By Frank Dalleres
Ed Warner addresses why American investors are the most likely purchases of any Liverpool shares on the market, why England’s Rugby World Cup defeat was good for the women’s game, and cricket song choices with a sense of humour.
Forty-three days without the Premier League. Three days in and already I’m suffering withdrawal symptoms. Yes, I knew it was coming. And having watched athletics three times in Doha I’ve no intention now of jumping on the hypocrisy train.
I do, though, expect club football across the globe to be the big winner from the decision to stage the World Cup at the start of the northern hemisphere winter. Absence will make our hearts grow even fonder.
Fifa’s marquee product is going to be a poor substitute for our habitual football at this time of year. Crawley Town v Gillingham will be the first ever professional game in England to coincide with a World Cup finals fixture. The Broadfield Stadium on Tuesday sounds a more appealing prospect than watching France v Australia from my sofa, especially as the crypto club has recently climbed off the bottom of League Two.
Many top-flight clubs will be plotting a mid-season reset during this enforced break. None could be more dramatic than the search for new investors – possibly outright owners – at Liverpool FC.
A valuation of £4bn, 60 per cent higher than the base price paid for Chelsea by Todd Boehly and his crew, has been mooted.
Whether or not a transaction eventually occurs, the process initiated by Fenway Sports Group highlights once again the difficulties involved in monetising a stake in a football club.
The Glazer family are derided for taking hefty annual dividends out of Manchester United – around £30m last year alone – but they are unabashedly making their investment work for them. Other owners are dependent on selling as their means of turning notional paper returns into real ones.
Bournemouth and Leeds show pattern for Liverpool
It may be that the injection of new funds at Liverpool in return for only a minority stake beside FSG is the route the club’s owners pursue. This would be a classic private equity industry ploy.
Whatever valuation at which a new shareholder comes onto Liverpool’s register would set a level for FSG to declare to its own investors. In that way FSG finds money for, say, signing Jude Bellingham, still retains its own shares, and demonstrates the success of its investment to itself and its backers.
Of course, this “mark to market” approach relies on the football industry merry-go-round continuing to spin – or, cynically, the greater fool theory holding. The investment world is littered with businesses whose high notional valuations based on small minority share sales are subsequently shown to be grossly overblown.
The hotly contested pursuit of Chelsea back in the spring could have sowed the seed for FSG. Theleading contenders in that process were American.
AFC Bournemouth is currently moving into the hands of a Texan who owns the Vegas Golden Knights ice hockey franchise, while the 49ers Enterprises group is expected to take majority control at Leeds United soon.
There will be talk of Chinese and Middle Eastern money for Liverpool, but it seems the strong dollar, US sport valuation metrics and simple investment fashion are likely to mean Americans remain the principal players in town.
Potential investorsin Lverpool might first like to ask Boehly how he’s found his first five months at Chelsea though.
Black, red, silver-lining
I didn’t think there could be a better sporting event this year than the intense drama of the Black Ferns’ triumph over the Red Roses in the women’s Rugby World Cup final; and then came Samoa’s extra time golden drop-goal win against England in the Rugby League World Cup semi-final only hours later. Pointless to try and choose between them really.
Two defeats for England across different rugby codes and genders, both times when they started as favourites. Hard though it is to say it, the result in Eden Park may well prove to be best for the greater cause of women’s rugby union.
England’s team has been funded to be fully professional for the past three years in pursuit of the World Cup. New Zealand belatedly recognised the threat this posed and hurriedly upped the financial backing for their squad, spurred by the knowledge they were hosting the tournament.
Other nations must now find the wherewithal if they want to be able to compete. Only three or four of the countries in this Rugby World Cup could have had any realistic hope of success.
Expect more in the 2025 edition which, as it is in England, will make the ticket-selling narrative of revenge for Saturday’s narrow defeat all the more compelling. I can’t imagine there will be any unsold seats at Twickenham for the final, whoever contests it.
My man in the stands at Emirates Stadium for the Rugby League World Cup semi bemoaned England’s “totally self-inflicted defeat”. He’s a southerner with a very long-standing preference for league over union and absolutely knows what he’s talking about. For me as a novice viewer, forget the errors: the exhilarating spectacle was all.
Arsenal’s ground was two thirds full; Elland Road at three quarters capacity for the other semi-final the night before. This seems an apt metaphor for the Rugby League World Cup as a whole. Too long, too few truly competitive matches, but suddenly compelling at the sharp end. A six-or-seven-out-of-10 event. Extra marks on top for running the women’s, disability and wheelchair tournaments alongside the men’s.
Organisers will be hoping that the lack of home representation in the final doesn’t deplete the crowd. They will certainly struggle for media cut-through up against the start of the football World Cup. Super League Grand Final attendances at Old Trafford have slipped in recent times, numbering 60,783 this year. This must be the yardstick against which Australia v Samoa will be measured in the same stadium on Saturday.
Both rugby codes would do well to look at their World Cup formats with the objective of tightening them up while they work to boost the competitiveness of the weaker teams.
Player safety obviously mitigates against playing twice a week, so they may need to take the bold step of having fewer nations playing in a top round-robin division rather than the conventional group-then-knockout structures currently deployed. Repeated trouncings don’t make for a great product.
Instead, World Rugby has increased the number of nations at the women’s 2025 World Cup from 12 to 16.
Song remains the same
Event presentation teams have a standard playlist of retro songs that you hear repeated across sports. Heaven for an old headbanger like me, but short on imagination.
I did smile, though, when the unmistakable riff of Led Zep’s Kashmir belted out across the MCG straight after Ben Stokes bagged the wicket of Pakistan’s Iftikhar Ahmed in Sunday’s T20 World Cup final. A man in the PA room with a cheeky sense of humour.
Ed Warner is chair of GB Wheelchair Rugby and writes at sportinc.substack.com
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