The Football League may have temporary saved Portsmouth by supplementing cash to the Championship side and allow the club to finish out the season.

There were fears that the Fratton Park club would be unable to fulfil their fixtures this term due to their financial woes after being plunged into administration for the second time in two years last month.

That could have thrown the competition into disarray, with Pompey’s results being expunged from the records and raising questions over the integrity of the league due to the impact on the promotion and relegation battles.

Administrator Trevor Birch revealed on Wednesday evening that the Football League had agreed to release a total of £800,000 to the South Coast side, in four payments of £200,000, which should stave off the immediate threat of closure.

Birch said: “I am pleased to confirm that there have been some positive developments at Portsmouth Football Club over the last few days. I have held constructive talks with The Football League, who have been incredibly supportive.

“The league will now resume payment of the club’s Basic Award monies which are normally paid on a monthly basis to all Football League clubs.

“For clubs in the Championship, they amount to around £200,000 a month. The league has confirmed that we will receive the four outstanding payments for the current season as and when they fall due, subject to any outstanding balances owed to other clubs.

“This money will go a long way towards plugging the club’s financial gap and allowing us to complete the season.

“This is clearly a very positive step but I wish to emphasise that we are not out of the woods yet.

“The additional money buys us more time but it does not solve the club’s problems and it does not guarantee the club’s survival.

“But thanks to this and other initiatives currently being considered by the joint administrators, which may include further player loans, we should be able to get to the end of the season.”

A Football League spokesman said: “As in all insolvency situations, The Football League is focused on the ultimate survival of the club for its supporters and the wider community.

“We will now continue working with the administrator to achieve a successful re-structuring of the club.”

by Ismail Uddin

The Rugby Football Union have announced they will stream live coverage of England’s remaining QBE autumn internationals on YouTube to 28 countries.

England tackle Australia at Twickenham on Saturday and then face South Africa and world champions New Zealand over the next two weekends.

In a first for international rugby, the matches will be streamed in markets outside the United Kingdom that currently do not broadcast the games, including Spain, Sweden, Russia, Turkey and Portugal.

Scottish Premier League Champions, Glasgow Rangers are looking for a quick sale to end their financial woes.

David Whitehouse, Joint Administrator, said: “We are announcing today we are accelerating the sale of Rangers Football Club.

“The Club is in a perilous financial situation and that should not be under-estimated. Regrettably, we have been unable to agree cost-cutting measures with the playing staff on terms that will preserve value in the business. We understand the players’ position as the scale of wage cuts required to achieve these savings without job losses were very substantial indeed.

“In view of this, we are faced with a situation of making redundancies within the playing staff on such a scale that would materially erode the value of the playing squad. We are striving to strike a balance where cost-cutting measures can be implemented but do not destroy the fabric of the playing squad to the extent that it will inhibit the prospect of a sale.

“However, no one should be in any doubt that in the absence of sufficient cost-cutting measures or receipt of substantial unplanned income, the Club will not be able to fulfil its fixtures throughout the remainder of the season.

“As a result, we are expediting the sale process and over the next few days we will be holding discussions with prospective purchasers who have declared their interest. The Manager, Ally McCoist will play an integral part in thesediscussions.

“If however it becomes apparent that the sale process cannot be accelerated there will be no choice but to implement very severe cost cutting measures at the Club.”

by Ismail Uddin

Indra Nooyi, generic buy chairman and chief executive of PepsiCo, has accepted an invitation to join the board of directors for the USA bid committee aiming to host the 2018 or 2022 Fifa World Cup, according to the US Soccer Federation.

Indian-born Nooyi is a renowned leader in the business world and oversees PepsiCo employees in over 200 countries.

Other members on the board of directors include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg,comedian Drew Carey, former boxer Oscar De La Hoya, American soccer stars Landon Donovan and Mia Hamm, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, former U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger, director Spike Lee, actor Brad Pitt and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Chairman of the bid committee and president of US Soccer, Sunil Gulati, said: “Indra Nooyi has the same gift in developing and overseeing innovative corporate strategy as she does inspiring the people around her and everyone she meets.

