, quantitative and qualitative specialised research came in the form of interviews from authority figures who have been involved with the advancements in fandom in Italian and French football, all of which have colourful histories both in the short and long term. Gabriele Marcotti and Jonathan Johnson are both recognised, reliable journalists who devote their careers to Italian and French football respectively and were excellent interviewees who gave the dissertation a credibility it needed to form well rounded arguments. Antonia Hagemann is another interviewee who contributed towards chapter three, this interview required a qualitative data base as her role as Head of Supporters Direct meant a more specialised question base, rather than the previous interviewees who were asked more general questions. The questions asked were open based to

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enable a discouragement of leading views. The questions included a range of topics, which was crucial for a well-rounded view.Secondary research was used to form a backup to opinions raised in the dissertation from the primary research and these had been taken from online web pages, video and radio documentaries and official documents. The Deloitte money league editions have been valuable in comparing and contrasting the influx of television money on the European top five leagues, which directly challenged my hypothesis, and have also been essential in the theme of fandom alongside the interview with Antonia Hagemann. Academic journals, although a primary source, have given the dissertation further credibility due to the number of secondary sources within, with Steve Menary’s journals and studies from the play the game website evidence of this.

4.1. A Global Television MarketThe Premier League’s formation in 1992 was principally to reward the leading clubs with a greater share of television revenue, as opposed to the former model where the money was more evenly distributed (Vamplew and Taylor 2002). Globalisation was also one of the main reasons for the breakaway league, especially after Italian football was prospering after the success of the 1990 World Cup (Doidge 2015) and hooliganism damaged England’s reputation abroad after the Heysel disaster in 1985 (Doidge 2015). The Premier League has emerged as ‘the global football league’ (Doidge 2015) and as Ridley (2012 p.258) states, “when the Premier League was formed, many thought it was just the first division under a new name but no one could imagine what it is now”. This is proved by the Premier League’s recent television deal, which could be worth up to £5.1 billion from 2016 to 2019 with £3.2 billion coming from overseas deals (Harris 2016), where huge fan bases are encouraging marketable nations to invest more into the league.The Premier League’s collective selling model which has delivered such phenomenal overseas investment has been a catalyst in the changing models in Germany, Italy and Spain, who have all distanced themselves from individual selling and deregulation systems. Germany currently stands as the lowest earner from television income in Europe’s top five divisions and receives €628 million per year (Cerqua 2014), however

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was one the first top divisions, following the Premier League to agree to a collective selling system. Similar to issues in England during the formation of the Premier League, Spain and Italy, the leading clubs wanted reassurances that they were getting a fair share of the money they felt they deserved as Niemann, Garcia and Grant (2011 p.66) state,

“Among the 36 professional clubs, only FC Bayern, Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Leverkusen favoured a decentralising model as they thought they had the capacity to get more money and they threatened to form a breakaway European League, but eventually all clubs accepted.”

Bayern Munich’s acceptance was later revealed to have only happened due to a secret marketing agreement with Leo Kirch’s company Kirch Group (Niemann, Garcia and Grant 2011). Kirch was the entrepreneur behind Premiere World, which is now known as Sky Germany (Forrester 2016) who are now the main rights holders of the Bundesliga (Anon 2016). In this contract from Kirch Group, Bayern were compensated for a loss of revenue by forging individual agreements and agreed to the central marketing model whilst in fact having the financial status of a decentralised system, this is one of the first cases of decentralised marketing through the back door (Niemann, Garcia and Grant 2011). This indicates how the bigger clubs can still explore ways to make a greater income than the smaller clubs, with advances in historical and playing standard contexts something that makes them more attractive to marketing agencies. Bayern’s fear of losing out on a large share of television money became a reality in the 1991/ 1992 season as Hesse-Lichtenberger and Ulrich (2003 p. 236) explains,

“By finishing 10th that year Bayern missed their turn at the trough on the first occasion that TV stations handed out enormous amounts of money to cover European football.”

Bayern’s individual agreements would have compensated for much of their loss, however would miss out on a substantial amount due to non-participation in European football the following system something which was heavily rewarded in German football. The new system, involved pooling all money set aside for European football and clubs would be paid depending on how far they made it in UEFA Cup and Champions League ties (Hesse-Lichtenberger and Ulrich 2003).In Italy, Serie A failed to make the most of the success of the 1990 World Cup and instead focused on maximising the domestic market,

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when the Premier League and other rival leagues had taken their market share and negotiated a range of contracts with international television companies (Doidge 2015). Deregulation of television rights in Italy meant that the bigger sides such as the Milan clubs and Juventus could maximise their revenue and accumulate resources (Doidge 2015) including stadium improvements, as Marcotti (2016) (See Appendix I) states,

“The slump in Italian football is down to bad governance and short sightedness, stadiums weren’t renovated or built.”

This proves the importance of facilities in top level football, and that is a major conflicting factor in the showing of Italian football on television, as television abhorred empty seats on the screen and ultimately audience became a decisive factor in the sports business (Collins 2013). In 2010, Serie A clubs re-negotiated an equitable distribution of television revenue and the current deal is now the second most valuable in world football (Marcotti 2016). The current deal still isn’t evenly distributed, however as Marcotti (2016) states,

“A portion is divided equally among all clubs, a portion of it is split based on league finish and a portion is split based on a combination of historical results, catchment area and popularity. The top earner ends up with around four times as much as the bottom earner. Which is much better than it was when rights were sold individually and the multiple could be as much as 15 to one.”

This proves the value of a more even distribution, a key reason which has the Premier League making 66% more than La Liga and £500 million more than the Bundesliga (Goldblatt 2014).Spanish football has recently seen a change in the distribution of television money, as Cerqua (2014) stated,

“La Liga is the only big five league to sell TV rights on an individual team basis, resulting in 43% of the revenue from these rights going to Real Madrid or Barcelona”.

This highlighted extreme favouritism to Spain’s most successful clubs. However, in 2015 La Liga clubs agreed to a more collective system, similar to the Premier League and are expected to bring in around €1.5 billion from domestic and overseas deals (Balague 2015). The new deal hugely benefits the remaining clubs in Spain as Quinn (2015) researched, after Atletico Madrid, the Spanish Champions for 2013/14

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received just €42 million, and Barcelona who finished runners-up inherited €140 million due to the negotiation of their own rights with Spanish telephone company Telefónica. The huge gap between Spain and the Premier League was emphasised when Cardiff City who finished bottom of the Premier League the same season, received €74.5 million (Bidwell 2015). La Liga’s new television deal doesn’t benefit Barcelona and Real Madrid as it formerly did and with the impending Premier League’s income, Real Madrid’s 11 year hold at the top of Deloitte’s money league is expected to be relinquished next season to Manchester United. The new collective selling regime has however significantly uplifted the overall value of La Liga broadcasting rights, meaning that Spanish and English top division clubs are expected to hold the majority of Deloitte’s future top 40 money league positions (Deloitte 2016).Ligue 1 is currently the fourth lowest earner from broadcasting figures in Europe’s top five leagues, earning around €726 million, however French football has seen an increase in value from the previous period where Ligue 1 television deals were only worth €607 million (Johnson 2016) (See Appendix III). Le Championnat Champions Paris Saint-Germain are Europe’s fourth highest earning club, highlighting their importance on the value of the league and future growth will stem from PSG and their resources acquired through ownership, as stated by Johnson (2016),

“French football is trying to use its connections with Qatar to make it more appealing on a global scale. However, only PSG are really appealing to people outside of France at the moment.”

This is proved by PSG’s ownership from Qatar Sports Investments (QSI), which has enabled them to bring in elite European players and has subsequently boosted interest in not only the club, but also Ligue 1. France’s close ties with Qatar and QSI hold a value for the future of their league through the Qatari-owned station Al-Jazeera who set up BeIn Sports, a French sports channel which are the rights holders for Ligue 1 and the Champions League (Lichfield 2012). Potential globalisation to challenge the likes of the Premier League and La Liga which are Europe’s most popular leagues is however very much dependant on the negotiation of international television rights, which itself is sold primarily on performance in European competitions, and France can only boast two members progressing past the Champions’ League group phase in the previous five seasons, as indicated by Johnson (2016),

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“I do not think that Ligue 1 and French football is fooling itself that it will ever hold the same appeal as the Premier League or La Liga. One of the things making Ligue 1 football unattractive to many domestic and foreign viewers is the fact that no team outside of PSG have put in good showings in Europe recently.”

