Why Premier League boardrooms have become so ruthless | The Football Boardroom

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0:35Henry:Newcastle United, the sale of Elliot Anderson to Forest. What was going on there? Tonali now going to Tottenham Hotspur. Have lessons been learned? And a really acrimonious dispute between Chelsea and Manchester City over Enzo Maresca. Please don't forget to subscribe and we hope you enjoy the show.

1:01Morning, CP. I'm back in KC, Kansas City. It could have been the morning after the nightmare before, but fortunately a player I know who you admire highly, Harry Kane, rescued England. Harry Houdini is all the headlines on the back pages and the front pages are saying today. So, yeah, it was quite nice. England march on in America. Oh, Mexico, that's the next stop.

1:26Henry:I really don't know how you're getting through. that you don't seem to be getting any sleep. Yeah, it could have been a sleepless night for us all over here. Not in Seattle, though. No, sleepless in Atlanta. It was quite a hard watch, but it ended happily for now and onward and upward, literally upward to the heights of Mexico City, over 7 ,000 feet, 2 ,500 feet, higher than Ben Nevis for a game of football for some English lads. That ain't going to be easy. But we shall see. But I have to say, H, I was fascinated by the fact that sitting there in our midfield last night was a young man, Elliot Anderson, who is unusually, I would say for the first time in my career, really unusually, we're seeing massive transfer business completing on my side of the pond here in little old England while a footballer is playing his trade at the World Cup for his country.

2:25Henry:That's new. For it to be a deal of this scale is new. And then one little thought. When I was looking back at a moment in time that is getting a lot of focus over here this morning, H, the moment when Elliot left Newcastle United, 30th of June 2024, I believe. He was described in the press release as a Scotland under-21 international. and there I was watching him last night playing for England. What happened? I mean, it's such a good question. I can remember seeing him at Wolves End Boys Club where he used to play and they obviously developed. And he was going along there. This was in September 2023 and there was a lot of talk about him representing Scotland.

3:14He's got Scottish lineage and there was a bit of a fight over him between the Scottish Football Association and the English Football Association. I can remember that he turned up at this event at Wolves End Boys Club in September and everyone was basically saying, are you on your way to Scotland? And the Scots, when they found out that he was at this event and wasn't at Newcastle United supposedly having some treatment, they thought, oh, something's afoot here and maybe he is in this international week going to commit himself to England. And that is absolutely key because we know when players are representing England, which he then went on to do after the under-21s.

3:56Tuchel called him in September 25 after a very successful under-21 tournament. Tuchel actually, I was there in Slovakia, and Tuchel actually sort of came out to watch him, and then you knew then that he was going to make that step up. So heartbreak for the Bravehearts, the Scots, but fantastic news for England. And also, I imagine, for his agent and the price of the ticket. CP, let's go back to 2024 and take me through what was going on in the boardrooms, because it obviously has ramifications now, but why did Newcastle need to sell?

4:34Henry:Well, you're quite right. There was a lot going on in both boardrooms. We referred to, in a previous episode, turmoil at Newcastle. In fact, Amanda Stavely had left, Dan Ashworth had left. They were just beginning to put together a new management team. But really, Henry, in and around the end of that season, it became quite clear that the significant investments that Newcastle had been making in the three years since the Saudis had bought the club had come to a sort of big halt under the overarching pressures of the PSR rules. And on the 30th of June 24, which was the last day of Newcastle's financial year, they negotiated two deals with Nottingham Forest.

5:26Henry:They negotiated the sale of Elliot Anderson and the acquisition of a goalkeeper called Vlacadimos, which were announced the following morning, 1st July 24. And that deal, I think, has come to symbolise a moment in time when clubs that had got themselves into problems with the financial rules found themselves doing business that really had nothing to do with football and everything to do with accounting. and frankly it was it was you know a terrible terrible moment for Newcastle football club because anyone would see that a boy who'd been at the club since he was eight years old 21 40 or 50 Premier League games certainly I think it's fair to point out contextually you know wasn't you know wasn't a starter every week in as he is as he became for Forrest and as he now is for England, but a player full of potential, was sold for a headline price of£35 million to Nottingham Forest.

