The massive increase in the Premiership TV deal has led to a rush of takeovers of Championship sides. But, asks Simon Moore, what do the new owners do if their clubs don’t win promotion?

“We are not looking for small-time people, we are looking for a mega-rich businessman like Roman Abramovich who wants to buy a football club for a hobby.” Dave Allen, chairman of Sheffield Wednesday, issued that invitation to potential investors in March. Wednesday, now in talks with a consortium fronted by a Chinese casino owner, are one of a group of Championship clubs who have been sounded out about a takeover in recent months. Most of the teams up for sale regularly pull in crowds of more than 20,000 and, with the average asking price around the £20 million mark, they look a much better bet than, say, Manchester City, a club treading water in the Premiership with debts of around £60m. But the new Premiership TV deal, with even the bottom-placed club guaranteed a minimum of £26.8m per season, is the principal bait that is luring potential buyers.

Read more…

As some clubs impose a price freeze or even cuts in response to poor crowds, a campaign has been launched to give a fair deal to away fans. Tom Green reports

How much are you prepared to pay to watch a game of football? With millionaires on the pitch and billionaires taking over the clubs, is it fair that the fans should be paying more in England than anywhere else in the world?

Read more…

English pundits are widely seen as bland, irritating sycophants, but in Ireland Eamon Dunphy and friends pull no punches on RTE, earning popularity with viewers if not managers. Paul Doyle reports

So you’re assigned the task of creating a panel of people to inform and entertain television viewers before, during and after football matches: what do you do? If you work for the BBC, you round up a giggling gaggle of self-satisfied golfing buddies and tell them to inform and entertain no one but themselves. If you work for Sky, you collar some besuited former footballers and order them to rehearse bland cliches and beatific grins in preparation for a hard day’s cheerleading. If you work for Irish state channel RTE, however, you hire abrasive codgers who can be relied upon to call a spade a spade, a bungling manager “a boil on the arse of humanity” (Eamon Dunphy on Mick McCarthy) and, just for kicks, BBC pundits “spoofers and muppets”.

Read more…

According to the Spanish football authorities, no cup competitions took place between 1936 and 1939. This claim is contested fiercely in one half of Valencia. Andy Brassell reports

Age doesn’t always guarantee respect. Levante, founded in 1909 and pointedly named after the entire region rather than just the city, are the older of the two Valencia clubs by nine years. Their history, however, is dominated by lower-division drudgery and the current season is only their fourth ever in La Primera. They are largely noted solely for Johan Cruyff’s short – and incongruous – spell in their colours in 1981, and for being coached by one of Spain’s more controversial imports, the spiky Bernd Schuster, during their last spell in the top flight.

Read more…

Over recent years these clubs have faced each other many times but never at such levels of comfort as this meeting, both on and off the pitch. Did the game itself reflect current contentment? Roger Titford went along to find out

Reading’s first season in the Premiership has been a sweet dream so far. Back in October we did a double-take as Sky announced “three big games for you this weekend: Man United v Liverpool, Reading v Arsenal and Real Madrid v Barcelona”. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to the attention and by February the blandishments of the broadsheets had become commonplace. Europe, rather than relegation, was our struggle. Premiership foes, who looked so big, fast and fit in early autumn, had shrunk in the face of our sustained teamwork and intelligence. We could even travel to the Emirates in hope.

Read more…