This shows how French football is dependant not only on PSG, but the investment in the club from their Qatari owners, that way they can attract better quality which will bring more money for the remaining Ligue 1 clubs to invest in their own squads, thus improving the standard of the league and will improve the ease of more valuable television contracts.As globalisation in football gets stronger, so the stranglehold the top five European leagues holds on football gets tighter. Revenues from exporting television is increasing and as a result the lower coefficient ranked leagues across Europe are sacrificing investment on their own league to give the bigger leagues more air time. The Netherlands is a prime example of this as Solberg (2015) found; there is less of a reliance on television rights to bring in extra revenue for Eredivise sides. In the 2013/14 season total revenue in Holland was only around £439 million with 18% of that money coming from media rights. Compare that with the English Premier League sides whose total revenue amounted up to £3.89 billion with 54% as a result of media rights, in total the revenue of the Eredivise could be multiplied almost ten times and become level with the Premier League and in the Bundesliga, the average revenue compared with that of a club in the Netherlands is just 19% highlighting the supreme financial power of clubs in Europe’s top five leagues. The demand in Holland is much different compared to that of England or Germany, the latter are focused on importing the highest quality and will pay astronomical sums to accomplish with Angel Di Maria, the most expensive player in British history costing £48m more than Miralem Sulejami who Ajax signed for £12m in the 2008/ 2009 season (Transfer Markt 2016). The Netherlands are the single most profitable European country for television exporting; an equivalent of 70% of what is spent on their own domestic league rights to show games from the top five leagues, showing the power the top leagues have on European football. The Asian television market is by far the most profitable across the world however, as Harris (2016) found out with Malaysia spending 900% more on importing Premier League football than what is spent on their own domestic rights.

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The exportation of television deals has evolved and the trend of domestic media rights being more valuable than international rights is expected to change as the table below suggests: (Source: Solberg 2015)

League Period 1 – 1998-2002

Period 2 – 2003-2006

Period 3 – 2007-2010

Period 4 – 2011-2014

England – Premier League

£800m/ £311m (72%/ 28%)

£796m/ £591m (57%/ 43%)

£1.29bn/ £908m(59%/ 41%)

£2.21bn/ n.c.

-Spain – Liga BBVA

£435m/ £65m (85%/ 15%)

£471m/ £123m (74%/ 26%)

£532m/ £235m (75%/ 31%)

n.c./ £650m-

Italy – Serie A

£793m/ £70m (91%/ 9%)

£817m/ £91m (89%/ 11%)

£858m/ £117m (88%/ 12%)

£1.15bn/ £215m(84%/ 16%)

France – Ligue 1

£642m/ £8m (99%/ 1%)

£668m/ £17m (97%/ 3%)

£607m/ £33m (95%/ 5%)

£727m/ £80m (91%/ 9%)

Germany - Bundesliga

£320m/ £18m (94%/ 6%)

£322/ £53m (85%/ 15%

£470m/ £71m (83%/ 13%)

£534m/ £160m (77%/ 23%)

The Asian market is by far the biggest investor in broadcasting European football and in particularly Premier League football where investment for this period (2016-2019) has surpassed the £1.26 billion mark (Harris 2016). The Premier League brand is now also extending to global powers such as China who are set to become real players in the football world. In television terms, the market is small; however for the first time significant investment from China has arrived in England at Manchester City (Wallace, 2016) indicating a desire for China and the Premier League to ‘crack’ notoriously difficult respective markets (Harris 2016). Asia’s favouritism on the English game is however set to be closely challenged by North America and the Caribbean. In the USA,

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football is now the most popular watched sport and that is only set to intensify from a new $1 billion, six-year-package that broadcaster NBC has agreed with the Premier League (Harris 2016). Another key reason for the popularity increasing across the pond is investment in Premier League clubs from American owners who are promoting their clubs by agreeing lucrative pre-season tournaments between elite European clubs. The pre-season blueprint has evolved from simply preparation ahead of the new season; it now strives on capitalising on commercial opportunities for clubs and seeks to enhance a global brand, which uses this platform to generate further popularity, which can be used to negotiate future media deals. As Menary (2015) investigated, the USA has seen a surge of interest from the Premier League and vice versa, in the past ten years it has been the most popular destination for Premier League clubs with 94 fixtures involving them taking place. Popularity has been evident in the USA as stadium attendance figures have smashed their English counterparts’ records; with the International Champions Cup game in Michigan between Man Utd and Real Madrid in 2014 a key example with over 109,000 fans in attendance, the highest stadium capacity in US history (PA Sport 2014).The price of all forms of football is increasing, not only to watch but to show on television as well. The emergence of pre-season tournaments has been a big factor in the cost of pre-season broadcasts, with the establishment of tournaments such as the Barclays Asia Trophy and the International Champions Cup attractive due to the high level of competitors taking part (Menary 2016), and the opportunity to see matches abroad that are played twice a season domestically. This type of reaction in terms of stadium attendances, shirt sales and increased television deals led to the Premier League flirting with the idea of ‘Game 39’ (Menary 2016), something that is likely to be mooted again if television deals continue to influx as expected. As Harris (2016) researched,

“A typical Premier League game in Brazil will get around 500,000 viewers, twice as many as La Liga”.

La Liga is the most popular foreign league in Brazil, this indicates that ‘Game 39’ is an idea that is entirely feasible and commercially intelligent. Latest figures have shown that rights in Norway, Hong Kong and sub-Saharan Africa have doubled for this period (Harris 2016), making ‘Game 39’ also financially lucrative. The highest earner for Premier League clubs during pre-season is selling television rights for

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foreign tours, showing the importance of club pay-tv stations and that explains the rush of television companies looking for close relationships with clubs due to anticipated profits (Vamplew and Taylor 2002) BSKYB attempts to buy Manchester United and Granada buying 9.9% of Liverpool FC in the late 1990’s are examples of television companies looking to get ahead of the market (Vamplew and Taylor 2002) . However as Menary (2016) states, “Charging for friendlies is difficult for clubs without regular Champions League exposure”, this could see clubs gain upwards of £2 million for a friendly, showing the increasing necessity of Champions League football.

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4.2. The Money League of ChampionsWhen UEFA revamped the European Cup competition in 1992 to create the Champions League, they took a keen interest in the newly formed Premier League model which fought to gain exclusive media contracts from the highest bidder from each nation (Doidge 2015). As Goldblatt (2014 p. 22) states,

“The UEFA Champions League has been extremely successful in bringing in money which has made it the fifth biggest league in Europe and with high revenues directed to the leading clubs in the largest TV markets”.

This proves that poor league performance and good European Cup performance doesn’t guarantee financial supremacy as Man Utd found when they made £50m after losing to Barcelona in the 2011 final (Goldblatt 2014) with the winners taking home €51m (FC Business 2011). This huge amount of money comes from a competition which plays a large part of its matches in a knockout format, as opposed to a league format, and has arrived from big European broadcasters such as Sky in England, Kirch in Germany and Mediaset in Italy (Doidge 2015). Income from the leagues is hugely beneficial for clubs that make it to the latter stages as this chapter will investigate, however, it wasn’t until Michel Platini’s election as UEFA President in 2006 when the smaller teams in the less powerful European nations started to fully benefit from playing Champions League football, even if that meant just competing in the play-off rounds.

This benefit stems from the Champions League, much like the Premier League seeing a huge following from outside of Europe and as a result of increased television revenue, UEFA have sharply increased the distribution of prize money with the winners this season earning 43% more than last season (Total Sportek 2016). The Champions League is now starting to rival and surpass domestic prizes, with clubs, especially from smaller nations relying on European cup competition progression to fund a large part of their annual revenue. At the top of the game the gap between domestic and European prize monies is a lot tighter, however as Menary (2015) states, the Champions League continues to be the most beneficial with Chelsea earning €59.9m for winning the 2012 Champions League title and £54.4m from finishing sixth in the Premier League, however they played 25 games less in the Champions League highlighting the value of Europe’s premier club cup competition.

