There is to be an election for the presidency of Real Madrid. Florentino Pérez, a 79 year old construction magnate and president for the last 25 years could well hang on, but his authority is ebbing away. The club has 100,000 members who pay €179 a year, although a season ticket costs an extra €3,200 on top. Some members sell their tickets on. Real Madrid has not won a grand trophy for two years. An expansion of the Bernebau budgeted at €575m has cost €1.3 billion and counting. The Spanish squad for the World Cup does not include a single Real Madrid player. Pérez called his first press conference for ten years and gave a rambling and paranoid performance, blaming referees and the press among others. His opponent is Enrique Riquelme, 37, who owns an energy business. The first presidential election in 20 years has been called for June 7th. Meanwhile, the appointment of the 'special one' as manager has been delayed. Pérez is favourite to win, but that t...
No real surprise that The Economist has a pop at the independent football regulator, it's a liberal paper that thinks everything can be solved by the market mechanism. The paper fears that the regulator will put off the footloose international capital that has made the Premier League a rare British success, but in reality the regulator isn't that powerful. The article points out that 700 million people across the globe may watch a single Premier League game. The American Super Bowl attracts just a third of that. The league generates $10 billion a year for the UK economy. The majority of TV revenue comes from foreign rights, by comparison the NFL gets 98 per cent of its m media rights revenue at home. 75 per cent of this year's minutes were racked up by foreign born players and in total 128 countries have been represented in the top flight. Lower leagues are also flourishing. Attendance in League One is up by 47 per cent over a decade and the National League is up...