Whether your side won or lost, this column thinks we can all agree 2024 has been a momentous year for democracy, with almost half the world’s population getting the chance to make their mark in a national election.
So it seems fitting that the year should finish with world football governing body FIFA’s 211 member associations — a bigger electorate than the United Nations — getting together to exercise their democratic right to choose the hosts of the 2030 and 2034 men’s World Cups on December 11, doesn’t it?
Yeah but… it’s not happening.
Sorry, we should clarify. FIFA’s members do have a virtual meeting on that date, next Wednesday, and they will be “choosing” the hosts for those editions of the world’s most lucrative sporting event.
However, there is only one candidate on the ballot for each year — the sprawling coalition of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Spain, Portugal and Morocco for 2030, and Saudi Arabia’s solo bid for 2034 — and they come as a package deal, or “en bloc”, as FIFA describes the single yes/no option.
Oh, and this choice will made by “acclamation”, preferably standing “acclamation”, or clapping to you and I. Online.
Should we be surprised that FIFA, an organisation which has recently given its greatest gift to Russia for World Cup 2018 and then Qatar last time, has chosen not to enter into the spirit of “the year of elections”?
Probably not. After all, its former general secretary Jerome Valcke said at a football conference in 2013 that “less democracy is sometimes better for organising a World Cup”.
You could argue choosing World Cup hosts is a bit like Christmas shopping in that what you really want is to be told exactly what to buy. Nobody who has read the technical assessments of the two bids could be left in any doubt what FIFA really wants.
Speaking of Saudi Arabia and FIFA competitions…
It is a busy time for FIFA, what with World Cups to deliver and a Club World Cup to pay for.
The latter is proving to be harder than FIFA president Gianni Infantino imagined when he conjured up this expanded, 32-team format for the men’s game’s version, which kicks off in the United States next July.
First, the good news. The tournament now has two sponsors, with long-term partner AB InBev, the brewers of “mega brands” Budweiser and Michelob Ultra, joining Chinese TV manufacturer Hisense on the official sandwich boards.
We do not know how much AB InBev has paid for this privilege but we do know FIFA owed the company one after Qatar had a very late change of heart and banned the sale of Budweiser at World Cup matches in 2022. Some may argue this was no great loss but it did put AB InBev in the unusual spot of being a commercial partner with very little to sell.
We also know that Adidas and Coca-Cola think they have already paid for advertising real estate at the Club World Cup as part of their wider FIFA deals and are making that argument in an arbitration court in Switzerland. The fact AB InBev has decided it does not need to see how that dispute plays out suggests it is happy with whatever deal it has struck with FIFA.
More sponsors are expected with the Club World Cup draw taking place in Miami on Thursday (6pm GMT, 1pm ET) and after Saudi’s confirmation as host of the 2034 World Cup — the suspense must be agonising — with Aramco, Riyadh Air and whatever else the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund (PIF) is currently pushing the most likely candidates.
But there is still no sign of any media partners, with FIFA’s attempts to flog the new tournament as premium sports/entertainment inventory getting short shrift from global broadcasters and streamers. Perhaps the PIF can help out here, too.
Nobody can accuse FIFA’s commercial department of not being creative, though, as it has very much risen to the challenge of finding the “Champions League money” the likes of Bayern Munich, Manchester City and Real Madrid were promised for sending their strongest squads to the United States just as a long, tiring European season is coming to an end.
If you are quick, there is a two-for-one offer on FIFA’s website for packs of Club World Cup Trophy digital collectibles. Each pack, which costs $29.99 (£23.54), “includes unique close-up images of the trophy’s intricate details”, apparently. And if you collect all of the pieces, “capturing the artistry and brilliance of this extraordinary design”, you can win one of 250 “rights to buy” two tickets for the opening game in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday, June 15.
But even if you fall short of the big prize, your pack might include the bit of the Tiffany & Co-crafted trophy with a pair of goalkeeper gloves etched into the 24-carat gold, “as they can hold a team’s fortunes in their hands”. This section also “features the signature of Gianni Infantino, the FIFA President and the Founding President of the FIFA Club World Cup™”.
Roll up, roll up!
Premier League clubs’ £1.75billion windfall from new global TV deals
Speaking of “media broadcasts that relate to football”, the Premier League continues to smash that part of the business out of the park.
In his update on the latest sales of TV rights in the most recent shareholders’ meeting, chief media officer Paul Molnar told the assembled club bosses that their central income for the next three-year cycle, which starts in the 2025-26 season, is up 17 per cent, or £1.75billion, thanks to another round of bumper global deals.
In fact, those worldwide agreements are now worth considerably more than the league’s domestic ones, which have plateaued in recent years as Sky Sports and its UK competitors have stopped trying to bankrupt each other. That is not the case beyond the UK’s shores, though, where ownership of Premier League rights is still something broadcasters are willing to fight for.
The most recent deal is a six-year one worth a reported $560million (£440m) with Thai company Jasmine International for the rights in that country, Cambodia and Vietnam. Jasmine’s bid beat one from the league’s longstanding media partner in that part of the world, TrueVisions, which was set up in the 1980s by former Thai prime minister, and ex-Manchester City owner, Thaksin Shinawatra.
