Bayern Munich to subsidise fans' £62 tickets at Arsenal

Bayern fans travelled to England, Czech Republic and Morocco, above, for finals in 2013, as well as facing other costly trips in Europe. Photograph: Imago/Barcroft Media

Bayern Munich have told their supporters they will subsidise the £62 tickets at Arsenal by putting £74,350 towards the cost.

The European champions said in a statement that they realised the match would make "a big dent in supporters' wallets" and wanted the gesture to be "a small thank you for the great support of followers" in 2013, a year in which the club won the Bundesliga, German Cup, Super Cup, World Club Championship and Champions League.

Bayern have made the 2,974 tickets available at £37 despite already having 18,000 supporters apply for the full-price tickets for the first leg of the Champions League last-16 tie at the Emirates on 19 February.

"Both in the past, as well as in the current season, Bayern have thrilled the world of European football not only by the outstanding performance and consistency of our team, but also by the fantastic and vocal support of our fans, with the Uefa Champions League final on 25 May 2013 in London and the Uefa Super Cup final on 30 August 2013 living long in the memory," said a statement.

"Of particular note is the fact that a large number of Bayern fans not only go to the big occasions, but also attend every away game: and this loyalty means attending a high number of games, which makes a big dent in supporters' wallets.

"Bayern have therefore decided to subsidise the tickets for the away game at Arsenal with nearly €90,000.. Thus meaning every Bayern fan who buys a ticket for the game on 19/02/2014 in London, will pay only €45 (instead of the regular €75). This is intended to represent a small thank you for the great support of the followers in the past calendar year 2013."

Arsenal's ticket prices have been the subject of protests from both home and away supporters in recent seasons. In December the club announced that it would increase prices by 3% next season, in line with inflation. The Football Supporters' Federation, which campaigns to reduce the price of away costs for supporters in England, welcomed Bayern's action, particularly as the European champions could easily have sold the tickets at full price.

"We'd be very pleased if an English club did something similar," said an FSF spokesperson. "Chief executives of clubs are businessmen at the end of the day and they see things from a supply and demand point of view. Put it this way, if an English club did something like this, knowing that they could easily sell their allocation, we would give them plenty of good publicity."

Following protests from supporters about away costs in England last season the Premier League, with encouragement from the FSF, set upthe Away Fans' Fund, a £12m pot of money for clubs to use to reduce away costs. There are already examples of travel and ticket costs having been reduced by clubs – Hull have offered free coach travel and some clubs have reduced away ticket prices, with Manchester City halving the price of tickets for supporters travelling to Fulham. But the FSF would still like to see more done to preserve the culture of vocal away support in Britain, with the aim to bring about a £20 cap on away tickets. Bayern's gesture is indeed rare at Champions League level.

"We have a Twenty's Plenty campaign because away fans are the hardcore," said the FSF. "They spend money and create atmosphere in grounds and we've always argued that that level of support deserves respect. You saw the German clubs when they came to London. The colour and the atmosphere they created was fantastic. We would encourage more English clubs to follow Bayern Munich's lead."

Channel tunnel rings in mobile phone services for travellers to France

Vodafone and EE to offer mobile services in north tunnel, following in tracks of French networks serving south tunnel

Train leaving the Channel tunnel. EE says the whole Channel tunnel will be covered by superfast 4G mobile services by the summer. Photograph: Chris Ison/PA

The 30 miles of the Channel tunnel connecting England to France have until now offered a welcome pause from the trilling of mobile phones. Not any more. From this spring, Eurotunnel passengers will be able to tell callers "I'm on Le Shuttle" from 100 metres below sea level.

The north tunnel, through which the Eurostar and car-carrying shuttle transport passengers from Britain to the continent, is to be plugged into the public mobile phone network for the first time.

The British operators Vodafone and EE – owner of the Orange and T-Mobile brands – have signed a 10-year contract to offer their customers mobile and internet services beneath the Channel, and expect to have the service ready in March. EE is promising 4G by summer 2014, and Vodafone intends to make the fast mobile internet technology available in future.

The agreement is a boon for British travellers. France's three largest networks have run a mobile service in the south tunnel, which runs from France to England, since June 2012. Installed in time to serve customers travelling to the Olympics, it has until now had no matching service in the opposite direction.

Eurotunnel said it had received letters and emails from passengers requesting the two-way service. The 20 million travellers passing through the Channel tunnel each year will now be able to make calls, send emails, research hotels and stream music.

"Being connected is such an important part of travelling now," said Fotis Karonis, chief technology officer at EE. He added that the service would make a big difference to business workers and people going away on holiday.

There will be no disruption to services in the north tunnel because the work to install mobile radios and cables has already been done. Eurotunnel hired Alcatel Lucent to wire up both sections in 2011 so that its drivers and technicians could make calls. The tunnels have radios every 740 metres linked by cables which "leak" signal so that the connection does not fade in and out between radio points.

Customers of the other two British networks, O2 and Three, will be able to use their phones underground by manually switching over to EE or Vodafone's service, although such calls will cost extra. British passengers travelling back can use their phones by paying extra to roam on the French networks.

"We are talking with the other operators to see whether they would like to join in as well. There is capacity for all the operators to use the equipment that is down there at the moment," said John Keefe, a spokesman for Eurotunnel.

Stubborn UK trade deficit 'pours cold water' on hopes of export-led recovery

Although goods trade deficit narrowed slightly in November, three-month data shows widening import-export gap

Britain's export hopes have been hit by continued eurozone weakness and a stronger pound. Photograph: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Britain's trade deficit remained stubbornly high in November, further dampening hopes of an export-led recovery.

