Arsene Wenger is brave to stick his neck out on the £400m sponsorship deal for Man City and has a powerful ally in Liverpool owner John W Henry.
“A club’s best player has to be worth at least 10 per cent of your naming rights,” he said. “Mr Wenger says boldly what everyone thinks.”
There’s a good article in The Independent on the Licensing and Fair Play regulations which points out that the family relationships between City and its sponsor may fall foul of Uefa’s “related party” test. Uefa will consider that club and sponsor are related parties if a family relationship exists.
Man City will have to prove that several members of Sheikh Mansour’s family who have been integral to Etihad and do not exert that influence over him.
It appears they have a stronger case on the fair value test and could argue that £20m is fair value for a shirt deal, given that Standard Chartered deliver the same sum to Liverpool. And £15m-20m/yr goes to the campus.
The deal puts into sharp focus Arsenal’s deal, a 15-year, £90m contract, for shirt and stadium, until 2019.
The Indy also points to the decision of Patrick Vieira, which will sadden/anger many an Arsenal fan:
“Vieira had discussions with Arsenal about a role at the Emirates but the club did not propose anything concrete.
“Despite his having played nine years at Arsenal and 18 months at City, manager Roberto Mancini gets his services. The 35-year-old is expected in Los Angeles with the City pre-season tour, where he will explain his decision next week.”
Comment: Arsenal have been waiting for the brave new world of Financial Fair Play, which suits the current policies.
In the new financially constrained world, the City move smacks of the David Dein quote: “parked their tanks on their lawn and are firing £50 notes at us.” A £30-35m sponsorship and naming rights gap each season is potentially significant.</p>