OF POLITICS AND FOOTBALL...AND FINANCES

The non-Maltese readers of this contribution may have already realised this, especially if they have visited Malta in the past. The rather humorous, if not tragic, notion is that us Maltese can only discuss politics, football and saints, and nothing else!

This article is not intended to go into the details of my introduction above. It will, however, bring politics into the realm of the beautiful game and how our beloved team should, in my opinion, react to the changes that are happening in the European political scene in the coming months. I am sure that even the most apolitical of Man Utd supporters would have heard of Brexit. If not, I’ve got news for you – the United Kingdom has left the European Union on the 31 st January 2020. Well, not exactly, and in any case, what has this got to do with football, I hear you ask?

In the first week of February 2020, the Premier League announced that the deadline for the summer transfer window would revert to a more traditional date in 2020, to bring it in line with other major European leagues. In one of my other contributions to Echoes, I had lamented the fact that the UK transfer window closed before the start of the season, whereas other countries had another 3 weeks to basically acquire players from the Premier League or other divisions, leaving the English clubs with a potential gap as they would not be in a position to fill the gaps in their squad. Essentially, we are going back to square one to avoid a scenario where Premier League players could still be ‘unsettled’ and clubs are prevented from bringing in replacements when players do leave. In our team’s case, we had Lukaku moving permanently to Inter and Sanchez and Smalling both leaving on loan without the possibility to replace them. This will not happen again as the transfer window will now close on the same day as other European countries. Is this a good thing? Well, yes and no - as we all know this leads to speculations galore (especially in our club’s case!) and potential loss of focus by the players themselves. The UK’s departure from the European Union has been mentioned as one of the potential factors affecting this decision.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Brexit process, the UK is currently in the transition period, which means that the full impact of Brexit will not be felt until the start of 2021. This also extends to football. The freedom of movement principle (remember the Bosman Ruling?) means that Premier League clubs can continue to invest in European talent (some call it poaching!) without the need to consider the Governing Body Endorsement (GBE) requirements as at the moment, the UK has still got one foot in the EU! This is expected to change from the beginning of next year, as by that time, the UK will be officially out of the EU.

by Robert Mizzi

This means that Premier League clubs will have one final ‘window’ of opportunity to exploit this key facet of EU membership. So, as things stand at the moment, as from the next January transfer window, all players approached by English clubs playing in the EU will be treated exactly the same as non-EU players – they would need a work permit from the GBE! To put things into perspective, Bruno Fernandes would potentially still be waiting for his work permit had he signed in January 2021 rather than January 2020. Three guesses who the losers will be in such situations!!

Turning to the acquisition of young talent from Europe. Premier League clubs have reportedly been assured by FIFA that the key and commonly used exception to the general prohibition on international transfers of players aged under 18 will continue to apply for the rest of 2020. The prohibition, outlined in Article 19 of FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP), does not apply where the relevant player transfers from one EU/EEA country to another, or is an EU/EEA national himself (who might be transferring from a non-EU/EAA country). As we all know, this exception has been regularly exploited by Premier League clubs to reel in the best young European talent and exploit their ability to offer professional contracts to players aged 17 (in contrast to other European countries where players must wait until they turn 18).

Thanks to Brexit, the opportunity to use this exception is now time-restricted. From the start of 2021, barring any intervention by FIFA (including revising its exceptions to the Article 19 prohibition), Premier League clubs will need to be more creative in how they facilitate transfers of overseas players aged

under 18. Other European national leagues will of course benefit from such a situation as despite the glamour of the EPL, English clubs will undoubtedly find it harder to bring in talented EU nationals in future transfer windows. The English phrase ‘shooting oneself in the foot’ keeps popping up in my mind – I wonder why!