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Breakdown of 2014/15 and 2015/16 UEFA Champions League prize money distribution: Source (Total Sportek 2016)

2014/15 Prize Money

2015/16 Prize Money

Percentage Increase

Group stage finish

€8.6m €12m 40%

Each group stage win

€1m €1.5m 50%

Each group stage draw

€0.5m €0.5m 0%

Round of 16 finish

€3.5m €5.5m 57%

Quarter Final finish

€3.9m €6m 54%

Semi Final finish

€4.9m €7m 43%

Runner up finish

€6.5m €10.5m 62%

Winner €10.5m €15m 43%

Outside of the Premier League, television income isn’t as lucrative and distribution hasn’t, until recently been as even as Atletico Madrid, who in 2014 won the Spanish League title and reached the Champions League final, discovered. Atletico’s broadcast revenue for that season increased by 84% compared to the previous campaign where they finished third in La Liga and only reached the last 32 in the Europa League. Atletico’s final Champions League prize amounted to over €50m, a €5m increase on the revenue earnt from finishing top of La Liga (Deloitte 2015). Polarity in Spain’s top domestic league meant that Atletico still received half the broadcasting figure of European Champions Real Madrid; however the Champions League gives teams such as Atletico a chance to compete with Europe’s leading earners, with UEFA rewarding €1m per win, €0.5m for a draw and at least €8.6m for just making the group phase (UEFA 2014). Good performance can be counterproductive for major clubs however, in the following season to Atletico’s final appearance; Diego Simeone’s side along with Real Madrid did not match the previous year’s performance and as a result saw a decrease in UEFA distribution. Finalists Barcelona and Juventus,

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saw increases of €19.1m and €39m respectively based on last years’ results (Deloitte 2016), showing that prize money is only truly significant with sustained success.Michel Platini’s election as UEFA President has been significant, and this is emphasised by his strong relationship with Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) who have close ties with Al-Jazeera, a Qatari based broadcasting company. As indicated by Auclair (2012),

“UEFA centralised the negotiation of TV rights, on behalf of everyone else, anything to do with Al Jazeera’s transparent plans to become the exclusive broadcaster of major events.”

Al Jazeera’s ownership of BeIn sports proves that Platini’s relationship with QSI has had a direct impact on the showing of the Champions League to profitable countries. BeIn sports are now the main rights holders in regions such as South East Asia, the Middle East and Oceania all of whom have a large European football following. Indonesia, one of the countries BeIn sports provides for, was the world’s third highest viewer for last year’s final between Barcelona and Juventus (Ashby 2015), only sitting behind Brazil and Italy who have strong attachments with the respective sides. In Europe, BeIn sports holds the Champions League service’s for European giant nations such as France and Spain, however also for smaller nations for example Andorra, this highlights the global networking of the television channel and its reliance towards pumping huge sums of money across each region on the planet. This is a main contributing factor towards the high sums of prize money UEFA is now distributing to each stage of its premier club cup competitions.Platini’s desire to not only increase the distribution of money across the nations but to also increase the diversity of sides competing began with his reforms in 2007 (Wilson 2007) and evidence of that has come into fruition with the induction of new clubs entering the Champions League in recent seasons. Seven new clubs took part for the first time this season, and five the year before, however that stat is concerning when in the two previous years a combined total of twenty clubs played Champions League football for the first time (Menary 2015). The top five leagues’ stranglehold on European football not only stands now, but also historically, and the Champions League diversity index 1 devised by Menary (2015), proves that with Spain, Germany and 1 “The diversity index is calculated by dividing the total slots allocated by UEFA to each country since 1994/95 to mollify larger clubs wanting a European league by the number of different clubs taking part.”

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France each having 12 different competitors, leading Italy and England, who had 11 and nine different clubs respectively competing in the Champions League since 1992. As indicated by Menary (2015), this theory shows Greece, Ukraine, Scotland and Croatia holding four of the top five highest index places with just 15 different clubs combined from these nations playing some form of Champions League football. This emphasises UEFA’s need to introduce new members to the Champions League to a larger range of playing nations, which can achieved by the distribution of broadcast money which is a large factor in the eligibility for UEFA to share out a record €1.25 billion to playing clubs in this year’s Champions League.Sustainable broadcast revenue continues to be critical, especially from participation in the UEFA Champions League (Deloitte 2016) and this importance is fully beneficial at the lower reaches of European football for the sides who struggle to consistently break into the main group phase, let alone the knockout stages. As Menary (2015) found out, the qualifying route is still highly profitable, especially with the likelihood of playing more matches and the lure of extra performance prizes handed out by UEFA. The examples of F91 Dudelange from Luxembourg and Tre Penne of San Marino show there is now an unhealthy reliance on UEFA’s prize money which is now becoming detrimental to domestic leagues and teams from other nations who do not get this Champions League benefit. In the 2012-2013 season, F91 Dudelange made it to the third qualifying round of the Champions League after defeating Tre Penne and Red Bull Salzburg. The minnows pocketed €620,000, approximately €120,000 more than the annual revenue the other sides in Luxembourg would expect to pocket. That example however is minuscule compared to the impact football in San Marino which Menary (2013) also investigated. Tre Penne were defeated 12-0 on aggregate by F91 Dudelange, yet still received €340,000 from UEFA, over €250,000 more than the average annual revenue in San Marino. Football in the principality state is seen to be closer to an amateur standard than professional, yet due to the league being a UEFA member since 1988 they are entitled to a Champions League place, begging the question whether more qualifying rounds should be played.Comparatively, UEFA’s rewarding of membership to smaller nations is not always as beneficial as it may seem on the surface. In 2013, UEFA added Gibraltar to its list of member associations and since, the island nation has seen a sudden mass influx of foreign players joining clubs in their league, something which the national team manager Jeff Wood,

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Football Association Chief Executive Dennis Beiso and fans are concerned is stuttering the nation’s development of younger players. As Football in Gibraltar: A foreign invasion (2016) shows, the Gibraltar Premier Division is a similar standard to the Spanish second and third divisions, however more money from UEFA being invested into smaller nations means that there are more Champions League and Europa League places available. Players that compete in the lower reaches of Spanish football, the closest nation to Gibraltar, now have that opportunity to play Champions League football and put themselves on the market to bigger European clubs, but at the same time are detrimental to the development of Gibraltar nationals who are finding it harder to get into the first team squads. However, managers of these sides need the best players available to compete for the large prize monies on offer which could be construed that UEFA are indeed encouraging nations to abandon youth development.

4.3. Forgotten fansTelevision is now the single most important aspect in the growth of football and as Vamplew and Taylor (2002 p. 302) state, “Television has fundamentally reshaped the nature of football and threatens to reshape the nature of fandom.” The global marketing of the game means that stadium attendances are no longer relied upon to make the bulk of clubs’ annual revenue. Top-division attendances are at an all-time low and gate receipt revenue is responsible for roughly a quarter of annual revenue for Europe’s elite clubs (UEFA Financial Benchmark Report 2015). Global fandom cannot be discounted however, with the Premier League seeing 6.4 million football fans in Thailand tuning in to watch a Man Utd against Liverpool match last season, three times the viewing figures Sky had from viewers in the United Kingdom (Harris 2016).The reliance on fan attendance in stadiums in football has become less of a priority after television emerged in the 1950s; match day revenue was the main source of income (Collins 2014) and although in the present the main income comes from broadcasting agreements, match day revenue continues to bring in significant sums of money for Europe’s leading clubs. Real Madrid acquired £98.8 million from match day income last season (Deloitte 2016), one of the highest figures in Europe. Real Madrid’s ability to bring in such vast sums of money coincides with their home ground, the Santiago Bernabeu being a UEFA

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category four stadium2. This trend applies to nine of the 20 wealthiest clubs in Europe’s top five leagues (World Stadium Database 2016) (Deloitte 2016), however clubs in Ligue 1 and in particularly Serie A are less reliant due to average attendances sharply contrasting that of the Bundesliga and the Premier League (Doidge 2015), which is down to a poor ratio of ticket prices to standard of stadiums (Marcotti 2016). As Marcotti (2016) states,

“Match day revenue is not a big source of income in Italy and that has to do with stadiums. Until they are renovated with corporate boxes, etc. they will not be big sources of income.”

