Done Deal Read online

  To Issie and Livi:

  Keep your eyes on the stars

  and your feet on the ground

  PRAISE FOR DONE DEAL

  ‘If you want to know and understand how football really works, this is the book for you.’

  Guillem Balagué, Sky Sports

  ‘It’s a pleasure to work with Daniel and he has a great understanding of the football industry. His book should be a must read for football fans.’

  Freddie Ljungberg

  ‘Fascinating, brilliant and mind-boggling at times, this book takes you behind the scenes of football. What happens on the pitch is only part of the story. Done Deal is essential reading if you want to get close to the full picture.’

  Tony Evans, Evening Standard and ESPN

  ‘A myth-busting and hugely entertaining look at the ever more complex machinations of the beautiful game. Essential.’

  Raphael Honigstein, ESPN

  ‘Undoubtedly the leader in his field, with Done Deal Daniel has produced a fascinating and comprehensive insight into the global business of football and the ever-changing landscape of the world’s beautiful game.’

  David Dale, CEO, Football Aid and Field of Dreams

  ‘[Done Deal] is a testament not only to Daniel’s vast knowledge on his subject, but also to his ability to present even the most complex ideas in a clear and vivid way.’

  Gianluca Vialli

  ‘There are very few people who are as up to speed on the most pressing legal topics within the football industry as Daniel Geey.’

  Chris Pearlman, COO Swansea City FC

  ‘A must read for anyone looking to work in football.’

  Ehsen Shah, Managing Director, B-Engaged Ltd

  ‘A uniquely insightful and accurate reflection of modern football and its exciting evolution.’

  Fausto Zanetton, Founder and CEO, Tifosy Ltd

  Contents

  Foreword by Gianluca Vialli

  The changing game

  1 The football ecosystem

  2 Player transfers and contracts

  3 Agents

  4 Clubs

  5 Youth development

  6 Managers

  7 Footballers and managers behaving badly

  8 The global game

  9 Football broadcasting

  Extra time

  About the author

  Acknowledgements

  Index

  Foreword by Gianluca Vialli

  I signed my first professional football contract in 1980. I was 16, the club was Cremonese and the only advice I received was from the AIC, the Italian version of the Professional Footballers’ Association. In those days, football was a self-sustaining ecosystem: the money stayed within the game, and there was no involvement from lawyers, banks or agencies – even agents were rare. Over a decade later, in 1992, I signed for Juventus from Sampdoria. Again, there was no agent and no lawyer: Paolo Mantovani, Sampdoria’s president, asked what was important to me and then negotiated directly with Juventus on my behalf, securing the contract that would see me leave his club.

  Around the mid-1990s, England’s Premier League was breaking new ground: football was being packaged into a premium media product and sold globally. Money started flowing into the game. Many of my peers took on agents and lawyers to negotiate commercial deals and transfers on their behalf. For my final transfer as a player, to Chelsea in 1996, I took on my first agent. It was a huge learning curve for all of us as players, and we had to start thinking about ourselves in an entirely different way – as brands, media products, commodities to be bought and sold.

  Over 20 years on, the football world is unrecognisable. The revenues from broadcasting rights have brought more money into the game than ever before, driving transfer prices, player salaries, sponsorship deals and commercial revenues to new levels. In this new world, it would be unimaginable for a young footballer to sign a contract – at a new club or their current one – without the help of their managers, agents, lawyers, and possibly a marketing/PR or image rights representative. Even more unthinkable would be a 28-year-old striker, with 59 caps for his country, trusting his club president to negotiate his terms with a buying club.

  At the top levels of today’s game, agents, lawyers, banks, marketing and PR agencies have all carved out considerable influence. The introduction of these industries and their ways of working have largely benefitted the sport and the players: standards have risen in terms of financial rigour, commercial best practice and legal protection for athletes with very short careers. That having been said, no transfer window goes by without a few sensational stories in the press about who really benefits from the mind-blowing sums of money involved – raising the question of what is going on behind closed doors and whether it’s all above board.

  I first met Daniel through a mutual friend, when he asked if I would be interested in getting involved in Football Aid, the charity he supports. Since then, I have got to know Daniel well, and always admired him as an authority on the legalities and business of sport. This book is a testament not only to Daniel’s vast knowledge of his subject, but also to his ability to present even the most complex ideas in a clear and vivid way. I cannot think of a better person to reveal the inside story of this fascinating industry.

  – Luca Vialli

  The changing game

  How we consume football has changed dramatically over the years. When I was growing up in the 1980s, watching live football was a novelty. Only the occasional game was broadcast on television and, in contrast to today, few column inches were devoted to football. This meant that the local newspapers such as the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post were my main source of information – two pages on a normal day and a few extra on match and post-match days – and I devoured every bit of football news I could.

  Transfer gossip was very much in its infancy. Then came Ceefax, a television text information service, and suddenly there were up to 10 pages of football information per day on TV. The traditional rush home after school to grab the remote control, read Ceefax pages 302–312 and discover that Liverpool were linked to a particular player and how much he was going to cost was a revelation. Coming home to the news that Roy Keane had signed for Manchester United was a particularly dark day. This was my generation’s internet, the first baby steps into the digital era.

