Manchester United’s £10m boost; £5k Masters gnomes and Southgate TikTok
Manchester United are set for a £10m boost from kit sponsor Adidas if, as now seems likely, they qualify for the Champions League.
The club sit third in the Premier League with a seven-point cushion over sixth-placed Chelsea, despite Monday’s shock defeat by struggling Leeds United. Uefa confirmed last week that the top five Premier League teams will qualify for next season’s Champions League.
Manchester United’s 10-year, £900m Adidas deal, which started this season and runs until 2035, includes a clause that cuts £10m from the annual payment if they fail to reach Europe’s top club competition.
That looked a real possibility before Ruben Amorim was sacked in January but interim head coach Michael Carrick has transformed their results.
Signs are also pointing towards the off-field turnaround co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has demanded.
Champions League football would generate a minimum £50m in additional revenue next season, while United are also set to offload several high earners this summer, including Casemiro and Marcus Rashford, to give them the spending power to challenge for trophies.
Harry Maguire has been rewarded for his excellent form with a one-year contract extension – with the option for a second – and Kobbie Mainoo is close to agreeing fresh terms.
Jason Wilcox, Manchester United’s director of football, said everyone at the club “is completely determined to help Manchester United to achieve regular and sustained success”.
£5,500 Masters gnomes offered for sale
If you want to understand why golf fans rise before dawn and queue for hours before the Augusta gates open at 7am to buy a foot-tall gnome, a quick search on eBay will tell you everything.
Running is banned in the grounds and the sight of fans race-walking towards the shop is quite the spectacle. The reason? Each year, The Masters releases a new limited-edition gnome, priced at £44, and they sell out within an hour. This year’s version came with a green-and-white umbrella that could be put up.
One 2026 Masters gnome is already listed on eBay for more than £5,500. Whether the seller receives that amount remains to be seen, but two have sold for over £600 – a staggering 1,264 per cent increase in price within a week.
That may yet prove a bargain if rumours swirling around Augusta that the gnomes will be discontinued are confirmed.
Even Augusta National chair Fred Ridley admitted he was uncertain about their future when asked during his press briefing to answer what was described as a “trivial” question.
“Number one, the question is not trivial,” Ridley said. “Number two: I’ve been asking that question for several years and they won’t tell me the answer. So I can’t help you.”
If it is to be the last year of the Augusta gnomes, their value will only soar.
Tables turned on non-league boss
Six months ago, Northern Premier League chairman Mark Harris wrote for The Non-League Paper about the urgent need to tackle rising abuse and bad behaviour across football.
“‘You fucking slag’ – is it really acceptable to shout that at another human being?” he wrote. “It’s an important question because that’s what a female referee was called last Saturday during a Step 4 match.”
It came as some surprise, then, when it emerged last week that Harris had allegedly told a fan to “go fuck yourself” in an email.
Supporter Aled Duckfield had written to Harris criticising the “diabolical” decision to move FC United’s repeatedly postponed match against Stockton Town away from their ground. Duckfield later shared Harris’s terse email reply on social media.
The NPL convened an emergency meeting last week and a spokesperson subsequently said Harris had been “relieved of his duties with immediate effect, pending a full disciplinary investigation”.
Harris is also on the FA Council. A Football Association spokesperson told CityAM it was “investigating this matter. As this is an ongoing process, we are not in a position to provide further comment.”
Saudi prepares to welcome back sport
Sport will take place in Saudi Arabia across the weekend, despite the Formula 1 Grand Prix, originally scheduled for these dates, being cancelled due to war in the Middle East.
F1 bosses made the “difficult decision” a month ago to cancel the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia races due to the escalating conflict. Neither race has yet been rescheduled, costing the sport upwards of £100m in commercial revenue.
Saudi sports minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal said that, while they respected the decision, the country “was fully prepared to host the race once again in Jeddah, building on the success of the five editions we have delivered so far.
“We want the international sporting community to know that the Kingdom remains a trusted partner and destination for global sport.”
True to his word, Jeddah will now host a condensed Asian Champions League knockout phase, after the competition was halted by the war.
As with the Covid-impacted 2019-20 Champions League, when the last eight onwards were played in Lisbon, the Asian Champions League quarter-finals will take place between Thursday and Saturday, the semi-finals early next week and the final on 25 April.
Against the backdrop of a fragile ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran, CityAM has been told that participating clubs have booked flights and accommodation for the tournament.
Southgate goes viral on TikTok
Sir Gareth Southgate used his BBC Richard Dimbleby Lecture last year to warn that too many young men were turning to “toxic influencers” on the internet and needed better role models.
Leading by example, as he did in his playing days and then as England manager, Southgate has now made the surprise move to join TikTok – the video sharing platform popular among Gen Z.
Would they know who he is? Judging by the numbers, the answer seems to be a resounding yes. His first video has already been viewed more than 3m times.
“I never thought I’d see this day, but here I am on TikTok,” he says in the clip, before inviting questions and adding: “I look forward to hearing from you and I hope you enjoy the content I put on.”
At the time of writing, he follows one other account: the England national team.