This is proved in England with Premier League clubs utilising their ever-growing global popularity to make the most of corporate opportunities, coupling the rising of ticket prices with the standard of facilities, as Goldblatt (2014, p.22) states,

“Match day incomes depend on the size of the club, Man Utd and Arsenal have the largest stadiums combined with the most expensive hospitality packages and high ended corporate seating,”

Arsenal are currently the most profitable earner from match day revenue in Europe, at £100.4 million a year (Deloitte 2016) this is earnt through corporate boxes worth a minimum of £4500 per match (Arsenal FC 2016). Arsenal also sell the highest ticket prices in Europe and that trend is familiar across the Premier League, where ticket prices are the most expensive out of Europe’s elite leagues, with Chelsea’s cheapest match day ticket costing £52 (Mokbel 2016) compared to Borussia Dortmund in the Bundesliga where a season ticket can be bought for around the same price (Segdi and Chaliabi 2014). Alternatively, Ligue 1 match tickets are regarded as one of the most profitable in Europe, however that trend only applies to the smaller clubs that do not compete in European football as Johnson (2016) indicates,

“Many teams boycott travelling to the Parc des princes to see their teams take on PSG because those tickets cost roughly three times as much as away tickets to any other top flight stadiums.”

This once again proves that the more successful and thus bigger a club are, the higher they can justify selling match day tickets.2 “UEFA stadium categories are categories for association football stadiums laid out in the UEFA Stadium Infrastructure Regulations. Using these regulations, stadiums are rated as category one, two, three, or four (renamed from elite) in ascending ranking order.” (UEFA, 2010)

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Comparison of top 10 European clubs broadcast and match day revenue (Source: Deloitte 2016)Club Broadcasting

revenueMatch day revenue

Real Madrid £152.1 million £98.8 millionBarcelona £152 million £88.9 millionManchester United £107.7 million £86.7 millionParis Saint-Germain £80.5 million £59.3 millionFC Bayern £80.7 million £68.3 millionManchester City £135.4 million £43.4 millionArsenal £127.6 million £100.4 millionChelsea £135.6 million £70.8 millionLiverpool £124.6 million £57.1 millionJuventus £151.4 million £39.1 million

High ticket prices from bigger, more globalised leagues can however be argued in defence of clubs owners that fans aren’t as in touch with the development of modern day football, and in particular in Italy where fan apathy has seen corporate ideals such as advertising needs and the changing of kick off times to accommodate television broadcasts causing discontent amongst ultra-groups (Foot 2006). Government short sightedness in relation to stadium renovations after failed bids for Euro 2012 and 2016 has also been a key factor in fan apathy (Marcotti 2016), Italy’s failed host bids for the European Championships could have gone some way to improving attendance figures, which are the lowest out of Europe’s top five leagues, as indicated by Johnson (2016)

“The Euros will leave behind a legacy of new and improved stadiums and the increased comfort of those venues might help to boost attendances.”

This is set to be proved by France’s hosting of the tournament in the summer, and Johnson’s theory highlights the struggle for any kind of financial gain from fan based activity in Italy in recent years, with match day revenue amongst the lowest in elite European club football (Deloitte 2016).The main income from match days comes in the form of match day tickets and season tickets, with merchandise less of a priority; total match day revenue still brings in an average of £500 million per year for Premier League clubs (Goldblatt 2014). As Goldblatt (2014 p. 20) states,

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“Clubs raised prices in every market segment and found that demand increased rather than decreased. In part this happened because the new football has been able to replace older, less affluent fans that wouldn’t pay the new prices with new more affluent punters that would.”

The nature of fandom has changed, the increase in ticket prices means it is now harder for fans to attend top division matches, and the traditional fan mould has now changed as indicated by Hagemann (2016) (See Appendix II) “supporters pay far too much for attending matches and for a family, it is almost impossible to attend a Premier League game.” This has been proved in the form of protesting against ticket prices which has now spread across the continent, Liverpool fans staged a walkout earlier this year (PA 2016), Bayern Munich fans boycotted the first five minutes in a Champions League tie against Arsenal in 2015 (The Guardian 2015) and in Italy in the 2012/ 2013 season there were two incidences of a sole away fan attending matches in Serie A, in protest against the modernisation of football (Doidge 2015).Falling attendances across Europe are mainly down to the broadcasting of football on television and that is another reason which forces clubs to charge more to attend matches and at home pay-tv is now overpowering terrestrial television as has been seen with BT Sport’s exclusivity contract for the Champions League. As is being proved in England fans are voicing discontent yet are still spending the huge prices for match tickets and satellite television subscriptions (Hagemann 2016) with stadiums the highest filled in Europe, and BT Sport have boasted 106,000 new subscribers in the build-up to their debut season showing the Champions League (Sweney 2015). The increase in television income has given clubs the opportunity to reinvest in facilities, with clubs such as Liverpool, Tottenham and FC Barcelona all planning to expand or build new stadiums in recent years, which shows there is still a high demand for attending matches, which has seen club owners increase ticket prices. Broadcasting revenue allows higher earning leagues to freely spend, but in the lower earning leagues match day revenue, much like it did before television took off, still contributes significantly as Johnson (2016) notes,

“There are not too many sources of income for French teams, so all sources are valuable. However, match day revenue is still extremely important. Look at Lyon's new stadium and the expansion of Parc des Princes for example; those two moves

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prove that match day revenue is still extremely important to clubs.”

Smaller clubs which have smaller stadium capacities will inevitably find it harder to bring in significant sums from match days, however Goldblatt (2014 p.19) indicates, “smaller ground capacities in all-seater stadiums, simply make tickets a lot more expensive”, this has been proved by AFC Bournemouth who have the lowest capacity in Premier League history at 12,000, with their cheapest adult season ticket in their debut Premier League season at around £550, £250 more expensive then that at Manchester City (Sky 2016), who are Britain’s richest club and are the second highest earners from broadcasting revenue in the Premier League (Deloitte 2016), showing how reliant the smaller clubs are on capitalising on match day interest. The emergence and evolution of pay-tv has no doubt swelled the price of football, with Sky and BT now paying upwards of £6 million to show a Premier League match, whereas in the 1990’s it cost just £1 million (Goldblatt 2014). The idea of pay-tv wasn’t as widely accepted by football fans across Europe’s elite leagues like in England. German fans were unconvinced when pay-tv first came on the market in 2001 that it wouldn’t be detrimental to home grown talent (Hesse-Lichtenberger and Ulrich 2003) and in France fans were denied the opportunity of watching free to air television due to a lack of importance with French league fixtures (Niemann, Garcia and Grant 2011). Italian football has had pay-tv for over twenty years and fans have grown accustomed to watching football on television as Marcotti (2016) suggests, “While there is discontent about shifting kick off times and the like, football on TV is hugely popular and most are grateful for it.” However, Numerato (2014 p. 121) states that “supporters are showing discontent with the recent developments in the game, such as pay-tv”, these two arguments show a confusion in Italian football which is being highlighted in the Serie A crowd capacities where the average number of spectators has fallen in the first decade of the 21st century, opposite to what happened in the rest of Europe (Doidge 2015). Contention from fans with pay-tv could adversely be affecting attendance figures, for example in England BT Sport Champion’s League group-stage viewing figures peaked at only 200,000 and in Germany pay-tv is more widely disregarded and fans would rather attend matches (Hagemann 2016). Average stadium capacities in the Bundesliga have passed the 42,000 mark with 86% of stadiums full, in the Premier League attendances are at 35,753, 95% full, yet in Italy only 20,732 fans on average are attending matches with 48% of stadia’s full (Doidge 2015).

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One of the more common trends, in continental Europe but more so in the Premier League is the increase in foreign investors, there are now 14 clubs in England’s top division who have a form of overseas investment on the board, with ten clubs majority foreign owned (Conn 2015). The ownership of a football club has advanced, in some cases it has now become a political commitment with PSG owned in part by the Qatar Royal Family and a 13% of Manchester City was bought by the Chinese government last summer, in most other cases it is now a business, instead of something that is being reinvested back into the game as Hagemann (2016) explains,

“It is the television money and the people that are buying the football clubs who treat it as an investment and only want a return on their investment. Everyone in Europe is trying to keep up with the Premier League and the only way to do that is by getting bigger revenue, which is changing the way clubs are run by selling shares to investors”.

