England have beaten Italy 2-1 in their international friendly in Berne on Wednesday night.
Roy Hodgson rested a number of his more senior figures and introduced a raft of younger faces to the Three Lions’ squad for the exhibition match in Switzerland.
Daniele De Rossi put the Azzurri into the lead early on, before Phil Jagielka equalised for the home nation. Jermain Defoe popped up with ten minutes remaining to score the winner.
Hodgson confessed that he was happy with the win and hailed some of the new players.
“I’m pleased,” the England manager told Sky Sports.
“It was the type of game I sort of expected; two teams with a lot of changes looking to make a big impression ahead of the qualification campaign.
“I am happy with the way we responded to that challenge and the performance we gave.
“It’s the qualifiers that really count, but it’s nice to know we have a deeper squad of players than that we took to the Euros.
“In the Euros, especially towards the end and the second half against Italy where they dominated, we did have an excuse.
“We were a bit tired at that time. It wasn’t a typical performance from an England team, and not the way we want to play.
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Arsenal picked up their first win of the new season on Sunday, beating Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield.
New summer signings Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla both found the back of the net to give the north Londoners the three points on Merseyside.
Arsene Wenger was happy with his team’s showing and also admitted that seeing the new players score was a source of pleasure.
“It’s always a test when you arrive at a club like Arsenal,” Wenger told Sky Sports.
“People have seen many, many, many great players so you have to convince people. They know what makes a good player.
“I think slowly they can convince our fans they are good enough to play for us.
“It’s like scoring goals, as long as you don’t concede everybody defends a bit better as they want to keep the record, and that helps.
“But overall credit to the whole team, they defended well,” he concluded.
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Arsenal take on Southampton next at the Emirates Stadium after the international break.
Tottenham winger Gareth Bale has stated that his side are confident of finishing in the top four once more this season.
The White Hart Lane team finished fourth last season, but were denied Champions League football due to Chelsea lifting the trophy.
The Wales international feels his team can compete for a qualification place, despite a slow start under Andre Villas-Boas.
“I’m enjoying my football, we’ve got a great squad now and hopefully next season we can get Champions League football, where we should be,” The Telegraph report the flyer as saying.
“We didn’t have a great start last year and we were in a similar position this year. We went on a run last season and there’s no reason why we can’t do it this year.
“It feels like a new club at the moment with the new training ground. It has excited everybody, and has brought everybody up again,” he stated.
Bale has been linked with a big-money move away from north London in the recent past, but the player has stated that he has no intentions of leaving.
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“No. I’ve always been focused on my game, playing football, and I’m enjoying myself here at the moment so there’s no reason to go anywhere,” Bale commented.
A first defeat last Saturday, at the hands of their fierce London rivals, appeared to signal the end of an extended honeymoon period for the Gunners. Normal service was resumed at the back as defensive errors from Laurent Koscielny and goalkeeper Vito Mannone contributed to their first loss of the new campaign. But in contrast to years gone by Arsene Wenger’s men responded in a surprisingly positive fashion chalking up an impressive mid-week victory in the Champions League proving there is a real strength of character and resolve in the Emirates Stadium dressing room this season. That being said it’s unlikely Wenger will allow his squad to get ahead of themselves despite their solid, if unspectacular start to the new term and will be hammering home the importance of staying grounded ahead of the international break.
This week on FFC is Theo Walcott right or wrong to demand an improved contract from the Gunners and which highly-rated Austrian international is Wenger chasing?
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Best of FFC
How Arsene Wenger has changed our ways
Does Arsenal ace deserve a call up…I’m not so sure
A little perspective needed at Arsenal
Why Arsenal need to have more signings like him
Another example of greed in the beautiful game?
Is the Ox in danger of becoming a jack of all trades?
Can anyone blame his contract stance at Arsenal?
His absence shows how far he has come at Arsenal
Why he will duly deliver for Arsenal
Is Arsene Wenger missing a trick by not upping it?