  By then, the World Cup was also very much front and centre. Discovering new players and their skills at major tournaments was an eye-opener and made me aware of a wider world of football, featuring exotic players and leagues.

  By the time I was going to most Liverpool home games, the novel way of getting the best transfer gossip was through premium-rate phone numbers. No doubt prompted by the small fortune these lines were costing, my Dad became an early adopter and signed up to one of the first forms of the internet. Rather slow and making strange noises, the modem offered a constantly updated dose of football news and discussion forums.

  Football became all-encompassing. During family dinners it was the glue of our conversation; Mum (and sometimes Dad!) spoke the most sense. We debated tactics, managers, personalities, games, rivals and history.

  Then I attended university, and moved on to getting my daily fix from football news aggregator NewsNow. I even had the opportunity to write a dissertation on the changing FIFA transfer system and a journeyman footballer called Jean-Marc Bosman (more on him later; see here). This was the first indication that I could combine my two passions: football and law.

  I soon found myself in an enviable position. Rather than just consuming football (which by now had become a major component of the global entertainment industry), I was able to offer my own perspective on football, blogging on issues and in turn amplifying my thoughts through a variety of retweets, internet searches, and Facebook and
Instagram posts.

  Since becoming a lawyer, I’ve been privileged to have worked on a number of high-profile football takeovers, transfers and disputes, meeting some fantastic people in the industry. The life of a football lawyer is, however, rarely glamorous. Deals may be finalised and photographed in the boardroom, but the nuts and bolts and the details are negotiated on WhatsApp, after mountains of emails, sometimes in the early hours of the morning and after 40 calls to your client each day. I’ve had moments when I’ve helped a client negotiate a transfer while picking my kids up from school, or I have been on holiday and ended up working because the deal has been agreed in principle and the player was flying in the next morning. I’ve helped with deals on the beach, in the snow, on boats, and (losing signal) up mountains. Seldom are negotiations straightforward, as some may presume. But with email and smartphones readily available, there are rarely barriers to finalising a deal.

  Nonetheless, what continues to strike me is the somewhat fragile nature of the industry. Players are a bad knee twist or a tackle away from the end of their careers, or a tweet away from a ban; managers are sometimes just a few games away from the sack; agents are continually worried about losing their star players, sometimes having invested years of hard work for no reward; and owners, who may have saved their boyhood club from bankruptcy, are often castigated when results suffer.

  Promotion, relegation, last-minute winners, missed play-off final and World Cup penalties, injuries, rehabilitation, contract renegotiations, player transfer requests and clubs forcing players out – these are the everyday actions that define the football industry. There is no black and white. What is important is context and nuance.

  Why a story has been written is as important as what the story says. Everyone has an angle, from the player’s agent wanting to negotiate a new and more valuable contract to the club wanting to manage the fans’ expectations. The volume of content, articles, website reports, etc. can be bewildering, and is creating a broader content business that is changing the face of football, sport and entertainment.

  The exponential growth in entertainment available from Netflix, YouTube or Sky Sports means there is more content vying for people’s attention. No longer is sport as front and centre as it used to be. Binge on your favourite series, subscribe to your go-to YouTube vlogger and catch highlights of the live game if you’ve missed it. There is so much competition in the entertainment space that even when people are watching 90 minutes live, most are usually second-screening (using a second device to connect on WhatsApp or checking Twitter or Snapchat). Attention spans are reducing and consumption habits are fundamentally changing. Football isn’t so scarce anymore and an almost infinite amount of entertainment content is readily available. Competition for viewers is stronger than ever.

  The football spotlight remains incredibly strong. Some fans expect football players to be angels with perfect behaviour. Everyone is fallible, players included. Mistakes happen – and will continue to happen. When looking at the headlines, it’s crucial to reflect that players, managers, owners and agents are a mistake, an injury and/or a press conference away from triumph and disaster. Football is particularly unforgiving, and a Twitter timeline after a team’s defeat even more so. Any positive is usually drowned out by negativity. Context is important and is easily forgotten. Drama and controversy play out on a weekly basis.

  Fans are no doubt the centrepiece for this beautiful game, but now more than ever it’s vital to look behind the headlines and understand how the industry really works. This book aims to provide some context and nuance, as well as practical experience – from pitch to boardroom – of the off-field football matters that impact leagues, clubs, players and fans, and which shape the modern game.

  Chapter 1

  The football ecosystem

  The beautiful game is a complicated business. Luckily enough, it’s set out in some detail in this book. To get started, it’s vitally important to see how the different elements connect and interact; that’s the reason for the ecosystem diagram set out on the following pages. Only by understanding how each football jigsaw piece fits together with all the rest is it possible to delve into the detail of the industry and uncover how things really work.

  This book charts the interaction between the most important actors in the national and international football landscape. At the heart of the game are the clubs and teams. They employ the players, play in the various national and international leagues and competitions, pay agents for concluding transfer deals, receive money from broadcasters to broadcast matches to fans worldwide, enter into lucrative partnership deals with brands and receive money from fans for attending games and buying merchandise. The chart demonstrates the circulation of money flowing into and out of football.