The Premier League’s huge television money has made investing in the league clubs far more attractive due to large possible financial gains and that has shifted attention away from fans, Hagemann (2016) indicates,

“The way clubs are run has changed, they are selling shares to investors who are trying to get as much money as they can and that is done by getting as much as they can from supporters, which includes upping ticket prices.”

However in the lower leagues, where television money isn’t as lucrative, fan ownership of clubs is becoming more common where fans have a greater influence on the running of their club and that is now starting to be seen in Europe’s top divisions, particularly the leagues which do not get the financial benefactors of the Premier League. Athletic Bilbao in La Liga are one of the oldest examples, with the club being under socio ownership since its birth in 1898, the club is based on staying loyal to its roots, including only recruiting first team players that are of Basque heritage (Stonham 2014). In terms of fan ownership, they are responsible for the election of Presidents, the price of ticketing, ensure a majority vote is made on the long-term vision of the club including profits being reinvested into the community (Khan 2010), a far cry from what is happening in England, where fan loyalty has only recently been awarded with the £30 cap on away ticket prices (Hagemann 2016). Fan ownership may restrict finances, however the emphasis on home grown players and the development of world class

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youth set-ups means clubs can demand large fees for players they have acquired for free with nothing to lose and the success is evident in Spain with Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletic Bilbao and Osasuna all socio owned clubs in La Liga and the national side dominating world football since 2008.

4.4. Blank Cheques

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Undeniably the inflation of television money has had a direct impact on the spending power of the member clubs in Europe’s five elite leagues as Marcotti (2016) explains, “On aggregate, there is a direct correlation between transfer fees and television money, it is a main source of income.” Transfer activity is only responsible for around five percent of clubs’ revenues (Anon 2015) meaning it has become easier to spend such huge sums for players. The Premier League’s television deal which will take effect from the start of the 2016/ 2017 campaign explains a record high on player spending last summer which surpassed the €1 billion mark (Anon 2015) and in Spain, before the collective selling model was accepted, Real Madrid and Barcelona’s financial stranglehold was emphasised with an ability to spend nearly £3 million more on average player wages (Harris 2015) than the likes of Atletico who have been performing at a similar level both domestically and in Europe for the past four seasons.The Premier League’s financial prowess might enable them to bring in the world’s finest players, however the league has seen inconsistency in results with a broader range of clubs finishing in the top four positions regularly and larger sides fighting relegation as Newcastle United found when relegated to the Championship in the 2008/ 2009 season. Harris (2014) investigated the ratio between fees paid and performances in the Premier League and found that the gap has been close for many years. In the 2012/2013 season, Queens Park Rangers were relegated from the Premier League with a mere 25 points after spending £46 million on transfers the summer before (BBC 2013), with their average first team pay per player amounting to £2,142,611 working out to £85,704 per player, per point (Harris, 2014). This despite being taken over by multi-billionaire owner Tony Fernandes and having the Mittal family on the board, one of the wealthiest families in Britain (The Swiss Rambler 2009), meaning that significant funds were available for transfer fees and wage expenditure, however selling clubs could demand higher fees for players with an awareness of QPR’s financial state and inexperienced board room, also club status meant it became more difficult to persuade a higher standard of player.Everton were the best value side that particular season, finishing sixth and narrowly missing out on a Europa League spot, despite their squad working out to having just £27, 397 per player, per point, this further highlights an unnecessary inflation in player transfer fees and how success isn’t always achieved on the basis of financial power. For example, Everton’s spending has been restricted in recent seasons due to the paying off of a debt which stood at £45 million, and interest

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payments have meant that writing off the debt has been a slow process (The Swiss Rambler 2009a). As The Swiss Ramble (2009b) indicates, significant player sales such as £22 million from Joleon Lescott’s transfer to Manchester City and were not all reinvested into transfer fees, instead some used to write of the debt, highlighted by Everton’s highest transfer fee paid that summer, £5.2 million on Kevin Mirallas, whereas Liverpool spent £15 million on Joe Allen and finished below their Merseyside rivals, proving it is possible for clubs to compete well within tight budgets.

The relationship between pay and performance in the Premier League 2012/ 2013 season devised by Harris (2015):Club (Final position 2012/13 season)

Average Pay Per Player (£)

Points Price Per Player Per Point (£)

QPR (20th) (R) £2,142,611 25 £85,704Manchester City (2nd)

£5,337,944 78 £68,435

Liverpool (7th)

£3,403,783 61 £55,800

Arsenal (4th) £3,901,923 73 £53,451Chelsea (3rd) £3,984,556 75 £53,127Aston Villa (15th)

£2,004,087 41 £48,880

Manchester Utd (1st) (C)

£4,322,251 89 £48,565

Reading (19th) (R)

£1,330,834 28 £47,530

Newcastle Utd (16th)

£1,753,926 41 £42,779

Sunderland (17th)

£1,600,086 39 £41,028

Fulham (12th) £1,762,806 43 £40,995Stoke (13th) £1,553,384 42 £36,985Tottenham (5th)

£2,657,609 72 £36,991

Wigan (18th) (R)

£1,155,042 36 £32,085

West Ham (10th)

£1,436,923 46 £31,281

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West Brom (8th)

£1,515,005 49 £30,918

Norwich (11th)

£1,357,963 44 £30,863

Southampton (14th)

£1,246,404 41 £30,400

Swansea (9th) £1,270,437 46 £27,618Everton (6th) (BV)

£1,725,989 63 £27,397

Key:C - ChampionsR – RelegatedBV – Best Value

The variety of club size in England’s top division is also common in Spain and Italy who have seen small sides move their way through the divisions to make it into the top tier. Bournemouth, Eibar and Carpi are all respectively examples of clubs who are ably competing against much wealthier sides who have much vaster budgets. As seen in the video documentary, This is Eibar - La Liga’s smallest team take on Barcelona (2015) Eibar have a budget of just €16 million and are playing sides like Barcelona whose budget is around €600 million which demonstrates the extraordinary gap between wealth, yet an extreme closeness with performance from teams competing in the same league. Marcotti (2016) indicates,

“There are always diminishing returns in the pay gap. A player who makes ten times as much as another guy isn't going to be ten times as productive. It just doesn't work way.”

This theory proves that paying huge sums of money for a player isn’t going to bring guaranteed success, as the Premier League saw last season with €650 million worth of signed players used in 50% or less of their clubs’ retrospective seasons (Soccerex Transfer Review 2015).

The promise of huge broadcasting figures brings temptation and as Marcotti (2016) states, “The issue is if they stay up and then get a share of the TV money, how will that impact their spending going forward?” Since Bournemouth’s promotion to the Premier League they have broken their transfer record an equivalent of six times (Anon

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2016). The majority of Bournemouth’s future spending will be reliant on the preservation of Premier League status, which has now been achieved, however for the clubs which have been promoted then relegated the year after, the new broadcasting deal in England enables them to receive 55% of the equal share of broadcast revenue in year one through parachute payments and 45% in year two (Press Association 2015). This model means clubs won’t immediately struggle financially if relegated and avoid falling into the same decline as sides such as Parma in Italy have, where having so many players on their books coupled with major ownership problems led to financial crisis and ultimately liquidation in 2015 (Gendelman 2015).Broadcasting figures are now responsible for an average of 40% of the annual revenue for clubs in Europe’s top five leagues (Deloitte 2016) and with the Premier League’s huge television deal coming into effect from next season, each one of the clubs competing is expected to have a place in the top 30 of Deloitte’s money league from 2017 (Deloitte 2016). The huge wealth in English football is demonstrated not only by the spending power of current Premier League clubs, but also for those who have been promoted as the Soccerex transfer review (2016) investigated, Watford, as a result of the strong television income for all Premier League sides spent more than every other promoted team combined in the other European sides this summer. The spending power of Premier League teams can now see the smaller sides out bid bigger sides abroad, for example when Stoke City signed Xherdan Shaqiri last summer, they beat Schalke, who were playing Champions League football the previous season to his signature because they could pay a £12 million transfer fee and £55,000 per week in wages (Percy 2015). Domestic television money in the Premier League now means that clubs such as Leicester City and West Ham have a bigger spending power than the likes of Atletico Madrid and Napoli (Harris 2016) whom of which are major forces in European football.Wage bills continue to be one of the biggest expenditures, not only for football clubs but for all sports teams, last year from 17 different leagues across seven sports $17.1 billion was spent on wages (Harris, 2015), showing the length teams will go to secure the service of top athletes. In football, the Premier League continues to set the benchmark in Europe with clubs spending £1.84 billion on salaries in the 2013/ 2014 season, a large share of the £3.04 billion of combined revenue that season (Conn 2015). However, as the money coming into the league increases through television income, clubs can now find it more affordable to pay huge wages to bring elite players to the league,

