The Political Economy of Football V2

Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball summarises the 2020/21 accounts of Huddersfield Town. Revenue £45m down 23%; wages £25m 19%; operating loss £5m.   Player purchases £2m and player sales £21m Borrowings £44m. Huddersfield bought players for £2m and sold players (who originally cost £71m!) for £21m.   The club borrowed £15m in 2020/21 but paid back loans of £27m to end up with overall borrowings of £44m. Total income was down partly due to second season of parachute payments which are lower by about £7m.   Broadcast income 90% of total for Huddersfield.    This is likely to fall to about £16m in 2021/22.   C ommercial income (including loan fees) down 70% mainly because loans were over £5.6m in 2019/20 and only £0.6m in 2020/2.   Matchday income (which may include iFollow) was down by more than half due to lockdown. Biggest cost for clubs is player based. Wages down and £55 for every £100 of income, a good ratop. Average wage was £11k a week, lower than the Championship aver

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire has cast his eye over the accounts of relegation threatened Oldham Athletic and says they are technically insolvent, but half the football clubs in England are.  There is no immediate threat of entering administration:  https://www.theoldhamtimes.co.uk/sport/20031160.football-finance-expert-assesses-oldham-athletics-accounts/ Asked to name clubs who have ever been in the Premier League, Oldham often attract a zero score on quiz show Pointless.  It's been a sad saga, but it is not easy to be a club on the outskirts of Greater Manchester with two top six clubs nearby.   Congratulations to the fans who remain loyal through thick and mainly thin.

The tireless and authoritative Swiss Ramble has surfaced from his Zurich bunker to comment on the latest Deloitte Money League.  I highlight some of his fascinating tweets here. Revenue has obviously been significantly impacted by COVID-19. Deloitte estimate that the Money league clubs have missed out on well over €2 bn of revenue over the 2019/20 and 2020/21 season as a result of the pandemic. That said, Top 20 Money League clubs’ 2020/21 revenue was more or less unchanged at £7.2 bn, despite match day and commercial falling £995m (91%) and £196m (6%) respectively, as this was compensated by broadcasting rising £1.2 bn (43%), largely due to deferred 2019/20 money. Revenue for Top 20 clubs was basically flat at €8.2 bn, which is €1.1 bn (12%) lower than 2019 peak of €9.3 bn, though still 3rd highest ever total. Moreover, revenue has more than doubled from €3.9 bn in 2009, growth led by broadcasting €2.9 bn and commercial €2.3 bn. Broadcasting rose €1.3 bn (43%) from €3.2 bn to

Club accounts are now arriving at a fast and furious pace.  AFC  Bournemouth are on their second year of parachute payments, but are hopeful of a return to the Premier League. The club’s first season back in England’s second tier saw revenue streams limited due to COVID, but despite having no matchday revenue, the club recorded an operating profit of £23.6 million.   This is rather unusual for a Championship club who often make big losses as they pursue promotion.    The Cherries have cut their cloth to meet their situation, but are still enjoying a good if sometimes variable level of success on the pitch. Revenue at £77m was down 25 per cent.   Wages at £57m were down 47%.     Operating loss was £33m down 56%. Player sale profits at £56m up 143%.    (Reports Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball). Before tax, the club recorded profits of £17m, and after posting losses of £60.1m in 2020, the directors now “consider the financial position of the club to be satisfactory at 30 Jun

Everton have published their annual accounts and they place Covid in centre stage in terms of explaining losses:  https://www.evertonfc.com/news/2554039   Revenue was £193m up 4%; wages £183m up 11%; operating loss £103m 13%; player sale profits £13m down £27m.   Accumulated losses over time £447m.   (Reports Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball). Main income source is broadcast which was up £48m because 44 games played in year to 30 June 2021 compared to 32 in 2020.    Commercial revenue down nearly £30m as in 2020 the Usmanov backed naming rights option for the stadium boosted figures for Everton. The main expense is player related. Wages continue to rise, up almost £100m in the Moshiri era. Everton is the 2nd biggest payer of the 'Other 14' clubs. Wages were £98 for every £100 of income, highest in the Premier League. Everton player sales are modest by EPL standards.   Everton bought players for £81m and had sales of £16m (of players who originally cost £129m) in the

