English football season climax

This time of year is normally quite sad, because as exciting as it is, the football season is coming to an end. At least this year we'll have Euro 2012 and the Olympics in London to get us through the summer!

The Football League season came to a conclusion yesterday, with Southampton taking the final automatic promotion place to the join Reading in the Premier League next season. 
And although Wolves will be playing in the Championship next year, all is still to play for in the fight to beat the drop. I have to make special mention of Wolves and their manager Terry Connor who put on a fantastic display yesterday, even though they were only playing for pride. I think Mick McCarthy, Terry Connor, the players and the fans of Wolves have been treated despicably by the board of their club and even though things have not always gone right for them on the pitch they will go down with dignity. 

Swansea v Wolves

Terry Connor should never really have been put in the position of trying to drag Wolves out of the mire, and Wolves should have made sure they had a manager in place before sacking McCarthy. If rumours are to believed, there were managers that turned down the position on the salary alone; if the Wolves board had put their money where there mouth is, they might have had a fighting chance. 

So, any three from five for relegation from the Premier League. Although Aston Villa would seem to be in the box seat, three points and three goals from six games in April is definitely relegation form. I think they are up against it personally. They are not helped by the fact that the teams around them seem to have hit very good form at just the right time. 

Wigan have had just about their best month in their entire history according to manager Roberto Martinez; they have beaten Newcastle United, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool in recent times and if it wasn't for a poor display by the match officials they would have beaten Chelsea as well. Massive credit to chairman Dave Whelan for sticking by his manager, and also for Martinez for sticking to his principles. 

Mark Hughes has got Queens Park Rangers playing some good football recently, and they have beaten Tottenham, Arsenal and Liverpool in the last month or so. The form is there, but the trouble has been keeping eleven players on the pitch, and they will need eleven players to take points from Chelsea, Stoke and Man City.

Bolton manager Owen Coyle said recently that he believes his squad would have been in the top ten if they'd stayed fit all season, which may be the case as they play an attractive game; but they will need to show heart with grit and determination to stay up. They are well capable of beating Stoke and West Brom though, so they are in with a real chance. 

Blackburn on the other hand are three points from safety at the moment, and I think if they are to even have a hope they will need three wins from three games. Unfortunately they have to play Tottenham, Wigan and Chelsea so the writing may already be on the wall. Albeit Blackburn have been in the bottom three for most of the season, Steve Kean deserves a lot of credit. Few football managers have ever had to work in the face of such adversity and vitriolic abuse from the supposed supporters. These fans should be ashamed of themselves, and I wonder if any of think that if they had got behind the manager and his team a bit earlier, would they still be in this position. 


Good luck to all, and I hope the climax to the season is as exciting as it promises to be. 

SPORT SHORTS

• I am enjoying the World Championship snooker at the Crucible so far. The highlight has been Stephen Hendry's maximum in the first round, as well as him getting through to the quarter finals by beating defending champion John Higgins 13-4. 9/1 for the title anyone?
• I think playing midweek fixtures in the Premier League three and four days before the cup final is not ideal for either team. I hope the occasion is befitting of the history of the FA Cup, and I also hope unashamedly that Liverpool win. 
• Not long until the cricket season starts; England have not been on a great run of form. Will they still be the number one test side in the world after the summer?
• The Premier League title could well be decided tomorrow in the Manchester derby. I think the score will be Man City 3-1 Man Utd. The game is at the Etihad Stadium, and I don't think Man Utd's defence can live with Aguero, Tevez and co.

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Football finance: How long can it go on?

With events last week seeing two massive clubs in Britain entering administration (Portsmouth and Glasgow Rangers), this week saw a Football League founder member Aston Villa reporting a loss of £53.9 million for the 2010/11 financial year. The Birmingham based club claim to be happy with the situation, and on the face of it they have no reason not to be. They have increased overall revenue by 1.3% and commercial revenue by 15.9%, as well as decreasing borrowing by 8.3% so Randy Lerner is certainly steering the good ship Aston Villa in the right direction; but with the Aston Villa fans becoming increasingly unhappy with things on the field it highlights the balancing act that club chairmen have to perform. 

Villa Park Stadium

This led me to look a little deeper in to the general finances. I sought out the Deloitte report on finance for the top twenty clubs (based on revenue) in Europe and it does make interesting reading. (read the full report by clicking here or see overview below) Perhaps the most interesting point to note is that broadly German clubs take the large part of their revenue from commercial exploits, as where around the rest of Europe most clubs see Broadcast rights bringing in the lions share. Also, if you'd asked a group of people to guess the top ten in this Money League, not many would have put Schalke 04 in there; I'd also hedge my bets that nobody would have put Hamburger SV in the top twenty bearing in mind that they haven't even played European football. Manchester City fans will constantly tell you that they are now the richest club in the world, but they haven't even made the top ten;in fact their revenue is only just over a third of that of the top club Real Madrid. 


Perhaps the most interesting fact I found in this report is that in the group of teams between places 21-30 in this list, (see full report) you will find Everton and West Ham United. I don't think fans of these clubs would place them in the financial European top 30, bearing in mind that the lack of money at Everton has been making headlines for years and West Ham were nearly bankrupt a few years ago. It brings to mind a phrase said many times by Duncan Bannatyne of Dragons Den fame; "Turnover's for vanity, profit's for sanity!"

I think this phrase hits the proverbial nail right on the head, and I think if British football does not get its act together we will start losing the 134 professional clubs in England and Scotland at an alarming rate. Eighteen months ago, my club Liverpool were days away from administration and our £350 million debt being called in by the bank before Fenway Sports took over the club and rescued the situation. If this situation can nearly happen to Liverpool it can happen to anyone. To return to my points at the start of this article, Aston Villa are reducing debt and increasing revenue but their fans are probably as unhappy as they've been for years, so I guess my over-riding message is - Be careful what you wish for!

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The Deloitte Sports Business Group presents the Football Money League 2012