Manchester City Closing in on Stadium Naming Rights Deal

Sealing a place in the Champions League is starting to pay off for Man City as they are on the verge of closing a deal worth over £10m a year for naming right to their stadium.

Two of the club’s current sponsors – Aabar, an Abu Dhabi-based investment company, and Ferrostaal, a German engineering firm taken over by the Abu Dhabi government – are the favourites to be the stadium sponsor.

Insiders acquainted with the negotiations believe the deal will be worth between £10 million and £12m a year. There is no firm agreement yet about the length of the term although it is expected to be between 10 and 15 years.

“Talks are still going on but should be sorted out quite quickly now,” a source told Goal.com. “They were partly dependent on whether City qualified for the Champions League. Now that has been confirmed, it could be finalised within the next few weeks.

“It will be a similar deal to what Arsenal have with Emirates. The City of Manchester Stadium will be named after the new sponsor.”

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UEFA reaches agreement on TV rights

UEFA has agreed to adopt centralised marketing of television rights for the Euro and World Cup qualifiers in a financial boost for Europe's smaller federations.



UEFA president Michel Platini announced that all 53 UEFA members had agreed to the new system.



“This project is your project and I am delighted to officially announce that, as of today, everyone, without exception, is on board.” Platini told delegates.



“We have received the signatures of all 53 national associations,” added the Frenchman, who was due to be elected unopposed for a another four-year term later on Tuesday.



Under the current system, to be replaced for the Euro 2016 qualifiers, individual federations negotiate television rights for their home games.



“You will all be able to concentrate on the football, without having to worry what the draws might throw up and whether their outcome will be favourable - or not - in terms of TV rights,” Platini told delegates.



“I would like to thank those national associations who have believed in it from the start and had the conviction to persuade us to follow them down this path.”



Platini also said he had resisted pressure to restrict the Champions League to Europe's elite clubs and that international football would be his priority for the next four years.



“The universality of our competitions has been maintained and even reinforced, despite ever greater pressure to close the ranks of the elite and exclude the less dominant among you,” he said.



“We must now do our utmost to raise the status of the national team competitions. We have a duty to restore them to their rightful place.”



Platini emphasised the importance of his Financial Fair Play programme which will exclude clubs from the Champions League if their generated revenue is less than their expenditure.



“Allow me to remind you of just one figure: together, Europe's professional clubs accumulated net losses of 1.2 billion euros ($1.71 billion) in 2009 alone,” he said.



“There is a huge amount of money in football, but more importantly there is a moral problem in the way this money is sometimes generated and used



“Financial fair play is a crucial project that will enable us to clean up certain practices within our game.”



He then appealed for government help to fight hooliganism and deal with match-fixing.



“I have started meeting the heads of state and government of countries particularly affected by this problem,” he said.



“It is important that their countries realise the seriousness of the situation and that they find a way to help us, you and their national associations.”



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