Two of England's Champions League clubs will be sweating over the implications of the "nationalisation" of high street banks yesterday, but others have even more to fear over their relationships with lenders.

Arsenal and Liverpool will be wondering who their personal bank manager will be after Royal Bank of Scotland was due to sell 60% of its own equity to the government. Between them the two clubs owe RBS-led consortiums more than £500m.

Stoke City's relationship is with HBOS, the other stricken bank to be propped up with billions of pounds in taxpayers' cash. But although the loans to football clubs on the banks' balance sheets might be considered "toxic" assets that might never mature, a spokesman for the Treasury offered assurances. "It is a commercial matter for the banks and building societies about their loans to football clubs," he said.

Liverpool's other major backer is Wachovia, which was sold to Wells Fargo 10 days ago. Fulham have had longer to assess their relationship with Fortis Bank, which was nationalised by the Dutch, Belgian and Luxembourg governments last month.

Bolton Wanderers have most to fear. Singer & Friedlander, the operation belonging to the collapsed Icelandic bank Kaupthing, is in administration. Bolton would now appear to be debtors to a huge list of creditors who are clamouring for their funds.

Manchester United's parent group is linked with JP Morgan while Aston Villa and Tottenham have relationships with HSBC, the one British bank unscathed by the crisis. The nine others show why it is called the Barclays Premier League.

Bidding for top jobs
Interviews will begin within days on the two major executive positions for the World Cup 2018 bid company. The composition of the board was announced on Sunday and steps will now be taken to appoint those who will run the bid company on a day-to-day basis: the chief executive and chief operating officer. David Triesman, the Football Association's chairman, will lead the interview panel for the chief executive and it is expected that Manchester United's David Gill, the only "football man" on the nine-person bid-company board, will play a significant role in that appointment. Five of those on the board are past or serving politicians but the FA will also soon announce a number of "ambassadors" - with David Beckham expected to be the most prominent appointment - and "vice-presidents" to give the bid campaign the football flavour it currently lacks. Expect a senior figure such as the Premier League chairman, Sir Dave Richards, to fill one of those roles.

Banking blues
Everton extended their overdraft facility with Barclays Bank by 20% to £30m last month, shortly before engaging the football dealmaker Keith Harris to find them a new owner. Although Everton do not expect borrowings against the facility to exceed £21m at the season's end - comfortably within the new limits - the move shows how reliant they are on the support of banks in a deteriorating financial climate. They must hope buyers will not be deterred by the latest handout. The £21m floats at 3% over bank rate, meaning service charges estimated at more than £1.5m a year. Everton are already committed to paying £2.8m a year to Prudential in interest on a securitisation struck in 2002. With the best-paid players, Tim Cahill and Mikel Arteta, below, each picking up about £2m a year, the banks' interest bills are right up there with the club's biggest earners this season.

City show new faces
Manchester City have filed details at Companies House of a newly formed board, announcing the resignations of the five Thai directors - including Thaksin Shinawatra - last week. There has been a break with the past that even Thaksin did not effect following his takeover as Bernard Halford, the club secretary who had served them for more than three decades, parted company. The announcement confirms the appointment of Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak as chairman while Simon Pearce has also become a director. But most intriguing are the directorial appointments of the Greek shipping magnate, Victor Restis, and Marty L Edelman, a New York-based lawyer, as "strategic adviser".

I take it as long as we are able to service our debt (ie make payments) the situation from our end doesn't really change that much, does it?

utter bollocks, written by someone who knows feck all about finance in general and understands less about the structured debt in place here.

If you were to question the impact of HBOS' position you'd look north first, as Bank of Scotland banks all but 2 of the SPL. Then the fact is that irrespective of who owns the banks the loans are contractually based, otherwise 2.5 million people would be walking away from Halifax mortgages. The nationalisation of Kaupthing does not make us debtors to a list of creditors at all. The reality is that this kind of debt would be sold on, not to mention one Mr E Davies underwriting it.

This kind of reporting is apalling, it's wrong on so many levels to the point where it's actually irresponsible.

not exactly the words of a communist.....but .

As CWE alludes to our debt is underwritten by Eddie Davies.

And I am a bottle of Spanish wine, Sir. You a Fusselier. Officer Dibble is actually a cartoon policeman on Topcat.

What exactly IS a Fusselier?

Yes but how secure is Mr Davies?



He's certainly wasn't as rich as the Icelandic bank owning chairman of West Ham - and look what's happened to him!

As I stated in my thread 'West Ham Fecked?' I do hope that Eddie's business / personal wealth is secure otherwise we might find ourselves doing a Gretna!

I've no idea. It redoubles my point.

Not sure the two are comparable Sluffy. One "owned" a bank (or part of it) which has gone bust. The other earned some money from a business which he sold to a bank (ABN AMRO), so in that sense it's cash in his pocket. Not sure where he stuck said cash though - although some of it is in Burnden Leisure (obviously) and I suspect the rest wasn't parked under his matress..