6:37Henry:But Henry, as I've suggested, on the same day, in a separate transaction, Newcastle agreed to buy Nottingham Forest's reserve goalkeeper, Mr. Vlacadimos, for£20 million pounds. Now, you and I know if I was selling my lovely car for 35 grand and the buyer said to me, look, one thing, I need you to buy my old banger for 20 grand. And I think that's worth nothing. I'm really selling my car for 15. And so in reality, Elliot went for 15 million pounds. I say that because Vlacodimos had gone to Forest a year before for 5 million and had played four games of football, I think. So that deal looks not just with hindsight, but at the time to have been what we call in business a forced sale, 15 million pounds of real value for Anderson.

7:34Henry:And then the final piece of the puzzle with no sell-on clause. And that turned out to be very, very unfortunate for Newcastle United, because as you said, the player has gone on almost exactly two years later to be sold for£116 million. Just before we get on to the sell-on clause, because obviously that's key to the debate in all this, just from Newcastle's perspective, I mean, there was a great sort of quote, a sort of brief quote that was doing the rounds at the time is that we had a gun held to our heads in terms of Newcastle and the negotiating and also because, as you say, the clock was ticking on PSR.

8:17Is that right that the cost or the profit of Anderson they were able to use in their 23-24 figures? But for Vlacodimos, the cost for him could be spread over the terms of his contract. So from a financial perspective, and I know we're only talking a few million here, actually it made sense for them to do those deals in those two parts.

8:41Henry:The crucial element to the deal was that Newcastle United were booking a£35 million profit because Elliott was in the books at nothing. He was the definition of a homegrown academy player, been there since he was eight. And that£35 million of profit on the 30th of June, the final day of the financial year, prevented Newcastle losing more than they were allowed to lose, which would, as night follows day, have resulted in them having a points deduction. So the gun-to-head analogy you're referring to is a simple choice. Sell a player we'd rather not sell or almost certainly get a points deduction.

9:25Henry:So that's very clear, very understood. And, you know, I would say ruthlessly exploiting that situation from a Nottingham Forest perspective, who it's one thing selling Elliot Anderson for£35 million to help them get through FFP. not a lot of people would have argued with that as a price but there are two elements of the deal that I think make it much, much, much harder for Newcastle fans now and definitely then to stomach and they are the fact that they were equally forced to take a goalkeeper who when he joined Newcastle made one appearance before going out on loan a reserve goalie who had cost£5 million a year before, and yet Newcastle were paying£20 million for Forest's reserve goalie.

10:20Henry:Well, there are many starting goalies of high quality who don't move for£20 million. And of course, Nottingham Forest were able to book a significant profit on that goalkeeper in their PSR calculations. So why? Why did they do the Greek goalie part of the deal? because they had no choice. And how do we know that? We know they had no choice because the third element of the deal, for me, the most unusual, the most damaging, the most costly for Newcastle is the fact that Elliot moved to Forest without a so-called sell-on clause. And just to explain, I haven't counted it up, but I will have done maybe 50 to 60 player sales in my career.

11:12Henry:And I have never sold a footballer under the age of 26 years old without a sell-on clause. And I've never bought a player under that age where I wasn't accepting a sell-on clause. In other words, I want you and our audience to understand that a sell-on clause for a young player, whatever their quality whatever their trajectory whatever their assessment of potential are almost standard procedure and the bit that gets negotiated is that percentage the range in my experience over tens of transactions I think if you're selling and you've got a little bit of leverage and a little bit of time you'll get a 20 % sell-on clause and if you're right up against it and the buyer is saying, no, we don't want to give you that much, you might end up settling at 10.

12:05Henry:10 to 20 would be the range, 15 in the middle. Now, let's explain what that means for Newcastle United today, two years later. Pretty simple maths, OK? Pretty simple maths. Nottingham Forest have sold the footballer now for, we're reading,£116 million. They paid about£35 million. so we're talking about an 80 million profit 15 to 20 percent of that today would have been payable to Newcastle United if they had had that clause and my point to you is simply that the fact they didn't shows just how weak their position was by being in a situation where they were forced to sell a player on the very last day of their financial year okay taking a player they didn't need or want and we know that's true because he never played for for Newcastle and not having a sell on clause which is the single most standard provision you would see in the sale of any young player let alone a young player who I don't think it's being wise after the event was obviously a player of high potential.

