The reward remains remarkable. The eventual prize is worth at least £134 million (Dh827.6m).
As the Championship kicks off this weekend, the reality is that a 10-month, 49-game marathon – for those who reach the play-offs – comes with the most desirable of incentives: promotion to the Premier League and the commensurate funds.
For the clubs who have tasted the riches of the world’s most lucrative league, the dilemma is clear: cut spending or speculate to accumulate.
Fulham, Cardiff City and Norwich City came down with the guarantee of £60m of parachute payments over four seasons, £23 million of it in the first year.
But top-flight contracts can swallow up much of what seems a windfall. The Championship landscape is pocked with clubs who thought they would make a swift return to the Premier League and did not.
In the past 28 seasons, only 21 teams have won promotion at the first time of asking. Last season, the ratio was one in three: Queens Park Rangers (QPR), who, reduced to 10 men and hanging on against Derby in the play-off final, somehow conjured a 90th-minute winner from Bobby Zamora.
QPR gambled. The likelihood is that when their financial figures are announced, they will reveal one of the biggest losses recorded by a Championship club. They kept on spending and got away with it. Others have plunged deeply into debt by chasing an ever more distant dream.
Fulham have shown the clearest sign of being influenced by their London neighbours.
They bought Ross McCormack, the division’s 28-goal top scorer last season, from Leeds United. The Scot will turn 28 next Saturday, has never played a Premier League game and cost £11m. It is an incredible fee. Fulham will deem it money well spent if he delivers the goals to take them up.
Norwich, too, have the view that investing in scorers pays dividends. The £3m Lewis Grabban struck 22 times for Bournemouth last season.
At a higher level, Norwich mustered only 28, the lowest tally in all four divisions.
The difference is that, by selling Robert Snodgrass to Hull City, they are in the black.
So are Cardiff, who sold Steven Caulker and Jordon Mutch to QPR. The arrival of Adam Le Fondre, a third proven scorer in the second tier, completes a common theme. It is a feature of a quixotic division that the Championship tends to reward specialists, men who have succeeded in the division before.
Read: Relegated sides from Premier League and teams promoted into Championship
It bodes well for Cardiff, who have retained several members of the 2012 promotion-winning side, but not for Fulham: after a 13-year absence, the Championship threatens to provide a culture shock.
The most inauspicious element for all three may be found in the dugouts. The three promoted managers last season were Harry Redknapp, who took QPR up, and Leicester’s Nigel Pearson and Burnley’s Sean Dyche, both accustomed to the Championship’s unique demands after years in its environment.
Fulham’s Felix Magath and Cardiff’s Ole Gunnar Solskjaer have won league titles in Europe while Norwich’s Neil Adams has never won a competitive game. They are bound together by inexperience at this level.
The Premier League pedigree of their players counts for something and many of their new peers believe parachute payments give them an unfair advantage, but the Championship tends to be compelling because it is so even.
It provides the spectacle of 24 teams, most of them evenly matched despite wildly differing circumstances, slugging it out.
The received wisdom is that everyone can beat everyone and a well-managed, intelligently compiled team can defeat the odds.
Burnley were promoted last season with one of the lowest wage bills in the division and after spending just £450,000 in the transfer market.
The favourites this year include Derby’s youthful attackers and Wigan’s tactically astute passers, who were both unlucky to lose in the play-offs.
Intrigue is provided by the return of Stuart Pearce, one of Nottingham Forest’s greatest players, as their manager and the appointment of Sami Hyypia, who led Bayer Leverkusen in last season’s Champions League, at Brighton.
There is Jose Mourinho’s former assistant Aitor Karanka at Middlesbrough and, at the other end of the spectrum, the non-league manager Dave Hockaday, strangely chosen to lead Leeds.
Blackpool barely have 11 players, but at the end of the season someone will be £134m richer. Though probably not them.
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
The 10 Questions
- Is there a God?
- How did it all begin?
- What is inside a black hole?
- Can we predict the future?
- Is time travel possible?
- Will we survive on Earth?
- Is there other intelligent life in the universe?
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- How do we shape the future?
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
MATCH INFO
Everton 0
Manchester City 2 (Laporte 45 2', Jesus 90 7')
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