Wenger Tracking £5m Basel ace to boost numbers
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Best of WEB
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Tomorrow’s Just Another Day – A Cultured Left Foot
Is our new Spanish maestro just as good as Cesc? – Gunnersphere
Time to dispense with the Grimster? – Online Gooner
Our new unsung hero – Gunnersphere
Chilled out German spiders – Arseblog
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Could Vermaelen cover for Diaby? | Jack Wilshere passes first test | Arsenal over reliance on kids? – Le Grove
What does the future hold for Emmanuel Frimpong? – Highbury House
Word Is, He’s Better Than Walcott & Oxlade-Chamberlain… – Transfer Tavern
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Quote of the Week
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“Jack needs a few games, progressive build-up to get his body used again to competition, to shocks, to fights, but he is doing extremely well, the situation looks very good. We have to be cautious, not crazy, because of his talent you are always pushed in a situation where you would like to rush him back, and we have to resist that. The next match should be next week and he is working very hard. The body is like that, when you have been out of competition for 14 months it takes a long time to find your sharpness back. You cannot rush it.” Arsene Wenger insists he won’t rush Jack Wilshere back into the first team fold
QPR chairman Tony Fernandes has stated that Mark Hughes is the right man for the manager’s job at the club, despite the team’s slow start to the season.
The Loftus Road outfit have went through a major squad revamp over the summer, but have picked up only two points from their first seven games.
Despite a 3-2 defeat to West Brom at the weekend, the R’s chief will not wield the axe to the Welsh boss.
“For all QPR fans. Fans who analyse properly. I am not changing anything. And all shareholders agree,” Fernandes revealed on Twitter.
“No team except the first game [a 5-0 home defeat to Swansea] has outplayed us. We need a consistent four defenders not changing every week especially right and left back. Mark is the right man.
“For all those calling for change, this is the team that outplayed Spurs and gave Chelsea a damm good game and you want change. No way,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, summer signing Esteban Granero has stated that the players are to blame for the club’s poor form, not Hughes.
“We’re the ones who have to improve because the manager is great,” the Spaniard is quoted as saying in The Sun.
“We all support the manager. We know he’s the best manager we can possibly have. Most of the losses, for sure, are not his fault. It is our fault — the footballers’ fault,” he concluded.
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Tottenham defender Benoit Assou-Ekotto is set to return to training for his side this week, after it was deemed that he does not require surgery, The Sun claim.
The Cameroon international has become a mainstay at left-back for the north London side, but has been missing in action for the last six weeks due to a knee injury.
The African full-back was thought to be ready to go under the knife, with an operation needed to clear out fragments of bone that were giving him discomfort.
However, specialists have deemed that rest would be sufficient for Assou-Ekotto to recuperate, with the problem now hopefully behind him.
Assou-Ekotto will return to action this week at White Hart Lane, and may even be in the running for inclusion in the side’s next game against Chelsea on Saturday.
Spurs have been forced to use Jan Vertonghen at left-back, whilst Steven Caulker has slotted into the centre of the team’s defence.
The return of Assou-Ekotto to full fitness will be a boost for Andre Villas-Boas, and allow him to reinstate Vertonghen to his preferred position of centre-half.
Assou-Ekotto was one of the first names on the team sheet in Harry Redknapp’s tenure, and has proved himself as one of the most consistent performers in his position in the division.
The defender has missed competing for his country and has also not featured for Tottenham since the fledgling days of the new 2012-13 Premier League season.
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Spurs are slightly light at left-back after Danny Rose was sent out on loan to Sunderland for the campaign.
must beat Fulham when they travel to Craven Cottage tomorrow, according to Blues’ youngster Bryan Oviedo.
The Toffees dropped out of the Premier League top four last weekend following the Merseyside derby as the club recorded its’ third consecutive draw.
Bryan Oviedo, aged 22, believes that a win against Fulham will quickly restart Everton’s bid for Champions League qualification glory and rekindle the form his team started the season with.
