Following the retirement of the indomitable Charles Sale, we have launched a new-look SPORTS AGENDA column, edited by LAURA WILLIAMSON, which will run every Monday in the Daily Mail.
SECRET TRYSTS FOR BIG SIX OVER TV RIGHTS CLASHIf Richard Scudamore thought he had pacified the Premier League’s Big Six with a larger slice of overseas TV rights before he stood down as executive chairman, it seems he was mistaken.
Powerbrokers at Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham are still very much an item, with the exclusive private dining rooms at Mosimann’s in Belgravia understood to be their regular haunt for secret meetings. Sports Agenda has been told they even have a WhatsApp group.
Manchester United chief Ed Woodward (left) has a chat with Richard Scudamore (right)
Such is their desire to continue acting together in pursuit of a bigger share of TV rights cash, they made sure they met Susanna Dinnage before the TV executive suddenly changed her mind on becoming Scudamore’s successor.
Senior figures in the game think it was this testosterone-charged encounter just before Christmas that persuaded Dinnage to stay as global president of Animal Planet.
The search for a new chief executive, led by Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck, continues in vain. Last week Richard Masters, the Premier League’s managing director, was confirmed as interim chief executive at Companies House, but the PL are anxious to hire an administrator with more television know-how.
Dinnage’s expertise in TV and digital media was thought ideal given some insiders feel the organisation will explore whether to launch their own streaming service. UEFA announced similar plans last week and will unveil the originally named UEFA TV from 2021.
In a bizarre coincidence, who should turn up at the same Portman Square hotel which hosted last week’s PL shareholders meeting, but Gary Lineker — a man who just happens to know quite a bit about football and TV.
‘I’m here for a lunch,’ said the former England striker, understandably slightly perplexed to bump into a pack of sports journalists in a London hotel on a Thursday.
GHOULS PROFIT FROM SALA TRAGEDYThe toll that Emiliano Sala’s death has taken on Neil Warnock has left many convinced he will leave Cardiff City this summer, even if he keeps the side up. But Nantes have far greater grounds for soul-searching.
When Sala had reconciled himself to the Cardiff move, he wanted to be in the squad for the league game at Newcastle on January 19. But Nantes dragged their heels, insisting he play one last game, against Angers on January 20.
A dispute ensued, which meant Sala reached Cardiff too late to play at Newcastle. At a loose end that weekend, he took a flight to Nantes to say his goodbyes and never made it back.
The ghoulish arguments over Sala’s transfer fee were sadly predictable, but there are others in football trying to profit from the tragedy.
Several agencies have received emails from a chartered flight company hawking its services in light of the ‘tragic loss of a light aircraft carrying a Premiership (sic) football star’.
Some people have no class.
A chartered flight company is trying to profit from the tragic death of Emiliano Sala
How depressing that Britain’s fantastic Fed Cup performances or the British Athletics indoor trials were not live on terrestrial television.
Fair play to BT Sport for showing the tennis drama from Bath, but Britain’s fastest woman Dina Asher-Smith was not alone in venting her frustration at trying to follow the action on the track, which was streamed on British Athletics’ and the BBC’s websites to no great fanfare.
‘I’m so disappointed with the presentation,’ she wrote on Twitter. ‘You’d easily miss trials happening.’ It’s no coincidence