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highlighted by the wages to revenue percentage dramatically falling from 71% to 58% last season, the lowest since the 1998/ 1999 season (Deloitte 2015). The Premier League’s spending power against the rest of Europe’s elite leagues is further emphasised in the form of wage expenditure, the Sporting Intelligence global salaries report (2015), shows that Premier League clubs are spending an average of £2.3 billion on salaries, which is just under £1 billion more than the Bundesliga, the second highest spending league in Europe. Europe’s highest spenders are PSG from Ligue 1, and that is highlighted domestically with a huge gulf between highest and lowest earners in France with Guingamp spending an average of just £263, 331 last season, compared to the £5. 29 million PSG spent, to put it into context PSG spend an average of £101,898 per week on players’ salaries, which further highlights the astronomical differences in the financial standings between France’s highest and lowest earners. PSG last season earnt a record £80.5 million (Deloitte 2016) from broadcasting revenue which included a Champions League quarter-final run, whereas Guingamp earn around £11 million per season (Arnett 2015), explaining PSG’s ability to spend such huge sums on wages.Comparison of wage expenditure in Europe’s five top leaguesCountry/ League

Total league wage expenditure

Average wage per club

Revenue percentage

England/ Premier League

€2,277 million €113.9 million 58%

Germany/ Bundesliga

€1,138 million €63.2 million 50%

Italy/ Serie A €1,240 million €62.0 million 71%Spain/ La Liga €1,114 million €55.7 million 56%France/ Ligue 1

€957 million €47.9 million 65%

When the Premier League was formed in 1992, one of its main aims was to improve the standard of English football and to boost the number of home grown players with increased competition from foreign players attracted to the league, however as Ridley (2012 p.261) states,

“The Premier League has been great for elite football but hasn’t done anything but damage international football.”

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Evidence of this is seen by Premier League sides spending 86% of last summer’s total on foreign talent, and they continue to have the lowest number of national players playing in their league at a mere 32% (Soccerex Transfer Review 2016). English clubs are always looking for new home grown talent, however due to the overcrowding in the Premier League from foreign imports the average price of home grown players has climbed to €6.7 million, and last summer Raheem Sterling became the most expensive English player ever in the Premier League after Manchester City paid Liverpool €60 million for his services this despite Sterling only making his debut in 2011 and scoring 18 goals in total at Liverpool (Premier League 2016). Spain, who have won two European Championships and a World Cup title since 2008, have the highest number of national players playing in their top division in Europe, with 58% competing in La Liga, they also boast the smallest amount of player sales in Europe’s top five divisions (Soccerex Transfer Review 2016). This model shows that investment in grassroots football and patience proves to bring success at an international level, something that the Premier League are looking to improve with a promise of a 50% increase in grass roots investment (Winter 2015) when the new television deal begins from the start of the 2016/ 2017 season.

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5. Conclusion

The findings within each chapter all provide differing viewpoints which help to validate the hypothesis. They all share one common theme, which is the subject of television income; however each chapter raises concerns with the changing of priorities across the top five European leagues, and indeed the peripheries of European football with the added lure of lucrative television income. Chapter one, firstly tries to add context to the dissertation through the use of historical connotations, with the individual rights deals in each of Europe’s top five domestic divisions explained through primary sources. These deals are then compared to the Premier League, who have recently agreed a multi-billion pound television deal and are generally seen as the bench-setter for the negotiation of television rights (Marcotti 2016). Fundamentally, the way football has been globalised is the catalyst for the wealth in the game, and domestic deals are now less of a priority. This chapter highlights how important those foreign markets are, and look ahead where the Premier League are set to continue their extraordinary power on the foreign market, both to continental Europe

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and far out nations such as Asia and the US where popularity is increasing

Chapter two tries to explain the importance of Champions League football and how Europe’s Premier Cup competition has become more lucrative through the increase of television income. The findings from this chapter indicate an over-importance on Champions League football and highlight a danger that sides, particularly from the peripheries of Europe can become too embroiled in the obsession with playing European football and its lucrative prize money, which in turn is detrimental to their domestic leagues with one European place being awarded. Clubs from far away regions such as in Iceland and Faroe Islands have less saleable TV rights therefore the interest in their domestic game is never going to be as high, vindicating UEFA’s decision to award less Champions League places to those nations. It was important to take a stance back from the top five European leagues in phases throughout this chapter, as it helped to comparatively show the huge gap in European football.

Chapter three uses the nature of fandom as a key theme in the changing of priorities of football clubs due to the wealth in the game. It provides evidence from a supporter organisation which adds credibility to the argument, and uses context once more from foreign markets as a comparative vehicle against the Premier League where protests have been recently voiced against the cost of football which fundamentally has increased because of television income. The final chapter highlights the spending power of Europe’s elite clubs who earn the most from aspects such as television income and how the higher earners from the Premier League, can outspend bigger continental European sides that have a richer history. The findings also demonstrate an over inflation in the market, with money not guaranteeing success with future success, based on the past, coming through youth development, not foreign investment.

To conclude, the evidence that has been collated suggests that the hypothesis is mostly validated in that the way football is run, shown, through television and at a match day and played has changed as television income has increased. However, there are signs beginning to surface that there is still a desire for domestic fans to be seen as the most important thing in the game. Looking at examples taken from Supporters Direct, fan ownership of top division clubs is prevalent across top continental European clubs and as a result supporters voices are being heard, particularly at UEFA where there is a determination to reduce ticket prices (Hagemann 2016). In England, fan power is also

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beginning to find a way through with the protest against Liverpool’s high ticket prices resulting in them being reduced and the £30 cap on away ticket prices also shows that the happiness of fans will always come first. It is however important to note that football is a business, and the television rights deals are only going to increase (Solberg 2015), with television income significantly increasing through each three-year period, across the board. Global fandom must be adhered and the only way for that to continue is through overseas broadcasting, however with the Premier League especially showing an acceptance to bow to fan demands, tensions should ease in the mid-long term.

Despite unhappiness with the price of watching football, the dissertation shows that are still willing to pay to watch their teams in action, whether that is in attendance or on television. The Premier League, La Liga and Bundesliga can all show ground capacities over 80% full (Doidge 2015), and for the latter two, they are the biggest club spenders on transfer fees and wages, bar PSG in France, in Europe (Soccerex Transfer Review 2015). As ground capacities continue to sell out which sustain match day revenue which is still significant and with television income only continuing to spiral, transfer fees will continue to be broken unless there is a cap put in place, which is unlikely. For leagues such as the Premier League and La Liga, where television money is set to become more lucrative due to the new collective selling system, there could be an over crowdedness with foreign imports and native players on the fringes of club football could more often be jetting overseas where television income isn’t as lucrative.

The notion of Champions League football has been proved to be extremely lucrative, however with the format of the competition in discussions to be changed, the prize giving for the smaller European clubs will be lessened which as Menary (2015) suggests, would be beneficial for those smaller domestic leagues and European football as a whole,

“The money doesn’t help the league because with more money means more investment in youth teams, so Tre Penne of San Marino will keep taking the only Champions League place.”

For those smaller teams in the top European leagues, such as Leicester which have achieved Champions League football for the first time, the impact isn’t as great, as huge television money in the Premier League won’t give them such an unfair advantage as those which have been mirroring their progress years before.

