Football debt

I don't think it is a myth. £625m is owed by Spanish clubs to the Spanish Tax man. Saying that, their government was about to waive out €752m of unpaid tax by football clubs recently which sparked outrage. If that went through it would be 13% of Barcelona's debt wiped out.

Madrid and Barca can get away with 1.5% bank-loans whilst we pay 5.75%

You misunderstood, I'm not saying it is a myth that Barca and Real are knee deep in debt, I'm saying it's wrong to think that the "fiscally prude northern countries" *cringe* are any better.

Also, it's wrong to blame football clubs for benefiting from the bank system (which they do simply because they are huge companies). Yes, they are wasting money right and left, but that's what the system tolerates so that's what they'll exploit, you'd have to start further up to stop this from happening.

For comparison, just take a look at the German government, one of the main culprits of this crisis we're in right now, they actually are paid interest themselves for taking up loans/issuing bonds, and that is in completely different dimensions to what comparatively little damage two football clubs could do.

The banks love clients like Barca and Real. These are world famous brands that generate massive revenues every year and have massive assets to offset any liabilities. The debt might be massive as well but the banks clearly do not doubt their ability to repay it as we can see from the low interest rates.

1.5%?????

You can barely get that off even Gilted bonds and you think thats the going rate for a business that generates £300 mil revenue, thats peanuts in business terms, there are companies with larger revenues run of warehouses in east london FFS.

They get the interest rates as no spainish bank is going to bankrupt rela madrid or barcelona over a little thing like spending **** loads of someone elses money.

Well, don't let facts get in the way of a good rant then.

Manchester United share sale causes controversy among fans and investors
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19061040

Man Utd to sell shares at $16 each in New York sale
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19057547

It'll be interesting to see who the underwriter(s) are/will be and if they desert the offering like FB. Personally, despite the obvious brand value, the structure of the offering is ludicrous -- if it ever reaches market, I can't see it being successful.

United's woes are a cautionary tale; debt is not necessarily a bad thing. If United had been carrying a reasonable debt load prior to the Glazers, a takeover would not have been possible.

I expect these shares to be shorted immediately, if they were to clear all he debt immediately then yeah fair enough but doing a quarter of it and keeping half the IPO to yourself, hmmmm.

This is another FB waiting to happen and will see the real value of man u pan out over the course of the next 12 months.

United wont be in debt for long as they have signed a mega shirt sponsor deal which rumours says is massive.

Why can't we get a training kit sponsor, we offer similar exposure to man united in terms of comps so why not get something in, we send players to nigeria to dance around for a drinks advert for **** sake.

You wonder why football is ****** in the long term when clubs have sponsors for almost anything.

United, once the best run club in the land has fallen on its knees thanks to the Glazers. Their neighbours meanwhile down the road have won the lottery.

I'm happy for the City fans to have won the league last season. But if one spends £930m to win a trophy, one trophy, how can it be classified as a 'sport'? In a few years time you will get more cases of the rich beating the poor.

If you spend a billion to create a team that challenges for titles over a 20 year period would that be seen a a waste? Citeh have obviously invested hard for the long term and I don't think they will keep dishing out mad fees and wages forever (same plan at PSG).


Chelsea however don't give a **** and just spend spend spend, thats what is truly ******.

Why can't we get a training kit sponsor, we offer similar exposure to man united in terms of comps so why not get something in, we send players to nigeria to dance around for a drinks advert for **** sake.

[/quote]

It seems obvious the Emirates contract is so water-tight that we have zero scope for other activities. I'm only speculating, but could it be that Emirates added clauses to the contract after the Israel disaster? It would certainly explain their ''F4ck U'' attitude towards us. They seem pretty accommodating,generous and good partners to the other clubs they sponsor around Europe.

The Nigerian thing was a joke. Sagna is reconvalescing from injury and Podolski is not match fit. I have no medical qualifications, but surely a trip like that can not have helped either player with their respective problems.

I don't know about African marketing budgets, but I would imagine them to be significantly lower than European, Asian,Middle Eastern or American ones.

United wont be in debt for long as they have signed a mega shirt sponsor deal which rumours says is massive.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... th-1215088

United wont be in debt for long as they have signed a mega shirt sponsor deal which rumours says is massive.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/ ... th-1215088" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Its an incredible deal. It makes you wonder how we can ever catch up. 10 years ago our problem was that United generated over £1 million more than us every home game. We bridged that with the stadium and the highest prices in the world.