  Let’s take Liverpool FC as an example. Based on the latest 2016/17 accounts published in 2018, the club received £73.5m from match-day activities; £136.4m from their commercial partnerships with brands, including Standard Chartered (£30m per season), New Balance and BetVictor; and £154.3m from broadcasting rights, mostly Premier League revenues. Those Premier League revenues are substantial: a significant proportion of the current broadcasting deal for the Premier League, valued at £8bn+, comes from UK broadcasters Sky and BT Sport paying more than £5bn for exclusive UK rights. TV companies recoup such a large outlay through pay TV subscription services, which fans pay for in order to watch their team play on a weekly basis. Chelsea, the 2016/17 winners, earned £150.8m in one season as a result of the huge sums that broadcasters around the world will pay.

  Similarly, a variety of TV companies also pay huge sums to UEFA to broadcast the Champions League competition. In the UK, BT Sport paid £1.18bn to UEFA for the privilege of exclusively screening live Champions League and Europa League matches until 2021. For details of how broadcasting rights are sold and paid for, and how the money is distributed, see Chapter 9, pages 196–227.

  Back to Liverpool. Their turnover equalled £364.2m. By way of contrast, Manchester United’s revenues were £581m, Real Madrid’s totalled £580m and Barcelona’s £557m. Liverpool’s overall profit was £40m. Eighteen Premier League clubs made operating profit in the 2016/17 season. In that season, the previous winners, Leicester City, made a £92m profit. For details of how clubs maximise revenues, see Chapter 4, pages 71–132.

  By way of outgoings, Liverpool spent £207.5m on wages and paid out £76m by way of transfers. (For details of how these transfers are structured, paid for and accounted for, see Chapter 2, pages 9–56). Similarly, clubs will pay agents a commission of 5–10% of the player’s wages. Based on published figures for the 17/18 summer and winter window, Liverpool paid the most, £26.7m to agents. Collectively, Premier League clubs paid agents £211m.

  When managers are sacked, compensation is often paid for terminating their contract (and usually the contracts of their backroom staff team). Ex-Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers and his staff were reported to have been paid £16m. This can be a significant cost for clubs should they decide to change managers who are on long-term contracts.

  The money flow is crucial. Due to the various financial control regulations (such as the UEFA Financial Fair Play Rules), clubs cannot usually spend more than they earn. For more details, see Chapter 4, pages 71–132. The main consequence of this approach is that clubs need to maximise revenues to ensure they can spend sustainably on player transfers, wages and bonuses.

  The increasingly complex football ecosystem, where clubs, players, agents and organisations interact and exchange services and rights in return for revenue. The amount of money circulating within the Premier League amounts to billions of pounds.

  With this combination of record broadcasting and commercial revenues, millionaire and billionaire business people have taken significant interest in owning clubs. Over the last decade, iconic clubs like Inter Milan, Manchester City, Liverpool, AC Milan, Monaco and Paris Saint-Germain have all been bought in multi-million-pound deals. For details of how such deals are ide
ntified and completed, as well as the work that goes into taking over a club, see Chapter 4, pages 71–132.

  The internationalisation of the game means that players are employed by their clubs but are released by their employers to play for their national teams. This has been fraught with issues in the past. Problems such as whether a player qualifies to play for a particular country, who should pay the player’s salary if a player gets injured on international duty, and whether clubs should receive compensation for releasing their players have led to notable disputes in the past. (For more details, see Chapter 8, pages 181–195.) Nonetheless, international tournaments run by FIFA and UEFA can be the pinnacle of a player’s career. A good World Cup or European Championship can put a player in the shop window for a lucrative transfer.

  Brands like Coke, Budweiser, Hyundai, Visa and others have paid millions of pounds to be associated with such high-profile competitions. The money provided to the international federations as a result of the World Cup, Euros or African Nations Cup is passed on to national associations.

  The money flow continues. Fans effectively fund the game through match-day attendance and buying pay TV subscriptions. Packed stadia, fanatical support and constant media attention mean that the global game goes from strength to strength.

  Done Deal explains how the industry works, provides insight into some of the most topical areas of the beautiful game, and illuminates the multi-million-pound deal flow and the consequences for players, clubs and broadcasters alike.

  Chapter 2

  Player transfers and contracts

  Turn back the clocks to August 2015, deadline day. As reported at the time, Manchester United are on the verge of finalising two high-profile, multi-million-pound transfers. The club are negotiating the sale of their first-choice goalkeeper, David de Gea, to Real Madrid for approximately £30m, including the part exchange of Madrid keeper Keylor Navas. Simultaneously, the club’s negotiators are also trying to conclude a deal for Monaco wunderkind Anthony Martial for a staggering £50m+. While United manage to finalise the Martial transfer, de Gea and Navas are left without new clubs: the correct documentation was not uploaded to the FIFA Transfer Matching System in enough time, so the deal collapsed. A war of words breaks out, both clubs blaming each other. In the weeks that follow, de Gea signs a long-term contract extension and Martial scores on his debut against arch-rivals Liverpool.