“It is very important for us to win this weekend because we what to stay in the top places. We need to win to keep close to the Champions League positions” said the Costa Rican international, who can play at left-back or left midfield.
“But we have a very good team, very strong defenders and good players in midfield and attack.
“The team has a strong mentality. We have come back from being 1-0 and 2-0 down in recent games and the team is very united.”
Oviedo is yet to make a start in the Premier League and has kept out of the first team by Leighton Baines, Steven Pienaar and Kevin Mirallas, but is hoping to feature from the bench against Fulham.
The Toffees man is keen to play against international team-mate and Cottagers midfielder Bryan Ruiz.
“It is nice to play against Bryan,” said the former FC Copenhagen player. “I talk with him a lot and we are the only two Costa Rican players in England.
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“I spoke with him two days ago too, he told me Fulham need the three points but I told him it is the same for Everton. Maybe after the game we will swap shirts” he added.
Depending on the location, football can have two completely separate meanings. Just like their geographical locations, the two sports are a world apart when it comes to their similarities. Not only does the word differ in sports, but in the sport’s business as well. The American’s have been known for their love and following to “their” football, and haven’t really caught on to the rest of the world’s craze for European football until now.
In the past decade European soccer has experienced an American invasion never before seen. It wasn’t until 2005 the English Premier League welcomed its first American owner. Even though the owners are new to the Premier League, sports are something they are very familiar with. The American owners have experience in either business or ownership of American sport franchises. This then becomes a matter of question of previous American sports ownership being good enough versus knowledge of European football.
Team
Owner
Year of Takeover
Experience
Manchester United
Malcolm Glazer
2005
CEO of First Allied Corp, Owner of Tampa Bay Buccaneers (National Football League)
Aston Villa
Randy Lerner
2006
Chairman of MBNA Corp, Owner of Cleveland Browns (National Football League)
Arsenal
Stan Kroenke
2007
Owner of Kroenke Sports Enterprises, owner of St. Louis Rams (National Football League), Co-owns Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City
Sunderland
Ellis Short
2008
President of Lone Star Funds
Liverpool
John W. Henry (Fenway Sports Group)
2010
Founder of John W. Henry & Company, Owner of Bosten Red Sox (Major League Baseball), Co-owns Roush Fenway Racing
As of now, Americans account for 25 percent of the ownership in the Premier League. American’s aren’t known for their knowledge of football, but they do have a good understanding of sports business. Just how well are the teams benefiting financially from the foreign approach? Depending on the team the answer to that question can be very different.
The first takeover, and probably the most controversial one was Malcolm Glazer’s. The Glazers bought the club for £777 million pounds sharing the debt between the family and the club. The total amount of debt added up to £660 million pounds with interest payments equaling £62 million pounds a year. Needless to say, this appeared to be the most extreme financial takeover. The next year was a much more subtle takeover. In August of 2006, Randy Lerner reached an agreement to a takeover of the club spending £62.6 million pounds. By September Lerner increased his shares to 85.5% and became chairman of the club. The next and most recent team to jump into ownership was the Fenway Sports Group (John W. Henry) that bought Liverpool in 2010 for £300 million pounds. Upon takeover of the club, FSG paid back £200million pounds of debt owed to the Royal Bank of Scotland from previous owners.
The next two clubs took a much more settled approach to taking over the clubs. Stan Kroenke started buying shares of Arsenal in 2007 totaling 9.9%. It wasn’t until 2007 that Kroenke increased his share holding to 62.89% and made an offer for the rest of the club this past year. Similar to Kroenke, Ellis Short gradually invested in Sunderland Football Club. 2008 Short bought a 30 percent stake in the Sunderland F.C, until 2009 when Ellis gained 100% control of the club.