“It’s that kind of leadership that will be important to our efforts, and for that reason we are fortunate to welcome Indra to our team. Indra and PepsiCo are also longtime friends of US Soccer so their familiarity with our mission will be extremely beneficial in the months ahead.”

 

The Scottish Premier League will continue to air on Gaelic TV channel, BBC Alba, after a new deal was struck.

It will see Clydesdale Bank Premier League games broadcast live on BBC Alba for the first time. BBC Alba’s previous deal was for delayed match coverage only.

Three live matches will be shown this season and three more during the 2013-14 season.

Delayed full match coverage of a further 35 games per season will be shown at 17:30 on Saturdays.

The first live game will be Ross County versus Inverness Caledonian Thistle on 2 January with kick off at 15:05.

Commentary for the games will be in Gaelic.

Neil Doncaster, chief executive of the SPL, commented on the deal: “This new partnership will allow us to reach far and wide into new audiences and communities across Scotland.

“The SPL already has two live television deals in place with Sky Sports and ESPN.

“We look forward to growing our relationship with BBC Alba to promote Clydesdale Bank Premier League football, and the Gaelic language, even further over the next two seasons.”

Alan Esslemont, head of content for BBC Alba, added: “The Clydesdale Bank Premier League continues to be hugely popular with fans across the country.

“We are delighted to be able to return live Clydesdale Bank Premier League football to free-to-air television throughout Scotland and the UK for this first time since 2004.”

Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) has acquired the final 30 per cent stake in football club Paris Saint-Germain, making the French Ligue 1 leaders wholly-owned by their Qatari investors.

The US investment fund Colony Capital sold its 30 percent stake in the football club, a company source said. 

The source said that the sale “was envisaged from the start” and comes after QSI had already bought 70 percent of Colony’s controlling stake in PSG a little less than a year ago.

Under the terms of the deal, Colony held an option to sell its remaining stake that it could exercise at any moment, the source added.

The financial news site Wansquare earlier said that the transfer price of the balance of Colony’s shares puts the club’s overall value at 100 million euros ($132 million) or 30 percent more than the price QSI paid last year to take control.

Colony said it would not be commenting when contacted by AFP.

PSG finished fourth in France last season, just missing out on the Champions League football tournament but securing a place in the Europa League.

They were also beaten by double-winners Lille in the French Cup final.

The cash-rich Qataris, headed by Nasser Al-Khelaifi who is also president of Doha-based Al Jazeera television, have set out plans for the French giants to challenge for the title in France as well as in Europe.

Al-Khelaifi was quoted as saying by Italy’s Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper on Tuesday that he expected to invest 100 million euros on the transfer market in the years to come to build a strong team.

The figure was “normal for a top-ranking club” he said, adding: “We prefer to invest a lot and immediately. We will spend this amount for the next five or six years then the investments will slow.”

Among the big-money signings since QSI took over has been Argentina’s Javier Pastore, who was bought last year from Palermo for 42 million euros.

by Ismail Uddin

PERFORM, the digital sports specialist, has appointed Matt Kelly to the new position of managing director at PERFORM publishing.

Kelly will be responsible for building new audiences and revenue streams across a number of sports from January next year.

He will join form Trinity Mirror, where he is currently digital content director of Mirror Group and was in charge of the recently launched Mirrorfootball.co.uk and 3am.co.uk.

Kelly said: “I’ve had 16 brilliant years with the Mirror and am incredibly proud of everything the digital team has achieved here – particularly Mirror Football and 3am.co.uk, but now it’s time for a fresh challenge.”

PERFORM joint-chief executive Simon Denyer added: “PERFORM now generates and accesses more sports video, editorial and data than any other media company in the world so we wanted to bring someone in with creative drive and a proven track record to take these assets and create a range of new direct-to-consumer sports channels.

