Money Changes Everything

Sky Sports finally came down from complete overload on Friday night as the transfer window closed, with investment by the 20 Premier League clubs totalling a mere ￡2.36b. This represented an increase of over ￡400m on this time last year and to put this total spend into context, the money could fund 3 Birmingham Commonwealth Games.

Chelsea were the biggest spenders at ￡255m, which judging by Saturday’s result doesn’t look particularly wisely invested. Again, back in reality, this is figure is around ￡15m short of the total amount of money invested by UK Sport in 36 summer sports for the current Paris Olympic and Paralympic Cycle through the world Class Funding programme.

Despite all this investment by the Clubs, the prospect for the League looks very familiar with Manchester City retaining their title in a canter, a scramble by the next tier of clubs for a Champions League place and a dogfight at the bottom to avoid joining Sheffield United and Luton who have probably already booked their return ticket to the Championship.

It does appear that the only threat to City’s dominance is the Premier League themselves who have charged the Club with over 100 breaches of its financial rules stretching back to 2009. The breaches effectively relate to under reporting costs and over valuing sponsorship deals to comply with Financial Fair Play rules

City have been here before, picking up a 2 year UEFA ban from the Champions League in 2015 for breaking financial fair play rules. However that ban never materialised and was overturned by the Court of Arbitration of Sport because the Club’s lawyers had so successfully kicked the case can down the road that when the charges were finally considered they were “time barred”. I’m not sure that the lawyers from the PL will fare any better than those from UEFA.

Another Club that has been linked, but not charged, with financial breaches is Everton, who are very much involved in the relegation dogfight even after 4 games. If the worst happened and they did face either possible scenario this season, the Club would face some very serious problems as it is struggling to attract investment and currently paying for a very expensive new stadium.

If Sports Club Mismanagement was an Olympic sport, Everton would have already had their invitation to Team GB kitting out for Paris next year.

The Race To “The Palace”

The starting pistol was fired this week on the race to the “Commonwealth Games Federation Presidential Palace” to replace current incumbent Louise Martin whose 8 year tenure comes to an end at the General Assembly in November.

This is potentially a very tough gig as the new President must somehow steer the Movement through a 4 year cycle that should include delivering a Commonwealth Games in 2026 (or 2027) and the securing of an event for 2030. Neither scenario looks particularly likely at the moment.

The 2 candidates are Keren Smith from New Zealand and Chris Jenkins from Wales. Both are extremely competent, very likeable, well respected by the movement and its stakeholders and both are currently on the CGF Board.

Smith was recently Secretary General of the NZ Olympic Committee and will have the support of Oceania while Jenkins stepped down as CEO of Commonwealth Games Wales after Birmingham and he will have the support of the European region.

It is likely to be a closely fought contest with the main battleground being the votes from the large member regions of Africa and the Caribbean. At this stage, it is likely to favour Chris Jenkins who has an excellent network in these regions, built up as a result of the excellent work he has undertaken as Development Director.

Plenty can change between now and November as the lobbying starts in earnest but as of today, I would make Chirs the 1 /2 favourite with Keren the outsider at 13/8 – those odds would change considerably if either candidate could bring the guarantee of a Games in 2026 or 30 to the table before the election.

Good luck to both candidates.

Celebrating Equal Money

The US Open is entering its second week and Dan Evans is the last Brit standing.

Normally my interest in the tournament would cascade but the 2023 event marks a very important landmark for women’s sport as it is the 50th Anniversary of the equalisation of prize money in the competition. Driven by the vision and perseverance of Billie Jean King, the American Tennis Federation paid equal prize money for both the men’s and women’s singles winners for the first in 1973 and that has been the case ever since.

50 years on, the ECB recently announced that it was going pay equal match fees for the men’s and women’s International Teams which is good progress but it has taken a long time since BJK won that battle in US tennis back in 1973.

Its time that all other sports followed get with the project and follow suit.

In Other News

I mentioned the lop sided nature of the draw in the Rugby World Cup which kicks off on Friday evening. The opening fixture is a belter with Hosts France taking on New Zealand, a game that I think will also feature the same teams in the 48th and Final of the tournament in a couple of months time. For the record, joining France and NZ in the Semi Finals will be Australia and Argentina.

Finally look out for details of my next project, coming shortly.

As ever finishing with some self indulgent music – “Money Changes Everything” was written by US punk band, The Brains but was a massive hit for Cyndi Lauper and this is a brilliant live version of the track – enjoy.

Cyndi Lauper - Money Changes Everything (Live) - YouTube