For some of the clubs, the approach to ownership has been very helpful to the clubs. However, to some teams the approach was perceived very badly. Manchester United has had probably the biggest impact from the American owner. Manchester United fans didn’t agree to the club’s takeover approach due to the massive debt and the cost of interest paid annually. In fact, there have been many protests to Glazer’s takeover. Along with a new club formed FC United of Manchester, many United fans refused to renew their season tickets. Fans also created anti-glazer songs and chants that they sang at games. Fans including former United star David Beckham started wearing the previous colours of the club, green and gold. The protests are still going on today.
Manchester United statics show that the club is financially profitable today, but fans are upset of the approach to the takeover. Yes, today Man United is the most valuable team in the world; however it is not due all to the ownership. The whole time the club spent money on paying back the debt, they could have been paying it on players and the team. The more a team can afford salaries, the more competitive a club is. Of course, the more successful a team is the more money they’ll get.
Besides club competitiveness, a clubs sponsorship is a large portion to its revenue. Again, the team with the biggest impact of profit with its American owner is Manchester United. Today, Manchester United is ranked the most valuable team in the world valued at $2.3 billion dollars. So how did the club get so profitable with a daunting amount of debt to pay off? The answer is sponsorships. From deals and sponsors the club has become the world’s sport team leader of profits with a global fan base of 330 million.
The approach to gaining sponsorship deals has made Manchester United what it is today. In 2006, Man United agreed to a shirt sponsorship with AIG worth £56.5 million for four years. This deal alone is the biggest in British history. The other large deal for Manchester United was their 13-year £303 million pound deal with Nike. This deal is essential to the team for two big reasons. The deal allows Nike to pay the team a fixed priced for merchandise rights to its kits (shorts, shirts, cleats, etc). Also, the team is now associated with a market leader in a corresponding industry. In just the first 22 months of the agreement Nike had sold 3.8 million replica jerseys. This builds fan support and encourages industries to sell the teams merchandise.
The business opportunities don’t stop there. In 2004, the team invested millions of pounds in digital advertising boards around three sides of the pitch. Manchester United keeps revenue coming even beyond the game; fans can finance their cars or homes through United loans or mortgages. Fans can also purchase a Man United credit card, United insurance, invest in United bonds, gamble in United Super Pool lotteries, or even catch a movie in the Red Cinema in Salford. All of these business transactions help to promote the team building the brand while creating a profit at the same time.
The American influence has proved many positive influences to the League. The first and most obvious is the American following that the owners have created. Since the American owners took over, the popularity of the league has risen and created more profit for the league. Recently ESPN broadcasted the chance for a record setting amount of viewers to watch the Manchester City vs. Manchester United match reaching more then one million viewers. The April 30th live match was viewed on cable television and doubled the previous viewers record set in 2010 of Arsenal versus Chelsea. The English Premier League has became the richest football league with help from its three-year television deal, which incurred $5.4 billion dollars. It is shown that the league acquires 2.3 billion dollars just through overseas television rights.
Although Manchester United has dominated the example of a profitable business strategy takeover (with ownership fees not included of course), Liverpool has shown some strong examples of club revenue efficiency. The owner is planning on ways to maximize profits especially on game day. After many obstacles the owner received access to expand the stadium to fit almost double the amount of fans on game day. By increasing fans on match day, revenues will grow and the team’s profits will rise. In a short time as owner, John W. Henry has proposed many ideas such as this to help the teams financial strategy for the long run.
When it comes to how to run a sports franchise, there is a lot the Premier League can learn from the Americans. However, the learning isn’t a one-way street. As 5 American’s have already caught on, there is a lot to be learned from the Premier League. The Premier League offers global brands that Americans don’t have the chance to jeopardize on. American football is very popular, in America. Although there is gaining interest, including London hosting two NFL games at Wembley stadium next year, the interest/market is still very restricted. Football (American soccer) is the most popular sport on the planet with over 3.5 billion fans worldwide.