“Following the resounding success of ePlayer, which is now the world’s leading premium sports VOD broadcaster with 31 million unique users a month, we have hired Matt to launch and manage other new mass audience initiatives.”

generic helvetica, decease sans-serif;”>The Premier League has awarded the live audio visual broadcast rights to Cable Thai Holdings for seasons 2013-16 in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Scudamore, said: “We are extremely pleased to have a new partner in Cable Thai Holdings (CTH) in Thailand, Cambodia and Laos. CTH has an excellent reputation as a high quality broadcaster and we look forward to working with them as they deliver a premium offering that will showcase the Barclays Premier League to our fans in all three countries.”

CTH Chairman Wichai Tongtang said, “Our win of the Barclays Premier League rights is a win for CTH and also all the people of Thailand all over the Kingdom. With our proposed delivery model and technology we aim to make the BPL accessible to all walks of life in Thailand in an affordable and engaging manner. The Barclays Premier League is the most exciting, popular and fervently supported football league in the world today and we are thus proud to be partners with the BPL.”

Blackpool’s chairman Karl Oyston has attempted to defend paying £11m to his father Owen Oyston, allergist who is also the club’s majority shareholder, for being a director in the season Blackpool were relegated from the Premier League.

The story was first reported by the Mail on Sunday and has led to almost unanimous criticism of the Oystons by fans of the club, politicians, supporters’ organisations and, privately or via associates, by players.

The £11m sum equates to earnings of £211,538 a week and as such put Owen Oyston among the highest earners in world football in 2010-11, a season that ended with Blackpool’s return to the Championship.

The £11m – paid to Zabaxe Ltd, one of many companies owned by Owen Oyston – was not for the repayment of any specific loan or investment in Blackpool, a club he has owned since 1987. It was a straight cash payment for being a director for a year.

An interview with Karl Oyston in The Gazette newspaper in Blackpool has been published today. For now it is only available in full to those who buy the paper, although it will be online in full later. Extracts and summaries are already appearing on message boards.

The paper suggests Karl Oyston arguing his dad is a genuine fan who saved the club in 1987, who has lent money to keep it running, and who doesn’t deserve criticism now.

Karl Oyston said: “Any negatives about the management [of the club], the prudent stance, the slow pace of change, whatever, should be aimed at me and not my dad.”

Oyston Jnr gives no details of his family’s net financial contribution to the club, and intimates that the £11m is better off in the hands of his father than being spent on players and agents.

He says the £11m “isn’t gone like it would be in the pockets of a player or an agent.”

A minority of fans have argued in the past 24 hours that as Owen Oyston owns the club and has helped to sustain it since the late 1980s, he is entitled to do what he pleases with record earnings amassed from the Premier League season.

Without detailed access to every transaction in the past 25 years, it is impossible to know what the Oystons net contribution has been in that time.

However, taking reported figures relating to transfer dealings over that period, early estimations are that the club has made a net profit from transfers of around £6.5m between 1987 and now.

And looking at headline club profits and losses each year – which have tended to be mostly losses in the hundreds of thousands per year, and occasional profits – the club lost around £8m in normal trading in the Oyston era up to 2008-09.

In other words, factoring in trading losses and transfer profits, it doesn’t appear there has been net investment of many millions over the period, and perhaps none at all, net.

The accounts for Blackpool’s parent company Segesta for 2010-11 show details of grants given to the club to improve facilities, including £2,450,000 from the Football Stadia Improvement Fund, which is being amortised over a long period from 2002.

In the year 2009-10, Blackpool posted a loss of £6.7m in the promotion season (mostly bonuses, paid on the basis of the Premier League bonanza ahead), and then posted £20.9m profits for the 2010-11 season, even after the £11m payment to Owen Oyston.

On top of the £11m in 2010-11, it seems that Owen Oyston has also been paid £6.5m by Blackpool FC for some land he bought from the club for £650,000 some years ago.

