meed-logo

line1 line2 line3
SIGN IN / REGISTER

Gulf funds help reshape football

23 August 2023

Commentary
Edmund O'Sullivan
Former editor of MEED

At 8pm on Friday 11 August, the referee blew his whistle to start the first match of the English Premiership season. It was a fresh start, but the outcome was unsurprising. Newly-promoted Burnley was soundly defeated by reigning champions Manchester City.

Once shaped by uncertainty, top-flight football – in England, at least – is increasingly predictable. In May, Manchester City won the premiership for the third consecutive season and the seventh time since it was acquired by Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan 15 years ago. It is forecast to prevail again this year and dominate the English game for the foreseeable future.

Football at the highest levels is played by the rich and owned by the richer. And those watching it in England’s premiership grounds are as likely to be members of the professional middle class as manual workers, the game’s original core audience.

Football at the highest levels is played by the rich and owned by the richer

The transformation was due to technical change in the form of satellite television and the internet. This created a global football audience and brought billions in advertising revenue into a league that had been teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. 

English football looked like an investable proposition for the first time in almost a century. But winning the premiership – created by the owners of the top clubs so they could keep most of the new income – depended on having the best players and training staff. This drove up wage bills and produced the perverse result that big clubs had more income, but limited profits.

Gulf capital

This has led to dominance by elite teams owned by private investors with an appetite for unconventional assets. More recently, the interested investors have increasingly been royal and sovereign parties from the Gulf states.

Patient and content with capital appreciation as much as dividend income, Sheikh Mansour has invested across Manchester City’s talent supply chain. Benefitting from Etihad’s sponsorship, the club can probably field two teams capable of winning every domestic competition and retaining the Uefa Champions League title it captured for the first time this year.

The Gulf wealth fund formula is producing results elsewhere. Paris St Germain has won the French league nine times since it was bought by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, now ruler of Qatar, through the Qatar Investment Authority. Newcastle United, bought by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund in 2021, finished fourth in the premiership last season and is in the Uefa Champions League for the first time in 20 years.

Football, of course, remains unpredictable. But a new process is at work that means many of the surprises are now off the pitch, not on it.

Connect with Edmund O’Sullivan on Twitter

More from Edmund O’Sullivan:

> When a war crime is denied
> Embracing the new Washington consensus
> Trump, Turkiye and the trouble ahead
> A century of errors for the Middle East
> The pros and cons of the biometrics boom
> Learn from history or be doomed to repeat it
> In memory of Abdullah Jonathan Wallace
> Energy challenges cloud 2023 outlook
> Wobbling technology teaches digital caution
> Gulf stands to benefit from global turmoil

 

 

https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/11084502/main.gif
Edmund O’Sullivan

Register for MEED's guest program now to access this article.

Click here to register
Exclusive from Meed
Related Articles
  • Dubai receives $22bn tunnels investor prequalifications

    30 October 2024

    Potential investors have submitted their statements of qualifications (SOQs) for a contract to develop and operate various packages of the $22bn Dubai Strategic Sewerage Tunnels (DSST) project.

    MEED understands the project client, the Dubai Municipality, received SOQs from over a dozen companies, including several that have been prequalified as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors for the project's first four packages.

    According to industry sources, the companies that are keen to prequalify as investors or sponsors of the planned public-private partnership (PPP) project include:

    • Abrdn Investcorp Infrastructure Investments Manager (UK)
    • Besix (Belgium)
    • China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC)
    • China Railway Engineering Group (CREG)
    • China State Construction Engineering Corporation (China)
    • Itochu (Japan)
    • Plenary (Australia)
    • Samsung C&T (South Korea)
    • Vision Invest (Saudi Arabia)
    • WeBuild (Italy)

    The project client and its consultants held a consortium match-making event for prospective contractors and sponsors or investors in Dubai on 7 October.

    MEED previously reported that the bidders for the six public-private partnership (PPP) packages will be prequalified consortiums comprised of sponsors or investors; engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors; and operations and maintenance contractors.

    The overall project will require a capital expenditure of about AED30bn ($8bn), while the whole-life cost over the full concession terms of the entire project is estimated to reach AED80bn.

    The investor prequalification process for the scheme comes after the client prequalified EPC contractors that can partner with the developers or investors to bid for the contracts.