Now they sign a shirt deal that outstrips ours by nearly 40 million a year.

However, there is no reason to assume that money will be used to service debts or invested in the team. It could well go straight to the Glazers.

People thought the IPO revenue would be earmarked to clear debts. Yet it is now known a huge chunk of that money will go straight to the Glazers.

You can be as attractive as you want and generate more income than all your competitors combined, but if you are controlled by the Glazers that ain't gonna help one bit.

Another very strange deal, somewhat in the vein of Liverpool's Standard Chartered deal.

I've read about it in football-unrelated news, because the man responsible for the deal, GM's marketing chief Joel Ewanick, was sacked on the same day the deal was announced. To understand this, one has to know that GM has a enormous marketing budget that is one of the world's largest (interbranch), and due to their recent problems (Opel, Vauxhall etc.) in the wake of the financial crisis they decided to significantly reduce their media budget, which includes sponsoring.

Ewanick, who enjoyed some success at Nissan and Hyundai prior to his stunt at GM and therefore was no amateur at all, was hired to cut down media spending to at least $2bn in the next five years. He was at first criticised for his unorthodox (for Americans, that is) approach to that, because he decided to cut the advertising broadcasts in the American Superbowl, and to stop funding ads in Facebook. But it got the job partially done, and they got along for the last few months.

This Manure-Chevrolet deal though undoes all of that work in that it absolutely needlessly burns money, and sees the man responsible for it sacked almost immediately. If this doesn't sound fishy then I don't know what does. GM has no possible way to get out of the deal, they are tied to burn more than half a billion dollars in the next 10 years.

I'm not implying that Ewanick is a Manure fan or something, but this move sounds like something a burned lover would do after a broken relationship ends. Maybe he knew he would have to go, or he wanted revenge on them for other reasons, or he's simply earning money with this deal on another side - in any case he sure as hell couldn't think that this kind of deal would bode well with his superiors. Either Manure are just a third beneficiary party of this situation, or they were actually looking for someone looking to make a profit. There have been conspiracies on way bigger deals, so one shouldn't rule out this possibility.

Well this deal would make more sense if Ewanick is a Man Utd fan lol.
Those numbers are just staggering-what the hell are they paying them for this and next season??

Well this deal would make more sense if Ewanick is a Man Utd fan lol.
Those numbers are just staggering-what the hell are they paying them for this and next season??

i think they will get 40mil per season(enough to service some of their interest loans). i don't know if its in pound or euro.

Another very strange deal, somewhat in the vein of Liverpool's Standard Chartered deal.

I've read about it in football-unrelated news, because the man responsible for the deal, GM's marketing chief Joel Ewanick, was sacked on the same day the deal was announced. To understand this, one has to know that GM has a enormous marketing budget that is one of the world's largest (interbranch), and due to their recent problems (Opel, Vauxhall etc.) in the wake of the financial crisis they decided to significantly reduce their media budget, which includes sponsoring.

Ewanick, who enjoyed some success at Nissan and Hyundai prior to his stunt at GM and therefore was no amateur at all, was hired to cut down media spending to at least $2bn in the next five years. He was at first criticised for his unorthodox (for Americans, that is) approach to that, because he decided to cut the advertising broadcasts in the American Superbowl, and to stop funding ads in Facebook. But it got the job partially done, and they got along for the last few months.

This Manure-Chevrolet deal though undoes all of that work in that it absolutely needlessly burns money, and sees the man responsible for it sacked almost immediately. If this doesn't sound fishy then I don't know what does. GM has no possible way to get out of the deal, they are tied to burn more than half a billion dollars in the next 10 years.

I'm not implying that Ewanick is a Manure fan or something, but this move sounds like something a burned lover would do after a broken relationship ends. Maybe he knew he would have to go, or he wanted revenge on them for other reasons, or he's simply earning money with this deal on another side - in any case he sure as hell couldn't think that this kind of deal would bode well with his superiors. Either Manure are just a third beneficiary party of this situation, or they were actually looking for someone looking to make a profit. There have been conspiracies on way bigger deals, so one shouldn't rule out this possibility.

Nothing odd about Liverpool's Standard Chartered deal. Its in the same size bracket as Bayern or Madrid's deals. In terms of popularity and global brand recognition Liverpool are still up there with the creme de la creme. I find it more surprising that a club like Spurs manages to get 12-15 million a year from shirt sponsorship than I do that Liverpool get 20-25.

The United deal is a monster, but there are three factors that explain it.