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Overall, the influx of television money has completely changed the nature of football as we know it, gone are the days of line-ups completely filled with national players and all fans supporting clubs from their own cities or indeed countries. Globalisation has enabled domestic football to become an international game, however as Hagemann (2016) states:

“Football for fans is overall becoming far too expensive and it is now almost a luxury and it should have never got to that”.

These words symbolise a growing tumour within the game. Football is a game that should be enjoyed by all, and the match day experience has forged memories for generations, it is clear that work still needs to be done to satisfy all parties, however the one party that should never be discounted are fans and in a world which is already swelled by huge sums of money, one would hope greed will not over power support.

6. Bibliography

Books

AUCLAIR, P., 2012. Football Magazine. The Blizzard: Issue Five, 41–46

COLLINS, T., 2013. Sport in capitalist society: A short history. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis

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DOIDGE, M., 2015. Football Italia. First ed. Bloomsbury

FOOT, J., 2006. Calcio: A cultural history of Italian football. London: Fourth Estate

GOLDBLATT, D., 2014. The game of our lives: The meaning and making of English football. London: Penguin Books

HESSE-LICHTENBERGER, U. and ULRICH, 2003. Tor! The story of German Football. United Kingdom: WSC Books

NIEMANN, A. /, B. GARCIA and W. GRANT eds., 2011. The transformation of European football: Towards the Europeanisation of the national game. Manchester: Distributed in the United States exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan

RIDLEY, I., 2012. There’s a Golden Sky: How Twenty years of the premier league have changed football forever. United Kingdom: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

VAMPLEW, W. and G. TAYLOR, 2002. Encyclopedia of British football. Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers

Journals

CERQUA, A., 2014. If You Get Knocked Down, How Long Before You Get Up Again? International Journal of Sports Finance 284–304

COOMBS, B. et al., 2015. Commercial breaks football money league. [viewed 7 April 2016]. Available from: http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/sports-business-group/deloitte-football-money-league-2015.PDF

DELOITTE, 2016. Top of the table football money league. [viewed 7 April 2016]. Available from: http://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/sports-business-group/uk-deloitte-sport-football-money-league-2016.pdf

HARRIS, N., 2014. Winning in global sport: Often about the money, money, money ….. (but not always) [viewed 7 April 2016]. Available from: http://www.sportingintelligence.com/2014/05/05/winning-in-global-sport-often-about-the-money-money-money-but-not-always-050501/

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7. AppendicesAppendix IJS – Jordan Scearce, interviewerGM – Gabriele Marcotti, Italian sport journalist, intervieweeJS: What is your view on the current TV rights deal in Italian football, do you think that it is evenly distributed to all clubs or is there more of a favouritism to the bigger sides who play on a European stage?GM: The current deal is the second most valuable in the world after the Premier League deal. It's not evenly distributed. A portion is divided equally among all clubs, a portion of it is split based on league finish and a portion is split based on a combination of historical results, catchment area and popularity (they commission surveys to measure this). The top earner ends up with around 4 times as much as the bottom earner. Which is much better than it was when rights were sold individually and the multiple could be as much as 15 to 1. JS: Is there more of an acceptance with the Italian fans that pay-tv is something that they are going to have to get used to or is there still discontent amongst them? GM: I don't think it's an issue of "getting used to it". We've had it for 20+ years. While there is discontent about shifting KO times and the like, football on TV is hugely popular and most are grateful for it. JS: High ticket prices have been in the news recently, what is the general view on ticket prices in Italy, are supporters happy with what they are paying?GM: I don't think anyone is ever happy with what they're paying. The main complaint isn't so much about ticket prices, but pricing in relation

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to the quality of some of the grounds and the logistical difficulties to actually buy tickets. JS: What do you think is the main reason for the slump in Italian football in recent years?GM: Bad governance and short-sightedness. Stadiums weren't renovated or built, mainly because Italy expected to get Euro 2012 and then Euro 2016. A dysfunctional legal system allowed some pretty crooked individuals to continue to be involved in the game. The capital gained from the sustained period when it was the best league in the world (from 1985 to 2000 or thereabouts) wasn't reinvested in growing the game, but rather bled out. JS: The Premier League's global appeal has seen its TV rights deal push the £5bn mark, how is Serie A doing on a global scale? Are they still heavily influenced on a domestic model or do they now want to maximize the global market and earn close to what the Premier League are earning?GM: They all talk about maximizing global revenue and obviously the PL is a benchmark in that. But there again, there's a lot of nonsense/unique situations when it comes to TV rights. Often it's based on the level of local competition, more than the interest. So, for example, the PL is massive in Japan, but they earn around 15m from there, whereas they get 80m from Thailand. This, despite the fact that Thailand is a smaller country with a far smaller economy. In Serie A's case one of the problems is that in some territories they made some very poor deals not so much financially but in terms of distribution. JS: Is match day revenue something that the Italian clubs see as one of their main sources of income?GM: It's not a big source of income and that has to do with the stadiums. Until they're renovated with corporate boxes, etc. they won't be big sources of income. Particularly since they're usually leased from local authority.JS: Do you think there is a direct correlation between television income and transfer fees paid in Italy?GM: On aggregate, sure. It's a main source of revenue. JS: Do you think it is unusual that small clubs such as Carpi are getting promoted into Serie A and being competitive when their budgets are so much smaller compared to the likes of

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Juventus and Inter, and is this a trend you expect to carry on as more money gets pumped into the biggest leagues?GM: There are always diminishing returns in the pay gap. A player who makes 10x as much as another guy isn't going to be 10 times as productive. It just doesn't work way. So what you're seeing with Carpi in Italy, Eibar in Spain, Burnley in England, etc. is that small clubs can compete with very limited budgets. The issue is if they stay up and then get a share of the TV money, how will that impact their spending going forward?Appendix IIJS – Jordan Scearce, interviewerAH – Antonia Hagemann, Head of Supporters Direct Europe, intervieweeJS: In light of the huge television money in football, do you think enough money is being put back into the community and for the benefit of fans?AH: No I don’t think that is the case. Supporters Direct UK and the Supporters Football Federation in the UK which are the two national supporters organisations are struggling to keep up their operations. They are supported by the so-called ‘fans fund’ which refuse money from the Premier League, but of course their fund streams are restricted and they could deliver so much more if there was more funding available. On a different level, I feel that supporters pay far too much for attending matches and for a family, it is almost impossible to attend a Premier League game. The clubs receive more and more money and the gap between Premier League clubs and clubs in the other European countries is a different story now. Fans aren’t being rewarded by paying less for tickets, clubs have agreed a cap on away tickets which are a success but it is still far too expensive. When it comes down to sharing the money with lower league clubs, I believe that more could be done, after all the Premier League is where it is because it is a pyramid and they sit on top of it but there are various divisions underneath and they are the ones who are delivering the talent and who do the actual work, I think they need to be rewarded more for what they do.JS: Do you think fans are still the most important thing is football, or are they being forgotten about due to the money in the game?

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AH: Every supporter knows that you don’t just switch from which team you support to another one, you are stuck with the team you support no matter what and we are seeing more and more that loyalty isn’t being rewarded by allowing supporters to have a say in the way their football clubs are being run or being rewarded by actually being able to afford to go to matches with their family instead of having to put money aside to be able to pay for a ticket. In the Bundesliga, one of the biggest football magazines has carried out a survey asking whether the atmosphere is hostile or whether they feel welcome and being taken seriously, and at the moment the survey is saying that two thirds of fans think that their opinions are not being taken on board by their clubs. In England it’s worse because the structure of clubs doesn’t officially allow supporters to have a say.JS: Do you think European clubs are more fan friendly than English clubs?AH: It depends where you look at it. Supporters direct once did a study about the community benefit of football clubs and how much the community actually benefits from having a football club in their ranks and it showed that those clubs run by supporters obviously gave much more back to the community then the ones that were run by multi-billionaires. The reason being that these clubs were much smaller and weren’t affected by television deals and at the same time they needed the community to come and needed to have this strong bond because they were basically run by the community and we see it as the community clubs who have the strongest link with supporters and these are the places where supporters actually have a say and can decided how high/ low the tickets prices are going to be. At a club like Schalke, you can attend the AGM, you can vote for the people in the charge, you can ask the club to be more transparent, you can actually voice your criticism in a very democratic forum which is obviously not very easy when they have over 140,000 members but in general those clubs who allow supporters to have a say are more fan friendly but of course it depends on who you ask and not every club is the same.JS: What is your view on foreign ownership in football? Is that one of the reasons fans haven’t got such a good relationship with football clubs now?AH: There is a common understanding between football stakeholders that there is a governance crisis in football but there is no agreement on how to solve it, so UEFA put in the licencing system. All the stakeholders are supposed to work out the way the clubs are run.

