LONDON (Reuters) – English soccer clubs must be prepared for salary capping, former Football League chairman Brian Mawhinney warned on Monday.

The 60-year-old, who was succeeded after seven years by businessman Greg Clarke on Friday, believes that the current financial model at league clubs outside of the Premier League is not sustainable.

“The business model of professional football in this country doesn’t work, it’s broke and you see that reflected in the administrations and all the rest of it,” Mawhinney said.

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The debts of English football clubs are racking up, with teams both big and small in deep trouble. John Davidson explains how the debt issue in England is spiraling out of control and what the dire consequences could be.

It makes for alarming reading. The total of 18 clubs in the English Premier League are responsible for 56% of the money owed by all of the clubs licensed by UEFA, which is 732 clubs in total. This does not include debt-stricken West Ham, who was recently sold to new owners, or the more damaged Portsmouth. English clubs have a combined debt of GB$3.5 billion pounds, which is four times higher than the combined debt owned by clubs from the Spanish La Liga.

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LONDON (Reuters) – Organisers of the 2012 Olympics will be hoping to emulate the street-party atmosphere of Vancouver now that the curtain has come down on the Winter Games and all eyes turn to London.

London organisers have always promised a “compact and atmospheric” Summer Games, largely as an antidote to the glitz of Beijing which is estimated to have spent 40 billion pounds ($59.58 billion) on staging the 2008 Olympics.

London also pledged it would provide efficiency, with the added commitment of delivering a legacy which would avoid the white elephants of some previous Games such as Athens.

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LONDON (Reuters) – An English Premier League club could collapse this year because of the parlous state of soccer finances, former Birmingham City co-owner David Sullivan warned on Tuesday.

Sullivan, who sold his stake in Birmingham to Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung last year, said many clubs had put their future in jeopardy by borrowing against future income and that the state of football finances was “frightening.

“We’ve looked at 20 clubs since we left Birmingham. The state of the finance of football is frightening, and I think there’s a possibility one Premier League club could go,” Sullivan told the BBC.

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LONDON (Reuters) – Foreign owners cannot expect to buy instant success in English soccer, the head of the League Managers Association said on Sunday after Manchester City dismissed Mark Hughes.

Chief executive Richard Bevan accused the Abu Dhabi-owned club of changing the goalposts for Hughes, who was replaced by Italian Roberto Mancini within minutes of Saturday’s 4-3 home win over Sunderland, and warned of further sackings elsewhere.

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MADRID (Reuters) – Spanish media groups Mediapro and Prisa have agreed a deal to broadcast English Premier League matches for the next three seasons, Mediapro said in a statement on Thursday.

Mediapro and Prisa are to broadcast games on television, internet and mobile phones via their Gol Television and Canal Plus subsidiaries in seasons 2010/11, 2011/12 and 2012/13.

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LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s dominant pay-TV firm BSkyB has won the right to show the majority of English Premier League soccer games in Ireland from next season until the 2012/2013 season.

“BSkyB has been awarded live rights to 115 Barclays Premier League fixtures per season,” the league said in statement on Tuesday.

The Walt Disney-owned sports network ESPN was awarded the rights to broadcast 23 fixtures per season and Setanta Ireland will show 33 matches per season live on Saturdays for the same period.

STOCKHOLM (BUSINESS WIRE) -Modern Times Group, the international entertainment broadcasting group, today announced that it has extended its exclusive broadcasting rights to England’s Barclays Premier League in Bulgaria until the end of the 2012-2013 season. The rights also include extended online coverage and a dedicated Premier League website, which MTG operates in Bulgaria.

MTG broadcasts Premier League matches on its Diema and Diema 2 channels in Bulgaria, and the top matches from the current season have attracted a 15 to 20 per cent commercial audience share amongst male viewers over the age of 15. MTG broadcasts live coverage of 228 matches over the season, as well as weekly shows featuring highlights, profiles, interviews and analysis.

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KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – English Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore warned Asian clubs on Tuesday that a salary cap would have a detrimental effect on their game.

The popular method of controlling spending in clubs is used in American sports and in Australia’s domestic A-League but Scudamore, a decade in his role with the Premier League, was against the idea.

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LONDON (Reuters) – Barclays have renewed their title sponsorship of the Premier League for a further three years until 2012/13 in a deal worth 82.25 million pounds ($136.9 million), the Premier League said on Friday. The deal, which is a 25 percent increase on the previous three-year contract, will run from the 2010/11 season to the end of the 2012/13 season.

“We are extremely pleased that our long established partnership with Barclays will continue for a further three seasons,” Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore said in a statement.

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