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| Business Words in the News
Friday 05 April 2002
Vocabulary from the business news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
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German football's financial problems
Summary: The German government is prepared in principle to help football clubs if the media giant Kirch goes bankrupt. Kirch had bought the television rights to the German football league.
This report from Andrew Walker.
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| | The News | |
| | | German football could be one of the casualties if the Kirch media group goes bankrupt. The money that Kirch has agreed to pay is needed to enable the clubs to retain some of their star players and just to keep them in business. A German government spokesman has said that there have already been discussions about possible financial guarantees. They would be loans, not grants, to be repaid when the league can resell the rights to another broadcaster. However, a spokesman for the publicly funded broadcaster ARD suggested that they might be too expensive, although they would be tempting.
The Kirch Group has also the broadcasting rights to Formula One motor racing and the next two football World Cup finals. It also has interests in satellite and pay television and publishing. The group's debts helped fund some of these initiatives, but sports rights and Pay TV have not generated the revenue that Mr Kirch hoped for.
The English Football League - not including the Premier League - is also facing problems arising from the financial crisis at a television company which has bought its rights, namely ITV Digital. The British government has not offered to provide financial help to clubs whose survival might be in doubt as a result.
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| | The Words
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| | | casualties
a casualty suffers badly as a result of an event
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| | | keep them in business
help them to continue to trade
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| | | financial guarantees
promises that money would be available
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| | | loans
loans are sums of money that are borrowed and then paid back
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| | | grants
grants are sums of money given by a government for a purpose: they are not paid back
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| | | broadcasting rights
the legal permission to transmit on radio or on television
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| | | generated the revenue
produced the money
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| | | financial crisis
a serious situation caused by not having enough money
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| | | survival
here, the fact of continuing to trade despite difficulties
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