While elite level club football may have taken something of a back seat due to the World Cup in Qatar, there have been seismic developments across the European game.
The revelation that Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group were willing to listen to offers for the club after more than a year searching for minority investment started something of a chain reaction, with Manchester United's Glazer family ownership exploring a similar exit strategy just a fortnight later.
Following those two major decisions at board level at two of the biggest clubs in world football, Paris Saint-Germain owners Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) announced they were open to an equity sale of 15 per cent, valuing the club at £3.5bn, as they seek to raise fresh capital to aid their efforts on and off the pitch; most notably their desire to move away from the Council of Paris-owned Parc des Princes and into their own home.
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Those three decisions to either seek a full sale or the sale of a minority stake arrived in the same year that Chelsea hit the market and were sold for £2.5bn after the sanctions imposed on Roman Abramovich in the wake of Russia's military invasion of Ukraine saw a forced sale. It was an asset that attracted interest from across the world and one that was acquired by the Todd Boehly/Clearlake Capital-led consortium, which also features, among others, Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss.
On Monday, Juventus had their own huge announcement.
While the ownership of the Italian giants won't be changing hands just yet, there were enormous changes at boardroom level, brought about by an investigation into the Turin club's financial statements by Italian prosecutors and market regulator Consob, relating to alleged market manipulation of transfer fees and false accounting. They are allegations that Juventus deny.
President Andrea Agnelli, one of the most prominent boardroom figures in European football who was a major agitator, and continues to be, for the formation of a European Super League, was joined in resigning by vice-president Pavel Nedved and the rest of the Juventus board, with the decision coming on the back of the club posting a record loss of £220m for its most recent set of financials for 2021.
The decision, according to a Juventus statement, was done after “new legal and accounting opinions” from independent experts were obtained, the statement adding that "having considered the centrality and relevance of pending legal and accounting issues" the board considered it to be "in the best social interest to recommend that Juventus equip itself with a new board of directors to address these issues".
The departure of Agnelli, who retains an ownership stake in Juventus, not only leaves the club with a rather uncertain future but also creates another damaging blow to the European Super League trying to get off the ground.
When the 12 clubs of Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Chelsea, AC Milan, Inter Milan, Juventus, Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid all signed up in rather clandestine fashion to the ESL back in early 2021, the project took just 48 hours from launch to crumble to dust, such was the backlash from fans, governing bodies and the wider football family.
Liverpool stepped back, as did eight others, with owners FSG forced into a rather embarrassing climbdown when John Henry had to apologise to Reds fans for his part in bringing the club into the ESL conversation.
But as football roundly rejected the idea, Juventus, Real Madrid and Barcelona were undeterred, spurred on by the promises of enormous financial benefits that would aid their own balance sheets, which the impact of the pandemic and continued reckless spending had led to enormous losses. Barcelona pushed past the £1bn debt mark and were forced to sell off parts of their business and media rights in order to firefight the situation.
A legal case was filed in Madrid by the trio, who argued that UEFA had a monopoly on European football, the aim being that the clubs could clear the path legally for another tilt at a revised, more palatable version of the ESL in the future. That is an argument that still rages, and with the company behind the project, A22, having appointed a new CEO in October in German executive Bernd Reichart, it is something that refuses to die down.
But while the resignation of the Juventus board in this instance isn't related to the ESL plans, Agnelli's departure as president of the club lands a major blow to the chances of the league forming, which were already deemed to be slim to none.
The decision of FSG and the Glazer family to test the water when it comes to seeing what the interest is like and where the price point lies on the market is born from not only the high value and major interest that Chelsea created, but also from the failure of two major structural changes to European and domestic football failing to gain any traction.
The motivation for clubs to join the ESL was largely down to the fact that they didn't want to be left out if it did get the green light, not to mention the the welcome bonus of some £250m-plus, which US bank JP Morgan had committed to stumping up £2.8bn to get off the ground, which was appealing during a time when revenues were severely impacted. But for English clubs, the Project Big Picture rejection was altogether more damaging, with Liverpool and Manchester United having been driving forces behind that particular project, which sought to give more money to the EFL but in return wanted a smaller league and trimmed calendar, with competitions such as the EFL Cup abolished; the idea being for 'big six' clubs to be able to arrange more lucrative European exhibition games with the time freed up.
Both ideas were booted into the long grass and with them hopes of hundreds of millions of pounds worth of guaranteed revenues.
The decision of the Liverpool and Manchester United owners to assess their futures points to the failure of both the ESL and Project Big Picture. And with Agnelli, who along with Real Madrid president Florentino Perez and Barcelona president Joan Laporta has been the biggest advocates of the launch of an ESL competition to 'save' football, which Perez described as being "sick", now gone, it is a clear message that, for the foreseeable future at least, the ESL is not something that will be arriving.
That could have an impact on the kind of interest drummed up for the clubs, too, with would-be owners knowing that they wouldn't be able to be the catalyst for any structural change for some time. The plans for both FSG and the Glazers to leave also might give some indication to the market as to the way they think it is heading and the prospects for future growth of these global assets.
"John Henry is intentional in his utterances, he knows how not to say things," said Stefan Szymanski, author of the lauded 'Soccernomics' and the Stephen J. Galetti Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan, in an interview with the ECHO.
"Looking at the European Super League and Project Big Picture, I think people understate how significant the latter's failure was.
"I think Henry was bitterly disappointed about the failure of that and I think that is where he realised that it was a cultural thing that he couldn't change. He gave an interview where he said he was disappointed about the other owners and their lack of ambition. I took that to be a very revealing statement from him. The fact he felt he was focused on the stars and they were looking in the gutter, that felt like it was kind of a key moment.
"Fenway getting out would be a significant signal to the market, it would signal to some that the party was over in some ways."
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