Evidence standards
Football club deal reporting routinely conflates purchase price, valuation, enterprise value, debt assumption and investment commitments. Our database keeps these concepts separate, attaches evidence to individual fields — not just whole transactions — and prefers an honest “undisclosed” over false precision.
Evidence labels
Supported by a primary source: club, buyer or seller announcement, league approval, or regulatory filing.
Taken from audited accounts, stock-exchange or corporate-registry filings.
Reported by credible media. We name the outlet and link the article. Not independently confirmed by the parties.
Derived by the platform from other fields. The formula is always shown. Calculated values are never externally reported figures.
A clearly-labeled estimate. Used sparingly; never presented as confirmed.
The parties chose not to disclose the figure.
We could not establish the figure from credible sources. Shown as “—”, never as zero.
Value concepts we keep separate
- Reported consideration — what the buyer reportedly paid for the acquired stake.
- Implied 100% equity value — consideration ÷ stake acquired. Calculated by us, only when the consideration is an equity purchase price and the stake is known.
- Enterprise value — equity value + debt − cash. Only calculated when transaction-date debt and cash are established; otherwise unavailable.
- Debt assumed / restructured — liabilities taken on or repaid as part of the deal. Not purchase price.
- Primary capital injection — new money into the club, not to the seller.
- Investment commitment — announced future spending. Not price, not valuation.
We label equity-value multiples as EqV / revenue and never as EV / revenue unless a true enterprise value exists.
Source hierarchy
- Primary: club / buyer / seller announcements, regulatory and exchange filings, audited accounts, league approvals.
- Institutional: UEFA, FIFA, leagues, federations, licensing authorities.
- High-quality financial media: Reuters, FT, Bloomberg, major national financial press.
- Specialist football-business media.
- Other credible reporting, including local-language media.
We research in local languages — French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese deal coverage is often better than the English-language record.
Transaction confidence
High — core facts primary-sourced and financial figures from filings or high-quality sources. Medium — core transaction confirmed; valuation depends on credible secondary reporting. Low — material facts rest on weak, conflicting or indirect reporting. Individual fields always retain their own evidence status.