1) They are a huge attraction. Arguably bigger than the elite clubs I referred to in the previous paragraph.

2) They have always had an excellent commercial department that has been streets ahead of the competition.

3) Chevrolet is aggressively targeting the European and Asian markets in which they have never had a major presence. They bought Daewoo a few years ago as that marque already had a healthy marketshare in these regions. They still have to market aggressively as most Europeans wouldn't be seen dead in a Chevvy.Football fits into GM's marketing strategy. OPEL used to sponsor Bayern and Milan for amounts that were groundbreaking at that time.

Of course its a staggering amount, but the logic of Chevrolet sponsoring United is a very sound one.

FYI a week earlier Chevy made seperate announcements within 3 days that they are the car partner/sponsor for BOTH ManU and LFC - commencing with their US tours this summer.
Presumably this will be akin to what we see from Citroen at The Grove.

FYI a week earlier Chevy made seperate announcements within 3 days that they are the car partner/sponsor for BOTH ManU and LFC - commencing with their US tours this summer.
Presumably this will be akin to what we see from Citroen at The Grove.

Citroen have been involved at Arsenal for 30 odd years. Its a secondary sponsorship deal. Its always involved the supply of cars for staff (I'll never forget the look of the giant Steve Bould crammed into a tiny Citroen Saxo many years ago at Highbury).I was amazed when I read that we renewed it again last year. It just indicates how useless the commercial side of things is at Arsenal.

Gazidis brings in a huge commercial team. They then hide behind the fact they are tied into the main contracts with Nike and Emirates until 2014, so you would think they have time to focus on other potential partnerships like United's training kit deal, but no, the best they can do is renew a deal with a secondary sponsor who have been around for over a generation.

FYI a week earlier Chevy made seperate announcements within 3 days that they are the car partner/sponsor for BOTH ManU and LFC - commencing with their US tours this summer.
Presumably this will be akin to what we see from Citroen at The Grove.

Citroen have been involved at Arsenal for 30 odd years. Its a secondary sponsorship deal. Its always involved the supply of cars for staff (I'll never forget the look of the giant Steve Bould crammed into a tiny Citroen Saxo many years ago at Highbury).I was amazed when I read that we renewed it again last year. It just indicates how useless the commercial side of things is at Arsenal.

Gazidis brings in a huge commercial team. They then hide behind the fact they are tied into the main contracts with Nike and Emirates until 2014, so you would think they have time to focus on other potential partnerships like United's training kit deal, but no, the best they can do is renew a deal with a secondary sponsor who have been around for over a generation.

IMO that deal for the sponsor names on the dugout seats should be worth a pretty penny considering it is seen EVERY match day on TV coverage.

Likewise if we are looking to expand into new markets than I'd have thought we'd look to use that to intice new partnerships from those new markets.
CAR from China, Kia / Hyundai from Korea, Toyota from Japan etc.
I think Citroen & France is for all intents and purposes an exhausted market to us & moreso now with PSG as a mega club.
I'm REALLY surprised we haven't done more re Japan considering AW's conections to Grampus & Miyaichi.

FYI a week earlier Chevy made seperate announcements within 3 days that they are the car partner/sponsor for BOTH ManU and LFC - commencing with their US tours this summer.
Presumably this will be akin to what we see from Citroen at The Grove.

Citroen have been involved at Arsenal for 30 odd years. Its a secondary sponsorship deal. Its always involved the supply of cars for staff (I'll never forget the look of the giant Steve Bould crammed into a tiny Citroen Saxo many years ago at Highbury).I was amazed when I read that we renewed it again last year. It just indicates how useless the commercial side of things is at Arsenal.

Gazidis brings in a huge commercial team. They then hide behind the fact they are tied into the main contracts with Nike and Emirates until 2014, so you would think they have time to focus on other potential partnerships like United's training kit deal, but no, the best they can do is renew a deal with a secondary sponsor who have been around for over a generation.

IMO that deal for the sponsor names on the dugout seats should be worth a pretty penny considering it is seen EVERY match day on TV coverage.

Likewise if we are looking to expand into new markets than I'd have thought we'd look to use that to intice new partnerships from those new markets.
CAR from China, Kia / Hyundai from Korea, Toyota from Japan etc.
I think Citroen & France is for all intents and purposes an exhausted market to us & moreso now with PSG as a mega club.
I'm REALLY surprised we haven't done more re Japan considering AW's conections to Grampus & Miyaichi.