    MEED understands that packages J1 and W will be tendered together as separate contracts first, followed by J2 and J3, with the requests for proposals to be issued sequentially, staggered about six to 12 months apart.

    Dubai Municipality is expected to invite prequalified companies to submit bids for the contracts to develop the first two packages of the DSST project in the fourth quarter of 2024.

    DSST packages

    Under the current plan, the $22bn DSST project is broken down into six packages, which will be tendered as PPP packages with concession periods lasting between 25 and 35 years.

    The first package, J1, comprises Jebel Ali tunnels (North) and terminal pump stations (TPS). The tunnels will extend approximately 42 kilometres (km), and the links will extend 10km. 

    The second package, J2, covers the southern section of the Jebel Ali tunnels, which will extend 16km and have a link stretching 46km.

    W for Warsan, the third package, comprises 16km of tunnels, TPS and 46km of links.

    J3, the fourth package, comprises 129km of links.

    J1, J2, W and J3 will comprise the deep sewerage tunnels, links and TPS (TLT) components of the overall project.

    J1, J2 and W will be procured under a design-build-finance-operate-maintain model with a concession period of 25-35 years.

    J3 will be procured under a design-build-finance model with a concession period of 25-35 years. Once completed, Dubai Municipality will operate J3, unlike the first three packages, which are planned to be operated and maintained by the winning PPP contractors.  

    The project’s remaining two packages entail the expansion and upgrade of the Jebel Ali and Warsan sewage treatment plants.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/12804424/main.jpg
    Jennifer Aguinaldo
  • TotalEnergies $11bn hydrogen project starts pre-feed

    30 October 2024

     

    France’s TotalEnergies has started the pre-front-end engineering and design (feed) for its planned $11bn integrated project to produce green hydrogen and ammonia in Morocco, according to a company spokesperson.

    TotalEnergies signed the joint development agreement with the relevant authorities and ministers in Morocco on 28 October, during French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to the North African state.

    It was previously reported that the planned integrated facility would be located in Guelmim-Oued Noun in southern Morocco.

    TotalEnergies’ chairman and CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, signed the agreement for the local production of green hydrogen and ammonia in the presence of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and Macron.

    The counterparties included Morocco’s Energy Minister, Leila Benali; Economy and Finance Minister, Nadia Fattah; Interior Minister, Abdelouafi Laftit; and Minister Delegate in charge of Investment, Karim Zidane.

    It is understood that the project will require the development of 10GW of solar and wind energy and a land area of 187,000 hectares.

    It was reported that Morocco’s Unified Regional Investment Commission had approved the project’s launch in November 2022.

    The other agreements signed during Macron’s visit to Morocco cover financial cooperation in the rail, forestry, aviation, logistics and energy sectors, with a particular focus on decarbonisation and energy transition.

    TotalEnergies has been exploring green hydrogen and other related projects in the Middle East and North Africa region.

    In August, the Courbevoie-headquartered firm and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) signed an agreement to assess the viability of developing a commercial green hydrogen-to-methanol-to-sustainable aviation fuel (saf) project.

    It is also among the early investors in UK-based Xlinks First, which aims to deliver the $18bn Morocco-UK power interconnector project. TotalEnergies acquired a minority stake in the company following an investment of $25.4m announced in November last year.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/12819510/main.gif
    Jennifer Aguinaldo
  • Decarbonising steel is hard to resist

    29 October 2024

    Commentary
    Jennifer Aguinaldo
    Energy & technology editor

    A pilot green hydrogen plant supplying a small amount of colourless gas that will be used to extract iron from iron ore – a key steelmaking step – is not a big deal, especially given the multibillion-dollar industrial and petrochemicals investments that this region has grown accustomed to over the past decades.  

    The project can be seen as a just one element of Abu Dhabi's multi-pronged strategy to decarbonise large swathes of its economy, given that the client for this project, the newly rebranded Emsteel, holds a 60% share in the local steel industry and exports products to about 70 countries.    

    The global steel industry accounts for about 7% of annual greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

    On one hand, it will take a lot more than a few electrolysers to produce hydrogen that will be used to further decarbonise Emsteel's production and operations; on the other, a small first step is required to make a future big leap given the enormity and urgency of the challenge, and the vast investment it requires.

    Specific details are sparse regarding the pilot plant and the future timeline to scale hydrogen production at Emsteel's manufacturing complex in Abu Dhabi.