With huge increases already banked for the United States and elsewhere, the Premier League’s total income from overseas broadcasters is up 27 per cent on the 2022-25 cycle, a bonanza that will stretch English football’s financial advantage over every other domestic league on the planet.
And there was more good news to share in the shape of Microsoft replacing Oracle as one of the league’s sponsors. The latter is officially listed as the Premier League’s “official cloud” partner, but the Microsoft deal is a wider technology partnership and is believed to represent a considerable uplift in value.
West Ham’s Baroness Brady vs the Football Governance Bill
Let us return to our earlier democracy theme with an update on the progress of the Football Governance Bill, the much-debated piece of legislation that will result in the UK government imposing independent regulation on the men’s professional game in England, whether the men’s professional game in England wants it or not.
West Ham United vice-chair Karren Brady is in the “not” camp and has been diligent in exercising her (quasi) democratic right to make amendments to the bill in her role as Baroness Brady, member of the House of Lords.
Brady has so far suggested 23 of these, and you suspect she is not finished.
To be fair, language is important in rule-making, so there is nothing wrong with her attempts to better define the regulator’s remit and clarify how it will operate.
One of Brady’s objections is on how the regulator will deal with a dispute between the Premier League and English Football League (the body that runs the three divisions below the English top flight) on, oh, I don’t know, let’s say parachute payments. But some of her other criticisms of the bill are gaining less traction among fellow peers, as many seem to have spotted that when she talks about its potential to stifle ambition and destroy the Premier League, she sounds like she is talking about West Ham’s ambition to be permanent members of a Premier League that is left alone to spend as much money as its current set of club owners want.
That is fine, of course, for West Ham, at the moment, but not so good for the other clubs the regulator is intended to protect.
The most eye-catching amendment, though, has been proposed by Baron Parkinson of Whitley Bay.
Stephen Parkinson wants to block anyone with “broadcast or media interests or any role in a television or media broadcast that relates to football” from joining the regulator’s advisory panel of experts.
We suspect he is thinking more about the likes of Gary Neville, the former Manchester United dressing-room shop steward and big supporter of regulation, than, for example, The Business of Football, but Parkinson has our attention now and we will be following the progress of his amendment with interest.
Morecambe mystery, Reading’s Rob & Rog show
In the English Football League the proposed bill mentioned above is supposed to protect, almost every one of its 72 clubs appear to be for sale, to one extent or the other.
The previous edition of this column discussed the situations at Morecambe, Reading and Swansea City. There is no new news at the latter, where a newish set of United States-based investors has replaced a previous group of United States-based investors, but we can provide some updates on Morecambe and Reading.
Writing on his The Ugly Game blog last week, the excellent Martin Calladine revealed the identity of the man currently trying to buy League Two (fourth-tier) side Morecambe: Kuljeet Singh Momi, a 48-year-old businessman with nine active directorships of London-based firms. There is nothing particularly exciting about any of these companies but the same cannot be said about some of the firms of which Singh Momi has previously been a director, as they include several with close links to Sarbjot Johal, the 22-year-old “entrepreneur” who has spent over a year failing to convince the EFL he has the money to buy Morecambe.
Singh Momi has not explained why he wants to buy Morecambe but has issued a statement via the club website to strongly distance himself from Johal and explain that he has been trying to buy the club since the summer. In fact, Singh Momi says, he has been loaning Morecambe money, interest-free, for over a year and has already bought some shares.
Two seats on the board of directors will be next and, we assume, EFL approval of his takeover.
There may also be some good news finally at Reading, one division higher than Morecambe, where Roger Smee, who played for the club in the 1960s and was later chairman, has submitted a rescue bid.
Contrary to some reports, Smee’s bid does not depend on Reading entering administration first and has significant local backing. But the 76-year-old Englishman will have to come to an accommodation with ex-Wycombe Wanderers owner Rob Couhig, who thought he was buying Reading back in the summer only for the deal to collapse under circumstances that have never been explained to him.
Couhig, a lawyer based in the U.S. state of Louisiana, would still like to do that deal, by the way, which means Reading’s Chinese owner Dai Yongge does have two credible offers on the table. Time to pick one.
In other EFL-related news, fans of League Two side Tranmere Rovers noticed last week that their club had borrowed money from a company owned by former Port Vale boss Norman Smurthwaite. The 64-year-old businessman did not sell up at the latter club on the best of terms with their fanbase, so Tranmere supporters were quick to share their dismay as they thought this must mean the proposed takeover by American celebrity lawyer Joe Tacopina and friends was off, to be replaced by Smurthwaite.
The Athletic, however, has been assured that Tacopina and company are still trying to close the deal and Smurthwaite, who gets on well with Tranmere’s current owners Mark and Nicola Palios, is merely a lender.
Elsewhere, there is still no sign of a changing of the guard at Bristol City or Preston North End, two clubs in the second-tier Championship who have been on the market for well over a year. There is, though, more optimism that their fellow Championship side Sheffield United, a club who have kissed a lot of frogs in a very long sales process, may have found new proprietors, American businessmen Steve Rosen and Helmy Eltoukhy.
With United top of the division as they pursue instant promotion back to the Premier League and in relatively good shape in terms of property assets and debt, the industry view is the Yorkshire club are a good project for the right buyers and that it really is time for current custodian Prince Abdullah to hand over the keys.
(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt/AMA/Getty Images)