13:20Henry:The fact he's gone on to start for England a World Cup in less than two years and be sold for£116 million tells you it was a player of great potential. And that markup in value for none of that to accrue to the club that developed the player from the age of eight, I think is an absolutely terrible outcome for Newcastle United. And the root cause, And this is where I want to go with this because I think they've moved on as a club. The market's moved on. The root cause of selling that footballer, selling that footballer with two related transactions that they wouldn't have wanted to do in the normal course of business and not having a sell-on clause, the root cause, it's the last day of the window and they had no other alternatives.

14:07Henry:And let's contrast that with today, H. well today obviously we move into to gnarly country but just very quickly on that you focus very much on newcastle's weekend shouldn't we also and whether you think this is opportunistic by maranakis maranakis played an absolute blinder over anderson take me inside you've met maranakis take me inside the forest boardroom and that you can call it brutal you can call it sound business sense but Maranakis played an absolute blind on this hasn't he absolutely and you can apply whatever adjective you like and and I think um I think Ruthless is a really good one to describe uh the fact that he saw an opportunity to buy an up-and-coming player from a club that had to make a sale and it seems had to make a sale in the final two or three days before their financial year end.

15:05Henry:It wasn't the only transaction at that time in the evolution of the financial rules and regulations where we saw clubs selling players they really didn't want to sell very late in their financial year. It was a moment in time. But this was a really extreme example because, again, with hindsight now, we know that buying a young player, as I've explained, the real cost to Nottingham Forest of Elliot Anderson was the 35 they paid less. Let's be generous and say, let's say that, you know, the 20 million they got for their goalie, you know, was really, you know, 15 to, you know, 5 million of value being what they paid.

15:51Henry:So the real price they paid for Elliot was 20 million pounds, okay? That's the real price they paid. And they've just sold him for just under 120 million quid. By my math, simple English, all our audience can hear it. They've made 100 million pounds of profit within two years on one young footballer. Extraordinary business by Nottingham Forest. And yep, ruthless, brutal, opportunistic, skillful, taking advantage of the rules, whatever it is, you can't knock it really from a Nottingham Forest perspective. And though losing the player to City is something that Nottingham Forest fans won't welcome, anyone can see it was a brilliant piece of business.

16:37Henry:Let's turn the clock forward two years now, Henry, and look at Newcastle United today. OK, and the contrast is stark in terms of how they have gone about handling their summer business. Not all of this will be welcome to Toon fans because I'm sorry, this is a business orientated conversation about the process of complying with rules and executing transfer business. I'm not talking about the bigger issue of, you know, losing your best players and what that says about the Toon project. Let's focus for a second on the process. And this summer, it's quite clear that Newcastle knew once again they would need to sell players to comply with rules.

17:26Henry:And rather than leaving it to the last day of the window, rather than leaving it to the last day of the accounting period, they have done two things. They've moved early and they've managed to create. By making it clear that they were willing to do business, they've encouraged more than one buyer to come to the table. And with Bayern and Barca on Anthony Gordon, pushing that boy out for, I think,£70 million in the end. And now with Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United both in for Tonali and we thought also maybe even City. And Arsenal, they were linked with him earlier in the year. They were.

18:06Henry:So the thought, you know, messaging in the market, I'm not talking about putting an advert on the front page of the newspaper. I'm saying in the market with their sporting director, with their recruitment team, speaking to agents and speaking to other clubs, at the right number, there's a deal to be done for Tonali. And by the way, that's a really big number. And guess what? Lo and behold, we're still, you know, well in early days of the summer window, Tenali's out the door for the best part of£100 million because they created competition and they didn't get themselves against a deadline. They are the two crucial ingredients in selling players properly for top dollar.