Of this £6.5m, a sum of £4,899,000 was paid by the club to Oyston in the 2010-11 financial year, and the balance by 30 August 2011.

Crudely, and not taking into account any management or development costs, it seems Oyston has made just shy of £6m profit from Blackpool FC on that land deal. Together with his £11m, that makes £17m from the relegation year to Oyston.

A wide range of other Oyston companies do business with Blackpool and the club’s parent company, Segesta, and a variety of payments pass back and forwards between them.

Karl Oyston tells The Gazette that he is used to criticism of himself and can handle it but that criticism of his father is “completely misplaced.”

by Ismail Uddin

ESPN has agreed a 12-year deal to broadcast the Orange Bowl.

The Atlantic Coast Conference and the Orange Bowl Committee also revealed that the Discover Orange Bowl will annually feature the ACC Champion against an opponent from the Big Ten Conference, Southeastern Conference or University of Notre Dame for the same period that begins following the 2014 season.

The historic bowl game will either be played in an exclusive prime-time window New Year’s Eve or on New Year’s Day, pending the schedule of the new collegiate postseason playoff games.

The selection of the opponent will be based on the guiding principle of securing the highest-ranked team in the final standings available from the Big Ten, SEC or Notre Dame, but will also utilize criteria that shares the minimum appearance standards as agreed upon by all parties. The standards include at least three guaranteed appearances over the 12 years for both the Big Ten and the SEC and a maximum of two with no minimum for Notre Dame.

“We are pleased to have finalized our long-term partnership which brings tremendous exposure and value to the ACC and our member institutions,” said ACC Commissioner John Swofford. “The Discover Orange Bowl has a rich history of prestige and featuring our teams against opponents from the Big Ten, SEC and potentially Notre Dame provides attractive matchups year in and year out. The opportunity to partner with ESPN to showcase the game on either New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day provides us with a terrific way for fans to ring in the New Year in South Florida.”

“The Orange Bowl Committee is truly excited about the completion of our bowl matchup with the ACC Champion by solidifying that their opponent will be from either the Big Ten, SEC or Notre Dame, at a special time of year in beautiful South Florida. Undoubtedly this arrangement will provide tremendous national visibility and generate significant economic impact to the South Florida Community,” said O. Ford Gibson, Orange Bowl Committee president and chair. “The Orange Bowl values our special partnership with the Atlantic Coast Conference, as we are looking forward to strengthening our already deep relationships with the Big Ten, SEC and Notre Dame.”

“Our continued media partnership with ESPN is of great importance to the Discover Orange Bowl property,” said Eric Poms, Orange Bowl Committee chief executive officer. “The worldwide leader in sports brings the optimal platform to annually showcase one of college football’s great traditions.”

“A game pitting the ACC champion against the SEC, Big Ten or Notre Dame ensures a great match up for sports fans,” said John Skipper, ESPN President. “The Orange Bowl has a great history and we are very proud to be part of extending that into the next decade.”

“We are very excited to reach agreement with the ACC to provide a highly regarded football opponent at the Orange Bowl following select seasons from 2014-2026,” said Big Ten Commissioner James E. Delany.  “The ACC plays great college football and our fans have a deep respect for the historic Orange Bowl tradition.  If previous Orange Bowl appearances are any indicator, I am confident that our fans will travel in great numbers to South Florida; and that those who can’t be there in person, will tune in to ESPN to watch these exciting postseason contests.”

“The tradition of the SEC playing in the Orange Bowl began over 75 years ago and since that time we have played in 39 Orange Bowls,” said SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. “We are pleased to renew this long standing relationship with the Orange Bowl and appreciate having the opportunity to compete in front of a national audience on ESPN against the ACC.”

The Discover Orange Bowl has been the home of the ACC Champion since 2006 and in the first seven years of partnership, five different ACC teams have competed. Throughout the 78-year history, nine of the current ACC institutions have played in at least one Orange Bowl.