As we are learning in the context of Ukraine, there are different types of neutrality.   The Swiss went for armed neutrality which meant that anyone trying to invade them would incur significant costs. From his fastness in Zurich, the Swiss Ramble comments with analytical authority on the accounts of leading clubs, maintaining dispassionate neutrality (mostly) while he does so.    I wouldn’t think that he takes prisoners though.    Today it is the turn of Southampton to be subjected to his scrutiny. Their pre-tax loss narrowed from £76m to £23m, as revenue rose £30m (24%) from £127m to £157m, profit on player sales increased £2m from £14m to £16m and operating expenses fell £25m (12%). Net interest payable was up £6m to £9m. Loss after tax was down from £62m to £15m. The £23m loss is not great, but it’s one of the better financial results reported so far in 2020/21. A full year of the pandemic resulted in some very high losses, e.g. Chelsea £156m, Arsenal £127m. Saints have now

The £3bn sale of Chelsea football club moved one step closer this week, with two investment groups backed by US billionaires leading the pack in a hotly contested auction being handled by merchant bankers at Raine Group according to the Financial Times .   Other accounts, for example in The Times, argue that there are still four in the race. According to the Thunderer there is a bid in contention from Stephen Pagiluca, an America private equity executive who is joint owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team and the 55 per cent owner of Atalanta in Serie A.   The private investment firm he co-chairs has assets of £118m. As seen by the Pink ‘Un,  Todd Boehly , the financier and co-owner of baseball’s  Los Angeles Dodgers , is up against private equity tycoons  Josh Harris   and  David Blitzer  in the bidding for one of sport’s highest-profile assets, although there’s still an outside chance of a dark horse winner. US billionaires have turned to members of the British establishme

Financial life at the wrong end of League Two and the National League is revealed in figures provided by Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball. Colchester United lost £50,000 a week in 2020/21 to take total accumulated losses of £33.5 million.   Colchester’s existence is due to the continued funding by the parent company who have lent over £29 million.   By the end of 2020/21 Colchester’s squad cost nothing. Oldham’s (unaudited) accounts show a profit of just over £100k in 2020/21 to reduce overall losses to over £5.2 million. The club is technically insolvent and has total liabilities of over £4m with a possible extra £882k due to “taxes and custom duties’. Aldershot Town lost £97k in 2020/21 but still had bash in the bank at the end of the season. Total losses over the years exceed £1.6m

Peterborough lost almost £90,000 a week from day to day operations but sale of Tomey offset most of these losses. Loan interest up x12 took loss before tax to £1m, reports Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball. Peterborough spent £9m more cash than the club generated in day to day activities, partly due to COVID. Player sales brought in £4.8m cash and the club borrowed a net £6.2m from owners.    Peterborough spent £2.35m on players in 2020/21 and had sales of £4.95m Peterborough istechnically insolvent but owner loans and commitment aim to cover the going concern issue. Total losses exceed £16.5m.    Peterborough loans, mainly due to owners,   up from £7.4m to £13.6m Peterborough wage bill up despite staff numbers probably due to promotion bonuses. Wages were £103 for every £100 of income.    Many Championship clubs have far higher (worse) ratios. Peterborough claimed £395k in furlough in 2020/21. The big challenge for the Posh is to stop being a yo-yo club between the Champ

HM Treasury has amended the special licence under which Chelsea is operating.  Parent company Fordham is to be allowed to inject £30m into the club to 'resolve any cash flow or liquidity issues'.   This money could be used to pay bills and player salaries until the sale is resolved. A government official said: 'We're very mindful of the financial situation and getting it through to the sale.'  Consideration was given to allow a commercial ticket agency to sell tickets but issues arose over sharing the club's database. The club is allowed to resume selling new tickets under certain conditions.   Away fans will be allowed to buy tickets.   The club can sell tickets to all Champions League matches, FA Cup games and for the Women's Super League.   Home tickets can be sold for the WSL. The proceeds will go to competition organisers such as Uefa and the FA.