I don't think the Citroen deal has anything to do with France. Its origins lie in the domestic market only. When the partnership originally started sports sponsorship was in its infancy. The benefits to Citroen would have been to dealers in the North London/Home Counties area.

I share your surprise at our failure in Japan. The second or third largest economy in the world.Most of that is based on the export of consumer goods from cars to electronics. Chelski have it right with Samsung. Thats a true global giant.Instead we announce deals for ''undisclosed amounts'' with soft drinks manufacturers in Nigeria

I appreciate that the value of the overseas market is often overestimated. Something like 90% (please correct me on this figure) of all football revenue is generated in the club's home market, but we really don't seem to have that side of things covered at all.

Likewise I can't believe we get nothing from the financial sector. We are the biggest club in the world's financial capital, yet the mega deals with banks and insurance companies (Standard Chartered, AON, Investec) are signed by Liverpool,United and Spurs.

I don't think the Citroen deal has anything to do with France. Its origins lie in the domestic market only. When the partnership originally started sports sponsorship was in its infancy. The benefits to Citroen would have been to dealers in the North London/Home Counties area.

I share your surprise at our failure in Japan. The second or third largest economy in the world.Most of that is based on the export of consumer goods from cars to electronics. Chelski have it right with Samsung. Thats a true global giant.Instead we announce deals for ''undisclosed amounts'' with soft drinks manufacturers in Nigeria

I appreciate that the value of the overseas market is often overestimated. Something like 90% (please correct me on this figure) of all football revenue is generated in the club's home market, but we really don't seem to have that side of things covered at all.

Likewise I can't believe we get nothing from the financial sector. We are the biggest club in the world's financial capital, yet the mega deals with banks and insurance companies (Standard Chartered, AON, Investec) are signed by Liverpool,United and Spurs.

IIRC Real generates a healthy proportion of it's merchandising & marketing from it's global markets - possibly more than the domestic market because of deals specific to those markets (like celebs doing Japanese beer commercials for the Japanese market only).

I think part of our issue is that we almost seem to be against wanting to become a genuine Super Club because it goes against our 'principles'.
That said I have absolutely no doubt that we CAN do so and remain debt free and self funding whilst spending 100m per season IF we wanted to.

Perhaps we should suggest to AW if he REALLY wants to give something back then we SHOULD become this Super Club sooner rather than later,
and then drop our ticket prices to feck all, and build academies globally to export our philosophies etc - because we then could do so.

Nothing odd about Liverpool's Standard Chartered deal. Its in the same size bracket as Bayern or Madrid's deals. In terms of popularity and global brand recognition Liverpool are still up there with the creme de la creme. I find it more surprising that a club like Spurs manages to get 12-15 million a year from shirt sponsorship than I do that Liverpool get 20-25.

Yes, there is something very odd about Liverpool's deal. Can't find the article anymore though, had some very interesting insights into that. And even without that detailed information, it again defeats the purpose of FFP, in that a **** team gets money to spend without actually earning it, similar to City's Etihad stadium deal. What's next, Nottingham Forest gets a €1bn deal because they are historically a big club? Shouldn't joke about that though, they already found themselves new investors.

Also, if I remember correctly, Bayern's deal is worth more (no surprise, by far the biggest club in Germany, the country with the most football watching fans and the richest relevant football country), but Real's deal is worth less than Liverpool's, which is frankly plain ridiculous.

The United deal is a monster, but there are three factors that explain it.

1) They are a huge attraction. Arguably bigger than the elite clubs I referred to in the previous paragraph.

2) They have always had an excellent commercial department that has been streets ahead of the competition.

3) Chevrolet is aggressively targeting the European and Asian markets in which they have never had a major presence. They bought Daewoo a few years ago as that marque already had a healthy marketshare in these regions. They still have to market aggressively as most Europeans wouldn't be seen dead in a Chevvy.Football fits into GM's marketing strategy. OPEL used to sponsor Bayern and Milan for amounts that were groundbreaking at that time.

Of course its a staggering amount, but the logic of Chevrolet sponsoring United is a very sound one.

I don't think you actually read my post. It's not about Chevrolet sponsoring United, of course any company in the world would like to be the sponsor of one of the world's most successful clubs. My post's focus was exclusively on the amount, a retarded amount that dwarfs the biggest deal in the world, Barca's Qatari deal, by more than the double. GM's reaction to immediately sack the man responsible for this deal says it all to me, this is something the company certainly was not planning to do, and they are caught in it because of the action of one of their ex-employees.