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There are more and more people starting to believe that the only way to run a club on a sustainable level is by involving the supporters who are the only ones who actually want the club to survive, there are people who say that is not true and that if you ask supporters they really want their club to be in existence and for future generations and able to enjoy football instead of paying crazy sums of money for a big player then putting their club in financial jeopardy.JS: Can you see fan ownership of clubs in the top leagues, instead of in the lower leagues what is happening at the moment?AH: Yes, because it exists. For example in Sweden all the clubs are run by members and in Germany this is more of the case. In Spain however, this model is debateable with clubs such as Real Madrid who are democratically run. This model of fans owning clubs exists and it shows that it is not necessarily worse, not everything is right but the good thing is people can be held accountable that need to be by the members, for example if Roman Abramovich made a sack able mistake it’s impossible to fire him because he is the sole owner of the football club, whereas at member run clubs there can be discussions by those who support the club and they can voice their concerns to the executives and find someone accountable. Football shouldn’t be run just as a business; it should be sociable and benefit the community. JS: How important do you think television money is for football clubs?AH: It depends on which country you look at. The biggest reason for English clubs being so much richer and being able to spend huge transfer fees is the television deal, nothing else because the clubs are not run well. The television money makes it much more interesting for foreign investors. In other countries, such as Germany where you cannot buy a football club, the money is not bad but it is nowhere near the Premier League’s deal. When you look at the revenue spread of football clubs in Germany, it is a lot more even in the revenue stream. Attendances are an issue, sponsorship is big and television plays a big role in that. In Italy, over 60% of the revenue that the clubs get is from television income, attendances aren’t a priority because fans aren’t as interested in going to watch matches and sponsorship is poor. In Spain, it has been different recently because clubs individually agreed their own deal however that has now changed, so it completely depends on which country you look at.

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JS: Ticket prices are so expensive and now paying to watch football on television is getting more and more expensive, do you think that satellite channels are taking fans for a ride as well?AH: Yeah of course but as you can see in England, people are willing to pay these sums for that privilege. The rest of Europe however, are not willing to pay these sums, the subscription in Germany for Sky is much lower than in England but it is still expensive for people who are looking to subscribe, German fans aren’t as happy to pay for football on television, they’d much rather go and attend matches but the numbers are rising for match tickets – it a cultural difference and in ten years’ time things might be different. Football is affordable in Germany, it is a family affair and if it is affordable then it begs the question why they should pay an inflated subscription price. It is outrageous in this country that fans have to pay so much to watch football, yet they do pay for it which is why the protests the Liverpool fans made was so refreshing,.

JS: Is football for fans affordable in Europe?AH: No it is not. Prices are high across Europe and they are rising. There are big campaigns across Europe, I think there is a lot of work that needs to be done, football should be affordable no matter how rich or poor you are. Fan groups are in conversation which UEFA about reducing ticket prices for Champions League and Europa League matches and hopefully that will have a knock on effect to the domestic leagues, but football is now almost a luxury and it should have never got to that.JS: Do you think that is all down to the huge television deals that European clubs are making?AH: Yes. It is the television money and the people that are buying the football clubs who treat it as an investment and only want a return on their investment, this is the biggest problem. Everyone in Europe is trying to keep up with the Premier League and the only way to do that is by getting bigger revenue, which is changing the way clubs are run by selling shares to investors who are increasing ticket prices and trying to get as much money from the fans as possible and that is wrong. It is happening across the board and the real problem is those who are investing aren’t reinvesting into the game, they treat it as a business and not as a contributor to the community, this is a major

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international problem and fans are going to be marginalised even more if something isn’t done.Appendix IIIJS – Jordan Scearce, interviewerJJ – Jonathan Johnson, French Ligue 1 journalist, intervieweeJS: What is your view on the current French football TV rights deal, do you think that it is fair to all clubs within the league (e.g. money distribution) or is there an unfair advantage on the bigger sides such as PSG and Monaco?JJ: I think that the current French football TV rights deal (2016-2020) is fairer than it has ever been because the overall value is higher (up to €726.5m from €607m). Obviously the smaller clubs could do with more help than the bigger ones such as PSG and Monaco though. However, with the total sum getting bigger, at least the lower ranking clubs are getting a more significant fee than before. One of the best things about Ligue 1 and French football is that most clubs are adept at making the most of limited budgets and bringing in money through player sales. JS: After the latest deal was agreed, LFP president Frederic Thieriez said he was disappointed by the final sum, could this be a sign that French football is kind of in the shadow of leagues such as the Premier League, or with the financial power teams like PSG have with attracting big players, something which can be used as a springboard to challenge the PL in the future?JJ: No, I do not think that Ligue 1 and French football is fooling itself that it will ever hold the same appeal as the Premier League or La Liga. At the end of the day, many members of the massive EPL audience have no interest in football and do not have the patience to learn to enjoy it. Ligue 1 will never be able to lure many of those viewers away from English and Spanish football, even if quality of those two leagues drops further in the coming years. Instead, I think Thiriez was banking on the appeal of PSG being worth more money for Ligue 1 and perhaps he was disappointed by the fact that his valuation of PSG was not matched by the final sum earned. In my opinion, one of the things making Ligue 1 football unattractive to many domestic and foreign viewers is the fact that no team outside of PSG (with the exception of Monaco in the Champions League last season) have put in good showings in Europe recently.

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JS: There seems to be a relationship between Qatar and French football (PSG, Michel Platini and Qatar 2022 and BeIn sports bidding for TV deal) is this something which is being done to try and globalise French football a bit more?JJ: Yes, French football is trying to use its connections with Qatar to make it more appealing on a global scale. However, only PSG are really appealing to people outside of France at the moment. In order for other French sides to become more appealing, they need to be performing well in Europe and that is not happening at present. If PSG's affluence starts to trickle down to other Ligue 1 teams, then that could help. However, some team in Le Championnat need to be spending their money more wisely to make them more competitive on the continental stage.JS: It's been well documented in England that high ticket prices are becoming a major issue, what is the French fan's opinion on ticket prices in Ligue 1, are they happy?JJ: Generally speaking, French football fans are happy with the pricing of tickets in Ligue 1 and below. However, many teams boycott travelling to Parc des princes to see their teams take on PSG because those tickets cost roughly three times as much as away tickets to any other top flight stadiums. Aside from the PSG issue, Ligue 1 tickets are some of the best value in Europe.JS: At a club level, is there less of a reliance on match day revenue now or is that still seen as one of the main sources of income?JJ: There are not too many sources of income for French teams, so all sources are valuable. However, match day revenue is still extremely important. Look at Lyon's new stadium and the expansion of Parc des Princes for example; those two moves prove that match day revenue is still extremely important to clubs.JS: Do you expect there to be must of an impact on domestic French football after Euro 2016, for example do you expect improvements in stadium infrastructure and a general focus on France to improve support for the league and boost attendance figures?JJ: I do not think that Euro 2016 will have a huge impact on France. There are lots of football fans in France but many people still prefer other sports, such as rugby. The Euros will leave behind a legacy of

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new and improved stadiums and the increased comfort of those venues might help to boost attendances a bit. However, I do not think that Euro 2016 will help to boost support for Ligue 1. JS: Do you think there is a direct correlation between transfer fees and television income in France?JJ: Not particularly. I think with a new TV deal coming in from 2016-2020 that clubs will be able to spend more of transfers. However, I think that most clubs are more dependent on player sales for their transfer money. The mentality for most clubs in France is to spend low, add value to the players and then sell high. Monaco, despite their wealthy benefactor, are now a good example of this.

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