Old Trafford is looking a bit tired like Manchester United, but talk of demolishing it and redeveloping it wholesale is OTT.  United may be a disappointing side at the moment but home games still sell out and there’s still a waiting list for season tickets.   It also remains attractive as a football tourist destination, a market that will hopefully start to revive after Covid-19 diminishes in impact, although clearly the war in Ukraine creates new uncertainties. The South Stand — the Sir Bobby Charlton Stand — is the last unexpanded area at Old Trafford. It’s sandwiched in a fairly narrow strip of land between the pitch and the main Manchester to Liverpool railway. There’s not much space on either side of the stand, meaning that it’s a complex engineering challenge. Even if a new stand is smaller than the one opposite, the capacity could rise to 88,000. The club feel a development, previously considered impossible, could be done around the stand. It might not even need to be a

When Chelsea were put up for sale the gloom and doom merchants were out in force saying that the club would not go for anywhere near the original asking price of £3bn.   In fact there is plenty of credible competition, particularly from those already involved in sports franchises in the United States with cash to spare and few opportunities there. The end of globalisation is already being asserted in the wake of the war in Ukraine.    This may apply generally, but as I argued in my book Political Football soccer is a special case.    Some want clubs as a trophy asset, but others sees the possibility of securing a capital return, despite being warned off by the Financial Times. The need for a quick sale — with government involvement — combined with uncertainty about how to value a club who have been so generously subsidised by their owner for 19 years but still needs to redevelop their stadium, led most football finance experts to predict a price tag closer to £2 billion. But that

Of course, this is an impossible question to answer.  Chelsea is worth as much as any consortium is prepared to pay for it.  But football finance guru Kieran Maguire uses his accountancy skills to attempt an answer:  http://priceoffootball.com/how-much-is-chelsea-worth/ He concludes: ' anyone bidding £2.5bn-£3bn for Chelsea is assuming that the business has been poorly run historically OR there are substantial untapped revenue sources (SuperLeague Mark II or NFT’s?) or cost savings to be achieved in the future…or the prospective owners simply want a trophy asset and are willing to pay a premium to acquire it.' The first letter of each sentence spells out something about Vladimir Putin.

The authoritative Swiss Ramble has been working away in his Zurich fastness to provide estimates of Champions League income.  It used to be said that Arsene Wenger liked to parade his Uefa coefficient through the streets of Islington, but one can increasingly see why. His calculations suggest that nine clubs have already earned more than €75m from the 2021/22 Champions League. Bayern Munich lead the way with €111m, followed by Real Madrid €106m, Manchester City €99m, Atletico Madrid €96m, Chelsea €94m, PSG €94m, Liverpool €92m, Manchester United €81m and Juventus €79m. The importance of the UEFA coefficient Looking at how Champions League revenue is distributed, the importance of the UEFA coefficient is clearly evident with the TV pool being much less significant than it was before. This rewards historically successful clubs rather than those with larger national TV rights deals.    The coefficient payment is based on performances in UEFA tournaments over past 10 years, including

British property investor Nick Candy  increased his bid on Monday after the addition of another large international backer, a statement from his Blue Football Consortium said. The lifelong Chelsea fan (aren't they all) is said to have improved on his £2bn bid after a large Korean financial institution joined his consortium over the weekend. The Saudi Media Group is also reported to have submitted a bid.   While the Saudi Media Group are reportedly confident that they have no direct links to the Saudi Arabian government, senior figures in English football are said to have discussed the scenario that the Mohamed Alkhereiji-led group could be a front for the state. They certainly have close links to the regime:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Research_and_Media_Group Britain's relations with Saudi Arabia could be said to be complicated.   On the one hand, we sell them arms and plead with them to pump more oil.   On the other hand, there are real concerns about human rights ab

A new bid for Chelsea funded by London-based season ticket holders has emerged, one of six significant bidders.  However, they have emphasised that their interest is commercial rather than sentimental and they aim to follow a Manchester City style globalisation strategy - once again confirming that globalisation in football is not dead.  Asset management firm Centricus has teamed up with hedge fund manager Jonathan Lourie of Cheyne Capital and Talis Capital's Bob Finch.  He was formerly the majority shareholder of a Danish club. Centricus has invested in technology companies, financial services and leisure companies.  It has advised Fifa and Uefa over funding in the past and has access to significant funds.   They target high absolute returns and mention sports as a sector that interests them:  https://www.centricus.com/ Cheyne Capital are interested in long-term investment opportunities, particularly where they arise from market dislocations which is the case at Chelsea:  https://

