Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber realizes the standard of play in the United States will lag behind that of its global counterparts if we aren't . So partnerships, investments, more preseasons in Europe or South America, anything that will make MLS more global is what he's talking about. Click to continue reading...

The mask now seems likely to slip. After seventeen years of wearing a mask of opulence and limitless wealth, the Premier League self-made reputation as The Richest League In The World will face its most severe test yet, as Portsmouth face the inevitable and collapse into administration. Their only reasonable prospect of avoiding administration would be to find new owners by the end of the week, which is an admission in itself that the club has simply been unable to find the new investors that had been talked about as being the next people to try and sort the carnage at Fratton Park out.

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In a statement on the clubs website, Portsmouth FC owner, Balram Chainrai, has announced that unless new owners can be found by this coming Friday 26th February the cash strapped club will enter administration. Chainrai, has been meeting potential investors in London all week however he has admitted it is unlikely that new investors will be found before the clubs winding up hearing.

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Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez would welcome any new investors into the club but remains to be convinced of their impending arrival.
Reports suggest two tycoons from the sub-continent are competing for bids to buy a significant stake in the club.
However, representatives of Mukesh Ambani, head of Reliance Industries and the wealthiest man in India and seventh richest in the world, denied claims he was interested in doing business with Liverpool's co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett. Click to continue reading...

We all know about the Bundesliga's 50+1 rule, yes? It's not an extreme interpretation of Sepp Blatter's 6+5, but rather a league rule ensuring that investors can not own more than 49% of any Bundesliga club. This prevents the clubs being taken over by an Abramovich, Glazer, Hicks/Gillett or Sheikh Mansour. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool FC hope to revitalise their plans to build a 60,000-seat stadium by bringing in new investors before the end of the season.
With plans to move to a new stadium in Stanley Park currently on hold, Liverpool FC have begun the search for new funding to bring them back on track.
Managing director Christian Purslow said: "When I arrived we agreed with the owners that we had to look for new investors. Click to continue reading...

The movement to oust the debt laden Glazer regime is gathering pace with news that city banker and United fan, Keith Harris, has been talking to the Manchester United Supporters Trust about forming alliances with fan groups and a wealthy group of investors known as the 'Red Knights'. The chairman of Seymour Pierce brokered the Thaksin Shinawatra takeover of Manchester City. Click to continue reading...

Manchester United now owe creditors a mind boggling £716.5m ($1.17bn), according to its latest accounts. This is the first time that United's debts have passed £700m

The company, called Red Football Joint Venture, is owned by the Glazer family and they secured its debts against the football club as part of its United takeover in 2005.

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The Los Angeles Sol is being sold by Anschutz Entertainment Group, which also operates the Galaxy, to a group of local investors. The pending sale, which the league says could be done by the coming week, comes as no surprise. The team reportedly lost around $2 million last year and AEG had always said that their involvement with the Sol and WPS was temporary. Click to continue reading...

photo credit: wonker

In a bold move for someone who is the relative of a team owner and not the owner himself the brother of Portsmouth owner Ali Al-Faraj is taking his case to the British press.

Basically, Ahmed Al-Faraj is saying that his brother is throwing money at Portsmouth only to be hounded by the fans and the press for being a degenerate owner.

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Five years ago yesterday for Wizards fans will bring many mixed feelings. Yesterday was the five year anniversary of Lamar Hunt announcing that he was putting the Wizards up for sale. I say that this brings mixed feelings because at the time it brought rage, fear, and frustration to most if not all Wizards fans. Click to continue reading...

And it didn't happen by e-mail.Rather thay trashed the offices of AEK literally.Dumping garbage cans inside,grafitting the walls inside an out,they certainly sent out a warning that this was only the beginning if things are not sorted out quickly.Reports from Greece,on one hand are saying that Kozonis is threatening to pull out altogether as his figures put AEK'S debt at above 40 million euros,and the other side saying he hasn't got the money needed.

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Yes, I know we have been so incredibly lucky lately, but for a bit of bad news, it looks like the deal with Kozonis might not go through, at least not yet.