18:49Henry:And they got it all wrong on the Elliot Anderson sale. And they've got it right on the Tonali sale. That's, to me, the interesting takeaway on the events of this week. It's been fascinating. And to use one of your beloved Harvard phrases, are we seeing behavioural change? They've obviously clearly learnt. Well, before we get to behavioural change, we've seen management change. You know, we talked on our previous Toon episode that that summer was an absolute mess managerially in the boardroom at Newcastle United. Dan Ashworth had gone. Amanda Stavely had gone. Darren Eels was going to be going.

19:28Henry:I think he was still there. Paul Mitchell had arrived, but was just getting his feet under the table. It was a real mess. And now with management in place, I think probably more significantly, you know, with the Saudi ownership group having learned a horrible lesson about leaving things late and being, you know, squeezed hard by ruthless rivals. This time round, they seem to have, as I say, executed a sale to sales much, much more sensibly. Now, listen, no football fan I know rejoices in sales, OK? It's just part of the business of football today that to comply with rules, you have to be good at selling as well as buying.

20:16Henry:The question hanging over Toon right now, right today in early July 2026 is, does it end with Tonali and Gordon or who else goes out the building? Time will tell, but there is a sense, and this is a negative, there is a sense that Newcastle have woken up, maybe on the back of the EZAC events, Henry, that if your absolute best players get slightly destabilised by top Champions League level clubs, in the end, it is very hard to keep them. And there's no doubt now some of those bigger clubs in the Champions League will be running the slide rule over the remaining talent at Newcastle and just wondering whether they can pick up some more talent.

21:07Right, just before we move on and we head south, can you just clarify, because I've been reading sort of conflicting reports on this, and you will know this better than anyone, that the Premier League, they wouldn't allow a sell-on clause in the Anderson, the homegrown element. because I've seen that somewhere. And I think it may have been Newcastle fans, one or two Newcastle fans defending the deal, saying they weren't able to put a sell-on clause in. Very good question.

21:39Henry:Very good question. I heard the same thing, thought it was complete bollocks. Excuse my bad language. Maybe you'll beep that. No, that's very you, CP. And you're spot on. I'm sure Newcastle fans would say the same. There is no element in the PSR rules or the SCR rules where a selling club would not be able to include a sell-on clause in a sale. Complete rubbish. And it was a direct function of the lack of negotiating leverage in that deal. perhaps a more logical outcome would have been for Newcastle whoever was handling those negotiations and I'm sad to say I actually don't know who was I'm pretty sure it wasn't Eddie Howe but would have said look we'll have a sell-on for Elliott you have a sell-on for Vlacadimos and I think it's pretty clear for I said no you're all right mate we don't need a sell-on for Vlacadimos and we're not giving you one for Elliott that is nothing to do with Premier League rules or the Premier League pure mythology to justify what was a terrible moment in the business of Newcastle Football Club.

22:49Just before we get on to sort of Chelsea and Maresca and Manchester City, Elliot Anderson's new destination, we mentioned Tonali. Matias Fernandes has gone in there. They're getting Premier League players in there. Are we seeing a different Joe Lewis?

23:08Henry:Are we ever? 240 million of talent in Hecker, Fernandez and Tonali, barely into July when a World Cup's going on. And whilst it's quite obvious, I think we've seen one sale of a lad to Brighton and it's quite clear more will move the other way. Those of our audience who've been, you know, dealing with the difficulties of the UK property market for the last 10 years will know that, you know, one of the most risky things you can do is bridging, i.e. buying before you sell. And Joe Lewis, certainly Joe Lewis under Daniel's management, was very reluctant, Daniel Levy was very reluctant to do that.

23:51Henry:In fact, Daniel wouldn't mind me saying, because it's just a matter of fact, that Spurs, you know, were very, very often involved in business on the very last day of the transfer window to, you know, kind of optimize prices, get the best possible deal. Well, that's all gone out the window. This is pure, get it done. Don't dick around for the last few million quid. If Deserbi and Lange believe that, you know, Fernandes and Tonali are either starters for this club for the next five years or starters for this club who next time round will be going to Real Madrid or Barca for even more money, just go and get it done.