In his latest analysis of a club’s accounts the authoritative Swiss Ramble features the Football League club geographically closest to me, Coventry City.   Better times are here for the Sky Blues on the pitch.  They are back in the Coventry Building Society stadium (formerly the Ricoh).   There is discussion about a possible future move to a stadium built on land owned by Warwick University. Coventry City’s 2020/21 accounts saw the loss widen from £3.4m to £4.7m, due to squad investment after promotion to the Championship. Revenue rose £6.7m to ££11.8m, despite COVID, but expenses up £6.5m and player sales down £1.9m. Some good news in the accounts Coventry £4.7m loss is actually one of the better results in the Championship, much better than the likes of Bristol City £38m, Reading £36m and Middlesbrough £31m in 2020/21. They did well to restrict the size of the deficit, given there was a full year of the pandemic. Coventry have only reported a profit once in the last 10 years

Derby County's future off the pitch is still uncertain with liquidation at the end of the season a real possibility:  https://www.dcfcbawt.org/post/storm-clouds-gathering The disappearance of this historic club from the league system would be a major blow.  It has a loyal fan base and an excellent stadium. While I have always supported the idea of an independent regulator, it is questionable whether the proposals would deal with poor decision-making by an owner. £10 will go to the club from each ticket sold for the boxing event at Pride Park in May:  https://www.worldboxingnews.net/2022/03/19/derby-county-parker-andrade/ It's a helpful gesture, let us hope it is not too late.

Manchester City have topped the latest Deloitte Money League.   Only four clubs have ever topped the league and they are all from the Premier League and La Liga.  Premier League clubs account for over half of the money league:  https://www2.deloitte.com/uk/en/pages/sports-business-group/articles/deloitte-football-money-league.html In current circumstances it might seem a dubious honour.  However, even if globalisation generally disappears, it is less likely to go from football, as I argue in my book Political Football.    The range of countries that produce investors will, however, be narrowed down with sports franchise owners in the US becoming increasingly prominent. Covid-19 saw revenues decline because of the loss of matchday revenue and the composition of overall revenue streams changed. Wolves make a first ever appearance while Aston Villa return after a ten year absence.

Private equity firms have been piling into football.  Spain's La Liga concluded a €2bn deal with CVC.  Private equity bidders are interested in France's Ligue 1.   Miami-based investment firm 777 Partners is busy acquiring football clubs and leagues. The Lex column in the Financial Times argues that they are unlikely teammates: ''Squeezing cost savings from food delivery companies or heavy industry looks bad enough.' However, it's not so much a question of reputational damage (which probably doesn't bother most private equity firms all that much), but the fact that in the view of the Pink 'Un clubs are bad investments. The FT states: 'Football teams' propensity for losing money and a glaring lack of predictability have rendered them trophy assets.  Clubs should fit better with deep-pocketed tycoons than investment funds.' On the predictability asset the top six in the Premier League look a good bet.   The EPL will earn broadcast rights of mor

Middlesbrough had reported losses of over £30m with the club battered by the pandemic:  https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/middlesbrough-fc-reveal-30m-losses-23433844 Steve Gibson has been an exceptionally generous owner and hasn't got that much in return, but perhaps this season will bring cup and league success. COVID meant hardly any gate receipts in the year. Broadcast income was due to IFollow. Commercial income was down over 40%.   Boro had the foresight to take out business interruption insurance which paid out £2.75m. Furlough claims were £589k. Wage bill up by 13%. Wages were £186 for every £100 of income, way above the 70 per cent recommended by Uefa. Average weekly wage was £12,500. Middlesbrough owe over £120m to Steve Gibson’s holding company, as well as £7m in transfer fees and £17m in unpaid tax, despite borrowing nearly £8m from the EFL in the year.    In any other sector of the economy, this would be seen as a business in dire trouble.

Consortium front man Martin Broughton talked to Radio 5 this morning about a bid for Chelsea that is said to be favoured by the Government. Former British Airways chairman Broughton was credited by government officials with rescuing Liverpool from a dire financial situation under George Gillett and Tom Hicks and then facilitating the arrival of Fenway Sports Group in 2010. Future prospective director Lord Coe, also a lifelong fan, is seen as a 'good egg' because of his Olympics work.  He is a former Conservative MP and was an aide to former Tory leader Lord Hague.   Coe has advised Chelsea on strategy ín the past and enjoys a good relationship with key personnel at the Bridge. Broughton said, ‘ It’s a fan led consortium, I’ve been a fan since 1965, I have a passion about it.    We put together a group of like-minded, highly capitalised people to keep it at the level it is today.’ The Interviewer read out the club’s impressive record under Roman Abramovich asking ‘that is th