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Having the world as a potential market is something that American sports owners have not had the chance to be a part of. 6 of the 11 teams are playing in the States next year which increases global interest. The growing interest isn’t just in America; the English Premier League has started to become a global brand. Having a global brand is the best thing for a business looking to expand profits. The Glazer family is cashing in on the expanded market looking to sell shares on a U.S. stock exchange of Man U, as well as offering 30 percent to the Singapore Exchange. Deloitte stated, “Even if the Premier League clubs are only able to maintain the current wages-to-turnover ratio of 62%, we predict operating profits will almost double”. That means with this revenue increase it would put the revenue at an overall turnover of about $3.5 billion. The rise in fans around the world will create profit potential that no other sport could reach, and that’s a business worth investing in.
As the FootballFanCast.com Advent Calendar reaches Day 5, we’re giving away two copies of ‘Inside the Divide: One City, Two Teams … The Old Firm’ by Richard Wilson.
Since 1888, Rangers and Celtic football clubs have been locked into an intense and frequently explosive rivalry: Rangers the product of West Scotland’s Protestant establishment, Celtic the team founded to raise money for the Catholic underclass of Glasgow.
On 2 January 2010 the two teams met in the Old Firm’s New Year Derby, a fixture that had been banned for ten years because of the trouble it brought with it.
Richard Wilson puts that game at the centre of a book which delves into the history and widens out to the cultural resonance of the fixture within Scotland.
It is a potent mix of close-up observation and big-picture thinking, with insight, understanding and depth.
Congratulations to Tara Davies who won a Big Match DVD yesterday.
Fancy a copy of Inside the Divide?
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To be in with a chance of winning click below to FOLLOW FootballFanCast.com on Google +
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The winners will be announced tomorrow, when we will also be unveiling our prize for Day 6. Don’t forget to come back to FootballFanCast.com then!
The ticket and corporate hospitality sales for the 2013 UEFA Europa League Final were launched today in Amsterdam at an event which also included the presentation of the event design for the match, which will be played at the Amsterdam Arena on Wednesday 15 May 2013 at 20.45CET.
The event, attended by final ambassador Patrick Kluivert, UEFA Executive Committee member and Royal Netherlands Football Association (KNVB) President Michael Van Praag and deputy mayor of the City of Amsterdam Eric van der Burg, formally launched the UEFA Europa League final ticketing concept.
A dedicated ticketing portal will open on UEFA.com on Monday 3 December 2012 at 12.00CET to sell 18,000 tickets to the general public via a lottery process. Tickets are available in four price categories: €135 (category one), €100 (category two), €70 (category three) and €45 (category four). The prices were set by UEFA in consultation with the Amsterdam final local organising committee and the independent Football Supporters Europe network (FSE), and the sales period will run until Friday 18 January 2013 at 12.00CET.
Additionally, for football fans under the age of 14, UEFA has reserved 200 youth ticket packages in category two for the price of category four tickets. One youth package, which comprises two category two tickets for a child and an accompanying adult, costs €90. Tickets with wheelchair access are in category four, and a ticket for an accompanying person is included in the price.
Applicants can apply for up to two tickets per person in the same price category. All valid applications will enter a lottery at the end of the sales phase, regardless of the time of submission. Consequently, customers are advised not to rush their application in the first hours after the opening of the ticket portal. The shipment fee per order is €8 in the Netherlands, €20 within Europe and €35 outside Europe. Applicants will be informed by email by February whether they have been successful in the lottery.
In line with UEFA’s policy to promote the competition among the general public, a total of 38,000 tickets, representing 79% of the net stadium capacity of 48,000, will go to the supporters of the two finalist teams and to neutral fans. Out of this allocation, the two finalist teams will receive a total of 20,000 tickets – 10,000 each – for distribution among their supporters. A significant allocation – 30% of these tickets – has been made available in category four, ensuring as wide as possible access to the match for the finalist clubs’ fans.
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The remaining tickets are allocated to the local organising committee, to UEFA’s 53 national football associations and to commercial and broadcast partners.
Further details of the corporate hospitality programme, through which 1,500 packages are available, as well as the UEFA Europa League Final 2013 event design, can also be accessed via UEFA.com.