Still, to reply to your points:

1) Don't think you could say that United is a bigger attraction than Bayern or even Real, let alone Barcelona. There's not much between them, but Ronaldo, Manure's biggest player ever moving from Manure to Real and not the other way should be a hint. Barcelona is definitely a bigger attraction, no contest for me.

2) They have some employees with commercial prowess, true. Not sure about the "streets ahead" comment, think they come third or fourth in one of those many lists I've seen at Swiss Rambler. Bayern München overshadow every other club in that aspect.

3) Chevrolet has little to do with this I suspect, because the deal was engineered by GM. Don't know what Opel has to do with this at all, as I've already posted GM is still trying to recover from the crisis and they are looking to CUT marketing spending, not break records by throwing silly money at a club.

Likewise I can't believe we get nothing from the financial sector. We are the biggest club in the world's financial capital, yet the mega deals with banks and insurance companies (Standard Chartered, AON, Investec) are signed by Liverpool,United and Spurs.

That doesn't mean anything at all. My hometown club is located in the financial capital of mainland Europe (Frankfurt), every bank of the world has a branch office here, all German banks have their headquarters here and we're dead broke. We had to look for weeks to find a new shirt sponsor, and in the end we got a lousy brewery company (which produces beer that tastes like ****)

That doesn't mean anything at all. My hometown club is located in the financial capital of mainland Europe (Frankfurt), every bank of the world has a branch office here, all German banks have their headquarters here and we're dead broke. We had to look for weeks to find a new shirt sponsor, and in the end we got a lousy brewery company (which produces beer that tastes like ****)[/quote]


Haha, Eintracht Frankfurt. Prime example of a club that has been badly run over the years. In terms of potential that club could have been like Bayern. In reality its more like West Ham.

You did get your redeveloped stadium named by Commerzbank though. They pay more per year than Emirates do at Arsenal, so the banks haven't entirely let you down.

As far as the club itself is concerned, you know better than me that Eintracht are a yoyo club between Bundesliga 1 and 2 and have some reputation on the hooligan front. No success means the local following remains massive, but there are few fans beyond the immediate region. Thats why a local brewery, and not an international bank, sponsors the club.

Magnificent support though. Don't think we'll ever see that kind of support at Arsenal again

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMojbswC ... re=related

Haha, Eintracht Frankfurt. Prime example of a club that has been badly run over the years. In terms of potential that club could have been like Bayern. In reality its more like West Ham.

The club was run badly in the 90s and the beginning of the 2000's, but that's long been past. Dortmund had bigger financial difficulties, they went through a time of being irrelevant in the league and now they are back on top.

You did get your redeveloped stadium named by Commerzbank though. They pay more per year than Emirates do at Arsenal, so the banks haven't entirely let you down.

We didn't get anything. The stadium is owned by the city of Frankfurt, and the club has to pay nearly 10m every season for rent, and that's with a revenue of not even 70m.

As far as the club itself is concerned, you know better than me that Eintracht are a yoyo club between Bundesliga 1 and 2 and have some reputation on the hooligan front. No success means the local following remains massive, but there are few fans beyond the immediate region. Thats why a local brewery, and not an international bank, sponsors the club.

Eintracht haven't been a yoyo club until the 90s though, we've always been one of the top clubs of the league and came near winning it in the 80s/90s, we've won the UEFA cup in 1980 and the legendary CL final which we've lost against Real Madrid 3:7 is well-known, too. Of course it's not to be expected to get a huge deal with no success, but Liverpool finished three seasons below Top 6 when they got a shirt deal far better than anything they had before, and clubs like City or Chelsea also had their "investment" when they've been largely irrelevant. It's just whether you can find somebody who cares about the club and wants to see it successful, from an completely economic perspective Frankfurt is far more interesting than both Liverpool and Manchester, so you could say that an investment (no Chavski "investment" but actual, sensible deals that'll help the club and the investor) would have some chances of success.

Also, I can't let the point stand that we have a "hooligan problem". It's more the DFB (German FA) and bullshit media talks that are creating unrest among supporters, yes we have probably the most passionate fans in the league, and there are also a lot of users of pyro stuff (Bengal fires etc), but it's actually the retarded DFB that's worsening the situation by punishing the club for it, which again leaves some of those who are more resistant to learning in some kind of martyr "us against the world" feeling. Eintracht Frankfurt by the way is far from being the only club in Germany with this kind of problems, the DFB ****** many clubs over by punishing everyone.