    However, as the executives of Emsteel and its hydrogen partner, Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), have said, the completion of the pilot project is a vital first step towards producing certifiable green steel, which is expected to enjoy brisk demand as pressures to decarbonise sectors such as construction increase across the globe.

    As it is, Emsteel's credentials include being the world's first steelmaker to capture part of its carbon dioxide emissions, thanks to Abu Dhabi National Oil Company's (Adnoc) Al-Reyadah carbon capture, utilisation and storage facility. This has enabled the company to operate with "45% less carbon intensity than the global average". Its utilisation of clean energy also rose above 80% last year.

    Today, from the vantage point of the stakeholders, the specific details of the pilot project matter less than what it signifies, which is that Abu Dhabi intends to become a major green steel producer, and that it can transform a hard-to-abate sector into a hard to resist one.

     

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/12812275/main.jpg
    Jennifer Aguinaldo
  • Neom to tender hydropower contract

    29 October 2024

     

    Neom's utility subsidiary Enowa is expected to issue the request for proposals (RFP) for a contract to develop and operate the first phase of a pumped hydropower storage (PHS) network catering to Saudi Arabia's Neom gigaproject before the end of the year.

    The planned first phase of Neom’s PHS project, known as Nestor, will have an installed capacity of 2,200MW and a storage capacity of 23.1 gigawatt-hours, or about 11 hours, according to industry sources.

    Enowa received statements of qualifications from international and local developers and investors on 30 June.

    However, it has yet to release the prequalification evaluation results. 

    "As far as we know, the RFP is set to be issued some time in December this year," a source familiar with the project tells MEED. 

    The Nestor project will be developed using a build-own-operate-transfer model that is expected to cover 40 years, excluding the construction period.

    The expected capital expenditure for the project is $2.7bn.

    Enowa received expressions of interest in bidding for the project from developers and contractors in January this year.

    PHS network

    The overall infrastructure will involve developing four PHS stations in Neom. The planned schemes will form the backbone of an energy storage infrastructure at the SR1.5tn ($500bn) development. 

    The other three planned PHS projects will be located in Al-Qimmah, Nima and Beach Mountain, and will have capacities of about 3,000MW, 1,000MW and 3,000MW, respectively.

    UK-based HSBC and US-based White & Case are advising the client on the scheme.

    The PHS independent power project will complement Neom’s planned multi-gigawatt renewable energy infrastructure, in line with its vision of being 100% powered by renewable energy by 2030.

    A PHS facility typically comprises two water reservoirs at different elevations that can generate power when water passes through a turbine and moves down or is discharged from the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/12812234/main.jpg
    Jennifer Aguinaldo
  • TotalEnergies signs $11bn Morocco green hydrogen deal

    29 October 2024

    France's TotalEnergies has signed an agreement to develop an $11bn project to produce hydrogen and green ammonia in Morocco.

    It was previously reported that the planned integrated facility will be located in Guelmim-Oued Noun in southern Morocco.

    The deal is one of 22 that were signed during French President Emmanuel Macron's visit to the North African state on 28 October.

    TotalEnergies' chairman and CEO, Patrick Pouyanne, signed the agreement for the local production of green hydrogen and ammonia in the presence of Morocco's King Mohammed VI and Macron, according to local media reports.

    The counterparty includes Morocco's Energy Minister, Leila Benali; Economy & Finance Minister, Nadia Fattah; Interior Minister, Abdelouafi Laftit; and Minister Delegate in charge of Investment, Karim Zidane.

    It is understood that the project will require the development of 10GW of solar and wind energy and a land area of 187,000 hectares.

    It was reported that Morocco's Unified Regional Investment Commission had approved the project’s launch in November 2022.

    The other agreements signed during Macron's visit to Morocco cover financial cooperation in the rail, forestry, aviation, logistics and energy sectors, with a particular focus on decarbonisaton and energy transition.

    TotalEnergies has been exploring green hydrogen and other related projects in the Middle East and North Africa region.

    In August, the Courbevoie-headquartered firm and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) signed an agreement to assess the viability of developing a commercial green hydrogen to methanol to sustainable aviation fuel (saf) project.

    It is also among the early investors in UK-based Xlinks First, which aims to deliver the $18bn Morocco-UK power interconnector project. TotalEnergies acquired a minority stake in the company following an investment of $25.4m, which was announced in November last year.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/12811486/main.gif
    Jennifer Aguinaldo