24:33Henry:Pay the price, pay the wages, get the boys in the building. It is a complete and utter change in approach for the football club. And the bit that's a bit weird is it's almost as though you've got a new owner and we haven't got a new owner. We've got the same owner we've had for donkey's years, but that owner seems to be giving this management team very different messages to the messages that he gave to Daniel Levy around putting his hand in his pocket, writing checks and, excuse me, speculating in a different hot market. But I can't help but have noticed that the Lewis family raised 296 million quid a couple of weeks ago at Sotheby's selling 25 pieces of one of the finest collections of modern art in the world.

25:27Henry:A record, a record for a single day sale at Sotheby's that the Lewis family raised. Well, I just wonder whether somewhere over, you know, Christmas dinner, they said, look, you know what? I'm not really into my art. Let's sell some art. Let's buy some footballers. But he's certainly getting the checkbook out now, Henry. So basically it's Matisse Fernandes is what they're telling me. Okay, so look, we're talking about some very ruthless behavior. Let me take you to possibly the capital of ruthlessness, Stamford Bridge, a club you know well. Some interesting statements coming out this week on Enza Mareska and his move, controversial move or leaving of Chelsea.

26:14and you'll take me through the timeline on it. But just from a journalist's perspective, reading the statements, particularly Chelsea's statement, where they refer to their head coach, i.e. Enzo Maresco, former head coach, but never mention him by name, it sounded like it wasn't written by a normal contractual club lawyer. It sounded like it was written by a divorce lawyer.

26:35Henry:Yeah, I think we have talked about, you know, this is the era of big business. This is the era of ruthless corporate behaviour in the Premier League. And events this week between Chelsea and City certainly did look that way. For our audience who haven't kind of followed this, Mariska left Chelsea on the 1st of January, actually. And I had a little look at the press release that day. and the press release that day said that Enzo and Chelsea basically both think him leaving is the best thing for the team moving forward. So a sort of sense of mutuality. Lo and behold, at the end of the season, Pep Guardiola leaves.

27:24Henry:We read in the build-up to that, and certainly in the immediate aftermath of Pep Guardiola leaving City, that Maresca is the chosen replacement. And then it all goes really quiet. Season ended May 24. We're now, you know, in July. And finally, last week, we see an announcement that there has been effectively a financial settlement between Manchester City and Chelsea, where Manchester City and Enzo Maresca, by the way, Henry, have compensated Chelsea to the tune of£17 million. pounds. But sorry, the 17 million is the city element. Maresco is on top of that. We don't know the figure. We don't know what his was.

28:10Henry:But I sort of wondered, how did we end up here from a situation where, you know, there was a kind of mutual parting the ways on New Year's Day? And I think, let's kind of dig into the circumstances of that exit first before we get to the payments. it's very very unusual territory we're in here between City and Chelsea because the vast majority of managers leave clubs when they are fired okay and when they're fired they are either paid off in full or quite often paid the balance of their contract while they sit in their garden and if someone comes along when they're sitting in the garden says we want to hire you for a new job In most cases, they will take that job and the new club will pick up the salary and save the club that's fired the manager from having to keep on paying them under their contract.

29:09Henry:When a manager leaves voluntarily, that's much, much, much more unusual territory. But in recent years, the vast majority of those moments is because managers have in their agreements effectively an escape clause, just like footballers do. A sum of money that says, if a club comes in for me and wants to take me out of this job into a new club, if they pay X, I can be released from my obligations immediately and start work immediately at another club. And that type of clause, Henry, is now a standard feature of the League Managers Association's standard form of coaching and manager agreement in the Premier League.

29:54Henry:It doesn't mean every contract has one, but it is the standard form of agreement. And what is clear in the case of Enzo Maresca is that he didn't get put on gardening leave on the 1st of January. In other words, he didn't get told, OK, you want to leave, sit at home. We're not letting you go to another club and we'll pay you. We actually, it's been publicly made clear he hasn't been paid. And secondly, it's quite clear that there wasn't an escape clause that Manchester City then or later wanted to pay. So we're in unusual territory. How can it be that City have had to pay Chelsea not a couple of million quid, but 17 million quid for the privilege of recruiting Enzo Maresca?