Man United shares flat on New York debut

http://au.finance.yahoo.com/news/man-un ... 24234.html

I appreciate that the value of the overseas market is often overestimated. Something like 90% (please correct me on this figure) of all football revenue is generated in the club's home market, but we really don't seem to have that side of things covered at all.

Likewise I can't believe we get nothing from the financial sector. We are the biggest club in the world's financial capital, yet the mega deals with banks and insurance companies (Standard Chartered, AON, Investec) are signed by Liverpool,United and Spurs.

I know that a huge amount of our revenue comes from match day i.e. tickets, programs, hotdogs etc. I was reading that article (i think it is on the RVP transfer thread) and it says our income is aligned completely different from the vast majority of other clubs. Their revenue is aligned to sponsorship, t.v money, prize money etc hopefully once we remove the shackles of our current deal (7m from Nike compared to 25m for Man Utd) and we bridge that gap we will become a true power house. Match day revenue exceeds every other club in England and once our commerical deals match them we will be in a fantastic position. Obviously though we need to stay in the Champions League for exposure and begin to win the competitions we enter. With so many deals up for renewel in 2 years now would be the best time for us to gamble on success because we will reap the rewards in new deals if we win the league etc.

My post's focus was exclusively on the amount, a retarded amount that dwarfs the biggest deal in the world, Barca's Qatari deal, by more than the double. GM's reaction to immediately sack the man responsible for this deal says it all to me, this is something the company certainly was not planning to do, and they are caught in it because of the action of one of their ex-employees.

You got your facts wrong:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-0 ... -cars.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

That guy was sacked not immediately after the deal was announced, he was sacked because it was revealed that he was hiding details of the deal and was being dishonest. Any dishonest employee is guaranteed to lose his job if he's exposed as lying to his bosses.

Didn't know about this to be honest, but it doesn't change the fact that he got sacked on the day the deal got announced. It's somewhat to be expected that he didn't deal his superiors all details, if he got sacked for the deal afterwards.

That's not United's problem though is it? Their marketing team has done an amazing job securing that deal fair play to them however they did it. If there is any proof of wrong doing on their part I hope it comes out and they get sued and relegated to the conference league but until then the only thing we can be sure of is they have concluded a fantastic deal for themselves and one which raises the bar higher for the rest of us.

After all they are the most well supported sports team in the world in the most popular league in the world, they sell the most jerseys (not 100% sure but I would bet on it), they are the most valuable football brand and the most valuable football team. Its hardly the most controversial thing ever for them to secure the biggest sponsorship deal in world football.

and yet for all that success the annualised rate that they will get is only enought to cover the debts of the owner's purchase of the club. Man U should be leagues ahead of everyone else with the way they are set up commercially and how they get value out of being a big football club. But they have visibly had to pull back in the transfer market since the glazer's takeover and signings like kagawa and powell however well placed they may be are not typical ferguson signings, think more Hazard and Cavani.

The debt has held them back even thought the revenue has jumped up each year, my only hope is that we can recognise some of the value of arsenal FC and get similar deals.

That's not United's problem though is it? Their marketing team has done an amazing job securing that deal fair play to them however they did it. If there is any proof of wrong doing on their part I hope it comes out and they get sued and relegated to the conference league but until then the only thing we can be sure of is they have concluded a fantastic deal for themselves and one which raises the bar higher for the rest of us.

After all they are the most well supported sports team in the world in the most popular league in the world, they sell the most jerseys (not 100% sure but I would bet on it), they are the most valuable football brand and the most valuable football team. Its hardly the most controversial thing ever for them to secure the biggest sponsorship deal in world football.

Yes, it is controversial. If Barcelona, who are by far the most successful team of the last 5 years, get a deal worth 10 billion, it would be controversial too, and a deal that more than doubles the highest deal so far is controversial no matter how you put it.
Even so, your facts are wrong anyways. They are the most valuable football brand in the opinion of some guys at Forbes (who also have Tottenham higher valued than Inter), not too sure how that would be an objective representation, and they sure as **** are not the most valuable team. Do you seriously think Manure's squad is worth as much as Real's or Barcelona's?
I'm also pretty sure that Real make the highest amounts in shirt sales (read it on several occasions), Barcelona have definitely more supporters and if you're talking supporting members, then Benfica are the world's leading club.

They didn't get that deal because of their "amazing" marketing department but due to the sheer incompetence of the man in charge of one of the world's largest marketing budgets, either that or they bribed the living **** out of him.

Makes me sick to my stomach to read the media praising Manure and riding Fungus' **** every day, don't need that **** here too.