Moving on to another, albeit related topic, the news that our noisy neighbours have been banned from the Champions League for two seasons has technically opened a window of opportunity for our beloved team. I will not delve in to the merits of the suspension in this article, but even in the scenario where the Court of Arbitration for Sport (colloquially known as CAS) decides to reduce the ban for one year, this would still mean that the team finishing 5 th in the EPL this season will play in the Champions League next season. Recent results have seen our team move up to 5 th place as I write this article. If we are able to maintain this position, and it is a big IF, we will play in the preliminary round of the Champions league next season. Given the circumstances, that would be an achievement and also a great opportunity. No, I am not suffering from delusions of grandeur and do not think that we can possibly make a huge impact in the Champions league even before qualifying. But qualification would open an opportunity to attract players of higher calibre than if your team is playing in the Europa League.

This potential scenario ties in nicely with my final point for this article. I have already written about the need for Manchester United to appoint a Director of Football. I was hoping that this would happen last summer, but it didn’t. I may be wrong, but I believe that had Ole been working with a football person as Director of Football, his life would have been made a wee bit easier and our team would be in a better place. Be that as it may, in a few months’ time, the management will have another

opportunity. It is going to be interesting to see if Ole keeps his place, if Ed Woodward keeps his position, and if a Director of Football will be appointed. In my personal opinion, the first person that needs to relinquish his place is definitely Ed Woodward. As Gary Neville right pointed out, he has had many transfer window opportunities to get it right, but we all know the results so far. Some may argue that the last two windows have been successful, but I would point out that we still paid over and above for every player we got and this is mainly due to poor negotiating techniques. I would also point to the signing of Ighalo and say that it was a panic buy after everything else failed. Again, this is my personal opinion and would gladly eat humble pie if Ighalo goes on to score a few important goals and leads us into the qualifying round of the Champions League next season.

What is not my personal opinion, however, is the position our beloved club is currently holding in the 2020 edition of the Football Finance 100. As the table for the top 20 below shows, we have fallen to the 16 th position from 8 th position in the 2019 index. I can recall Ed Woodward saying that the results of the team do not affect the financial performance of the club. Think again Ed!

Numquam Moribimur.

FOOTBALL FINANCE 100

( € MILLIONS) # CLUB COUNTRY FFI SCORE PLAYERS VALUE TANGIBLE ASSETS CASH IN BANK OWNER POTENTIAL INVESTMENT NET DEBT 01 PSG FRA 5.318 1050.0 99.9 138.0 1,003 ‑34.1 02 MANCHESTER CITY ENG 5.192 1280.0 464.2 31.5 647 173.2 03 BAYERN MUNICH GER 3.888 882.7 257.7 220.8 416 6.9 04 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR ENG 3.447 984.0 1101.1 113.7 162 898.0

05 REAL MADRID ESP 3.336 1190.0 341.2 190.1 0 243.7

06 ARSENAL ENG 3.150 683.8 480.1 261.5 291 271.6

07 CHELSEA ENG 2.893 807.0 199.8 35.8 36.5 184.4

08 LIVERPOOL ENG 2.616 1070.0 199.4 11.7 80 294.6

09 JUVENTUS ITA 2.195 864.0 162.4 15.3 313 539.4 10 BORUSSIA DORTMUND GER 2.154 640.5 195.5 54.9 63 ‑19.8 11 ATLÉTICO DE MADRID ESP 2.049 872.5 379.4 23.0 62 537.9 12 BARCELONA ESP 2.036 1180.0 156.6 40.3 0 652.1 13 RB LEIPZIG GER 1.949 544.6 14.7 2.7 373 149.8 14 HOFFENHEIM GER 1.922 234.8 76.9 49.2 410 ‑107.0

15 GUANGZHOU EVERGRANDE TAOBAO CHN 1.853 76.3 112.0 8.4 611 NA

16 MANCHESTER UNITED ENG 1.743 753.3 277.3 273.5 164 799.8 17 NAPOLI ITA 1.670 625.8 0.3 118.7 18 5.0 18 LOS ANGELES F.C. USA 1.657 38.5 NA NA 661 NA 19 BAYERN LEVERKUSEN GER 1.551 415.3 84.4 NA 190 25.1 20 MONACO FRA 1.443 354.3 7.8 17.3 134 142.8

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