Premier League clubs are "facing demands for ever higher transfer fees and for players' wages to be paid in euros because of the collapse in the value of the pound since the Brexit vote." As sterling fell this week to its "lowest value since Britain emerged from the financial crash," the consequences for top-flight clubs have been "laid bare by the ongoing haggling" over the future of Eredivisie side Ajax's Davinson Sánchez. Ajax has reportedly been insisting on increasing its asking price to "reflect the day-by-day fall in the value of the pound" (London GUARDIAN, 8/16).
A A$20M ($15.8M) package from the Victorian government to the Australian Rugby Union, securing Bledisloe Cup and British & Irish Lions Test matches in Melbourne "over an eight-to-10-year period, guaranteed the future" of the Melbourne Rebels in Super Rugby. The protracted negotiations between the Victorian government and the ARU, resulting in "approximately one-quarter of the funding" being passed on to the Rebels, ensured the team "would always be chosen by the ARU," ahead of Perth's Western Force, as the Australian team to be retained (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 8/16).
Highland Hospice, a charity that offers care to people dying from incurable diseases, sold its stake in Scottish Championship side Inverness Caledonian Thistle. The charity was given half a million shares --"a 19% holding worth hundreds of thousands of pounds" -- by an anonymous donor as a gift last year. Alan Savage, Iain McGilvray and Dougie McGilvray "each purchased one third of the hospice's shareholding" in the club (BBC, 8/16).