In his book Lomdon Fields Charlie Connelly ‘set to find out whether there was a football spirit unique to the metropolis … Pretty early I concluded there isn’t such a thing… There are a number of intra-city rivalries but no sense of London pride as such.’   Many of the fans live outside London, not to mention the global following. Chelsea, it does not even need to be said, have been London’s most successful team during Abramovich’s tenure: 19 trophies, including five Premier Leagues and two Champions Leagues, tells its own story. Arsenal won the title in Abramovich’s first year, and have won five FA Cups since but nothing else. Tottenham have just one League Cup during the Abramovich era, and no other London club anything of note. Has Abramovich spent Chelsea into permanent dominance? Or will they soon be caught up again once his cash injections are taken away?   The real underpinning of this model has been the quality of players that Abramovich has been able to buy. Tottenham’s

The field for the race to buy Chelsea will be reduced to no more than three preferred bidders by early next week. There have been close to 100 potetial bidders, but the sale of a football club always attracts time wasters whose egos are far bigger than their bank accounts.   The latest news on the bidders, an already reduced field is here:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60800380 The government is understood to have advised Chelsea that the quickest way of achieving a sale is for Roman Abramovich to agree that the proceeds of the sale will be put into a frozen third-party or escrow account before it is distributed to good causes.  Michael Klein, a prominent American investment banker, and Creative Artists Agency, the US talent management agency, are behind a bid being fronted by Lord Coe and Sir Martin Broughton, the former chairman of British Airways who was briefly the chairman of Liverpool before brokering the Fenway takeover at Anfield in 2010.   It is being reported that

 As I have noted in earlier articles [for the Leamington programme], tensions between football crowds and referees were on the increase in 1922.  In the Leamington area the police had to be called on more than one occasion to evict spectators who had abused the referee.  It was also claimed that crowds had started chants which questioned the capacity of the referee to officiate.    The Football Association was so concerned that they launched an overall review, but as a first step they decided to ban referees who wore glasses, following a number of complaints about the poor eyesight of some officials.   This caused some confusion at the meeting of the Birmingham FA. Should all referees who had been seen wearing spectacles be struck off the list?  It was eventually decided that it should only apply to new officials. Writing in one newspaper, referee ‘Solo Whistle’ argued that some sort of X-ray machine might help to resolve disputes on the field of play, clearly anticipating VAR.     W

Nottingham Forest have been doing well on the pitch, but face financial challenges off it.   The authoritative Swiss Ramble reviews their latest accounts. Nottingham Forest’s 2020/21 accounts saw their loss narrow to £15.5m, despite revenue falling £6.9m to £18.4m, due to COVID.     This was helped by £14.3m profit from player sales.   Debt was £37m after further conversion to equity and loan write-off. It is their fourth season under the ownership of Evangelos Marinakis (80%) and Sokratis Kominakis (20%). Like most Championship clubs, Forest make large operating losses, partially offset by player trading, as they compete against those with parachute payments. If they do not secure promotion this season, they will come under pressure to sell rising stars like Brennan Johnson. Remaining within the EFL Profitability and Sustainability Rules is a “high priority”.    The Zurich-based expert calculates they have just met the target, after allowable deductions for academy, community,

At one time Barcelona set their face against most forms of commercial sponsorship, even displaying the Unicef logo on their shirts.   However, their financial problems have changed everything. Barcelona did not adopt the common practice of having a sponsor’s logo for revenue gain until the season of 2006/07 where Barca and the UNICEF, a Non-Profit Organizations of the UN signed a historic deal under the presidency of Joan Laporta. For the longest time, Barcelona has alleged itself as “Mes Que un club” (more than a club). UNICEF branding was the pinnacle of this ideology.   Now a four year deal signed with streaming service Spotify worth £250m will result in their iconic stadium being named the 'Spotfy Nou Camp'.   Spotify's name will appear on the shirts of the men's and women's teams and on training shirts for three years. Spotify founder Daniel Elk tried to bid for Arsenal last year, but the Swede was told the club was not for sale by 'Silent' Stan Kroenke