Notias was supposed to meet with Kozonis yesterday, however, we started hearing things about rain in New York preventing Notias from flying out.

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Quick post to congratulate Paul Barber, our Executive Director, on the comments regarding finding new investors for the branding of our new stadium.
When asked if Chelsea's plan of renaming Stamford Bridge would coincide with us finding suitable investment, the Barbarian simply commented;
"It's now two London clubs looking for naming-rights partners and potential sponsors have a choice - an old, established stadium in Stamford Bridge, or our new state-of-the-art stadium. Click to continue reading...

MESSAGE TO RAFA:
SPEND IT WISELY!
Latest rumours suggest that fresh capital is finally about to be injected into the club by the hated Hicks and Gillette selling up to 30% of their joint holding to new investors in a hope to raise £100 million for the club.
Some of that money is supposedly for the new stadium, although I doubt that, much of it will go on repaying the debt. Click to continue reading...

No surprise there, then: in a tanking economy where even the nation's most popular league, the NFL, has had trouble selling tickets and Major League Baseball's attendance fell 6.9%, it's not a shock to learn that as Soccer America reports, MLS' attendance fell overall by 2.9% in the regular season just concluded, falling from 16,460 in 2008 to 16,037.

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It's many years down the road, but there is already talk of how the U.S. economy would be affected by hosting the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022. A recent study conducted by the Economics practice at a leading sports consulting firm (AECOM) indicated that the U.S. would receive a potential boost of $5 billion if it were to host the World Cup.

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I know we are still in the first part of the football season but it seems to me that some changes might occur at the top of the football chain. Some teams that always have made a good impression are getting worse.
Some examples are Bayern Munchen and AC Milan. Both teams played in the UEFA Cup in recent years and this year they are having weak runs in the domestic leagues with Bayern in 6th position and Milan in 8th. Click to continue reading...

There has been much talk lately of the possible sale of Milan to a number of investors, most notably Rezart Taci the Albanian oil tycoon. I have for one have advocated that perhaps it is time for Silvio to sell and move on. Milan are really struggling this season as a result of Silvio's refusal [...] Click to continue reading...

A prospectus published in March 2009 suggests that Liverpool's net summer spending will be fixed at £20m a season until 2014. Is this enough money for Rafa Benitez to effectively compete in the transfer market?
The prospectus also revealed:
* The £20m figure would also include wage increases arising from contract renewals. Click to continue reading...

The Liverpool FC Stadium was scheduled to be completed by summer of 2010 but because of the global economic downturn that date will be moved back some. The brand new $600 million stadium was originally going to have a seating capacity of over 60,000 though that number has been significantly raised to include over 73,000 seats.

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The Liverpool FC have confirmed rumors that they are looking for more investors who could own part of the team. Current owners George Gillett Jr. and Tom Hicks have said that they are looking to find someone who could help finance their new stadium and front their current $424.

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liverpool craigslist > for sale / wanted > general for sale

Shares of a sports team for sale (no they're not) yes they are! - £250m (Anfield)

Hi! I'm George and this is Tom and we're the owners of the Liverpool Reds Soccer Franchise.

Do you have billions of non-American dollars?

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Liverpool owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett have confirmed they are looking for investment in the club.
Following the appearance of Saudi Prince Faisal bin Fahd bin Abdullah al-Saud in the stands with the Americans at the weekend; the pair released a statement confirming they had retained Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Rothschild to evaluate the possibility of an outside injection of equity into the club. Click to continue reading...

A long press conference was held a few days ago by team president Thanopoulos. The president spoke for a couple of hours on a number of issues. Some of the highlights were:

-Firstly, he confirmed that things around the team are now calm. We have achieved our goals in terms of transfers and reaching the Europa League Group Stages

-The team is now on much more solid ground, financially.

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Wrighty defends his academy investments Ex-Arsenal star Ian Wright has hit back at suggestions that he is exploiting South African children at a football academy. The head of the South African FA accused him of "raping the country, then running away". Wright is one of a group of investors in the Cape United academy. Click to continue reading...

The following article has been submitted by forum member Henry Irving.