I have expressed some sympathy for Chelsea in previous posts, or at least for the fans.  I suppose the fans of other clubs feel entitled to some schadenfreude but I don't like the idea of a club with a long history disappearing or being forced to become a non-league club, the potential fate referred to by government sources. However, the club are in danger of eroding what sympathy there is for them by making unacceptable demands such as suggesting that their FA cup match with Middlesbrough should be played behind closed doors, a request withdrawn after the damage had been done. It is evident that their stance is annoying government ministers who admittedly have their own agenda in terms of making a high profile example of Roman Abramovich. Ministers are reported to be increasingly irritated by Chelsea's complaints about the licence conditions imposed on them, warning that the club was on 'borrowed time' and would have collapsed altogether without the special licence.  O

The tireless Swiss Ramble deploys his financial acumen to assess the latest accounts of Wolverhampton Wanderers from his Zurich base. I was at this game - needless to say Charlton lost. When I started watching football in the early 1950s Wolves were one of the top teams so it is good to see them approach former glories after some very difficult years when they almost collapsed altogether.    Jack Hayward was, of course, their saviour. On Thursday I shall be having lunch with a lifelong Wolves supporter who still goes to matches in his late 80s.    He recently saw a match from a box for the first time. Wolves have come a long way As a sign of how far Wolves have come since playing in League One in 2014, their £133m revenue in 2019/20 placed them 29th in the Deloitte Money League, which ranks clubs worldwide. This was down from previous season’s 25th, but ahead of Milan £130m and just behind Ajax £136m. The 2020/21 accounts show they swung from £40m pre-tax loss to £145m profit,

Developments at Dumbarton have raised wider issues for the Scottish Football Supporters' Association (SFSA). Worried by the lack of transparency surrounding the sale of the club to Cognitive Capital, an investment vehicle for Norwegian Henning Kristoffersen and associates, supporters at Dumbarton put a series of questions to the board, most of which have still not been adequately answered. The issue of offshore assets and the ultimate intentions of the people involved comes into play in a complex and murky story. So does the failure of sponsorship deals. SFSA co-founder and vice-chair Simon Barrow, who has had a long-standing involvement at Dumbarton, and who was a non-executive director of the club until the end of 2020, is involved with a group of stakeholders monitoring the situation closely and seeking to help ensure the security of the club. Among the unresolved issues are a behind-the-scenes row about allegations of misappropriation of assets, the involvement of a 'cons

I agree with the pundits on Match of the Day last night that Everton are unlikely to be relegated.   Norwich City and Watford are already in effect down and Burnley look likely to join them. Sanctioned oligarch Alisher Usmanov made an attempt to become more closely involved with Everton last year.  He looked at the possibility of  a large loan which would have been turned into equity, but ran up against problems in getting his proposed funding structure approved. The Premier League made it clear informally that they would not give approval and so Everton escaped being in the same boat as Chelsea. Everton have severed ties with Usmanov's company USM, who have provided tens of millions of sponsorship income, and the club now face a significant loss for the third year in a row when their accounts are published later this month. Relegation, if it happened, would be a big financial blow and some top players would have to be sold.

It is said that money talks in modern football and, of course, it does.  But there are limits to the extent to which it buy success as the example of PSG shows. It is now almost 11 years since Al-Khelaifi’s state-backed Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) acquired PSG and, despite spending in excess of £1 billion on incoming transfers, the Champions League trophy remains elusive. PSG have reached the final of the Champions League only once under Qatari ownership.  It is worth remembering how, only six months ago, PSG came away from the summer market convinced the club had overseen the most spectacular and successful transfer window of all time. Yet PSG’s seasons are, increasingly, predicated around performance at the business end of the Champions League. The club are 13 points clear at the top of Ligue 1 and Pochettino is likely to win his first league title in 13 years as a head coach in Spain, England and now France. That, however, will do little to disguise the underwhelming nature o

The Government seems to be taking a hard line in its licence negotiations with Chelsea.    It appears to be willing to make only marginal concessions, for example on away travel costs and the renegotiation of player contracts.. Clearly it wants to make an example of a high profile oligarch.  It is being egged on by Labour MP Chris Bryant who has occupied the high moral ground and has asked more commercial sponsors to distance themselves from the club. Indeed, Bryant wants the Government to go further and 'seize' the club, i.e., nationalise it.   This would be a first in football and give Nadine Dorries an even bigger role (although I notice that technology minister Chris Philp has been making statements for the Government). Cash flow The banks have now suspended the club's commercial credit cards while they clarify the position.  It seems to me that the club is now in real jeopardy in cash flow terms.  Excluding season tickets, Chelsea bring in around £600,000 per match fro