Six weeks ago when the idea of a Supporters' Trust was floated it was greeted with generally positive response. Even those who were sceptical mostly took a "let's wait and see" stance. The organisation that oversees the 140 trusts across the UK was amazed that 50 people would turn up for an initial meeting such was the response.

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Some of you may remember the scandal of result fixture in the 2005 Campeonato Brasileiro. At the time, referees Edílson Pereira de Carvalho and Paulo José Danelon were caught being bribed by "investors" to fix results that would benefit their bets in international websites. When caught, Carvalho was even jailed and confessed his participation.

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The whole soccer world went crazy for a couple hours yesterday when everyone was convinced Liverpool coach Rafa Benitez was gonna quit.
Well he's not.
At least not yet.
Now the links:

• Galaxy win, sans Beckham. [MLSnet]
  
• Some offensive shirt sold online.

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The Guardian reports that the sale of Newcastle United is imminent. Apparently Ashley is being urged to accept a bid from a consortium led by Tyneside businessman Barry Moat. It is thought that Moat, who has financial backing from investors in the United States, is Keith Harris's preferred bidder. The Guardian speculates that if Moat gets [. Click to continue reading...

Well it was bound to happen - and it seems like it is going to happen. The UEFA is finally concerned that players are getting paid too much money. With players getting some of the highest paid sports contracts in the world only clubs with deep pockets are able to compete.

UEFA President Michel Platini voices concern over player pay inflation.

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Well, a press conference was held a few days back with regards to the new investors who were mentioned the post before. The deal has been confirmed, as most people expected, but still the names have not been revealed. Even at AEK only a few people (Notias, maybe Thanopoulos) know who they are.

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So, AEK has been on the news all day, and everyday, for the past few days. The reason why? It looks like two Cypriot investors (the identities have not yet been revealed) are going to invest a large sum of money. I can't remember the exact details but I believe one of the Cypriot investors will be investing seven million euros, another will invest two million, and the shareholders already with AEK will add another six million, meaning that overall, fifteen million euros will be invested into the team.

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Bad news for Pisa. The Tuscan club today announced that they do not have the necessary funds to register for the 2009-2010 season and instead of playing in the Lega Pro First Division (Serie C1) next season, they will have to start at the amateur level in Serie D. Pisa is a popular club with a die-hard fan base, and last played in Serie A in 1990.

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If approved, financed and built it will be called South Coast Soccer City.

I'm told it will look very similar to the picture that accompanies the story.

The usual crew of anonymous bigots has hijacked the comment section at the bottom of the story, so allow me to clarify one thing: no taxpayer money is involved.

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The return of Mario Been at Feyenoord brought hope to Rotterdam. Almost 12,000 fans gathered in De Kuip to welcome Feyenoord's fave son back, when he started training in Rotterdam. And Been had good news too: "I know an x-number of investors have agreed to help us, so I do feel Click to continue reading...

"We will shrink our squad and add four to six players," he said. "But there are two things going on. One, a general view of Arab investors and two, a whole hierarchy within football where there is a group of clubs that fall within the hierarchy and the clubs that fall outside don't have a seat at the table and shouldn't even demand one.

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UK pay-television sports broadcaster Setanta underwent emergency talks yesterday to refinance the business and save it from administration, according to a source close to the company. The group is a privately-backed company whose shareholders include its management team and investors. The source was keen to emphasise that the business was not [. Click to continue reading...

The US and Irish assets of Setanta Sports could be sold to raise financing to bail out Setanta UK, according to The Guardian newspaper.

Setanta UK is desperately trying to raise money between now and Monday to make a £30m payment it owes to the Premier League. As a result, Setanta is looking at all of its assets and are in talks with numerous investors to raise the necessary cash.

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The Telegraph are reporting that a deal for Newcastle United is imminent. The offer, thought to be in the region of £100 million, comes from a group of local investors.

The investors are due to meet with representatives of Mike Ashley tomorrow (Sunday), to facilitate a deal. There are thought to be four separate investors looking through the Newcastle United's finances as a deal could be completed within a fortnight.

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