The trade in goods deficit with the rest of the world narrowed slightly to £9.4bn in November from £9.7bn in October, as a 2% growth in exports outpaced a 0.8% rise in imports, according to the Office for National Statistics.

However it was a different story over the three months to November, considered a better indication of the underlying picture than a single month's data. Exports of goods over the period fell by 3% to £75.2bn, while imports fell by a smaller 0.6% to £104.4bn, widening the deficit to £29.2bn from £27.4bn in the three months to August.

Samuel Tombs, an economist at Capital Economics, said the latest trade data continued to "pour cold water on hopes of an export-led recovery".

He added: "The widening of the deficit continues to reflect weak exports, the value of which fell by 2.5% between the three months to August and November (in contrast, imports were broadly flat). Although the manufacturing surveys have been pointing to an imminent pickup in exports for some months now, the latest data suggests that they should be taken with a pinch of salt."

Britain's export hopes have been hit by continued weakness in the eurozone, its largest trading partner, and a stronger pound, which makes British goods more expensive abroad.

UK exports to the European Union fell by 5.2% to £37.5bn in the three months to November, largely reflecting a drop in oil exports. Exports to countries outside the EU also fell, by 0.7% to £37.7bn.

Alan Clarke, fixed income director at Scotiabank, said: "The trade data are stuck in a rut. The pound is strengthening, domestic demand is driving overall growth and as a result we are sucking in imports. At the same time, our biggest trading partners in the eurozone are not growing that fast.

"For now, if anything is going to take over from consumer spending as the driver of growth, it looks unlikely to be net exports."

On a brighter note exports to China increased by 9.6% to £3.3bn in the three months to November, while imports rose by a slower 1.7% to £8.6bn, both record highs.

Net trade was a drag on overall GDP in the third quarter of 2013, and Howard Archer, an economist at IHS Global Insight, said that "it still looks very possible that net trade could have been negative overall in the fourth quarter".

The initial estimate of fourth-quarter growth will be published by the ONS on 28 January.

Standard Chartered: shock departure of finance director Richard Meddings

CEO Peter Sands faces questions over bank's position and unveils plans to merge wholesale and consumer divisions

Finance director Richard Meddings is leaving Standard Chartered as CEO Peter Sands unveiled plans to merge the wholesale and consumer divisions. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty

Standard Chartered stunned the City on Thursday by announcing the departure of its long-serving finance director along with sweeping changes to the way it operates its business.

Chief executive Peter Sands unveiled plans to merge the wholesale and consumer divisions of the bank, which specialises in emerging markets. But he failed to quell analysts' concerns about its capital position and shares in the bank, which until last year had reported 10 years of profit rises, fell more than 4%.

Sands was forced to insist "I'm not going anywhere" after he promoted the current boss of the wholesale division - Mike Rees – to deputy chief executive.

The bank was also facing questions about its decision to pay its outgoing finance director, Richard Meddings, until next year even though it was his decision to quit after 11 years on the board. Meddings was caught up in the 2012 money laundering scandal that engulfed Standard Chartered, with a report from US regulators quoting his remark to an American colleague: "You fucking Americans. Who are you to tell us, the rest of the world, that we're not going to deal with Iranians."

Meddings said he had decided over Christmas to leave. He will receive his £800,000 salary until next year, and will be entitled to a bonus for six months of the year and is being allowed to walk away with unvested shares because he is regarded as a "good leaver". Those shares are worth around £8m at current prices but their actual value will only be known when they pay out in the coming three years and will depend on the performance of the group. Medding's pension pot is likely to reach £7m by the time his 12-month contract expires next year.

Also leaving is Singapore-based Steve Bertamini, head of the consumer division, which is being disbanded. Bertamini was only hired in 2008 and Standard Chartered has not yet finished paying the signing on fee he was handed to join. The last £900,000 instalment will be paid in May. Bertamini will have his relocation to the US paid by the bank and receive his £600,000 salary to this time next year. He also has shares worth £6m at current market values and assuming all the performance criteria are met by 2016.

Meddings, once regarded as a successor to Sands and often cited as being on headhunters' lists for top jobs, said he had not decided what to do after his departure in June, and quipped he might consider financial journalism.

Last year it emerged regulators had required Meddings to be stripped of responsibility for the risk functions at the bank.

Sandy Chen, analyst at Cenkos, said: "FD Meddings' departure is key – his position had already begun to erode at the end of last year, with risk oversight transferred from him to CEO Peter Sands.

"The question is why Meddings would leave Standard Chartered at arguably its most crucial time, when the wholesale and consumer banking units are being integrated and a complete group restructuring is kicking off."

Analysts at Credit Suisse were unconvinced by assertions by Sands – chief executive since November 2006 when he was promoted from finance director – that the bank had no plans for a rights issue to raise capital.

"We believe these announcements will create further uncertainty on the stock and that our main concern in terms of a weak capital position, has not yet been addressed," the Credit Suisse analysts said.

Standard Chartered had a record run of profits throughout the financial crisis but last year was hit by ongoing problems in its Korean division, forcing it to take a $1bn charge. The bank has since had to reduce its much promised growth target for double-digit income growth to high single-digit growth.

The rise and rise of Domino's Pizza

Slices of Domino's cheese and tomato pizza. A large cheese and tomato Dominator contains 2,650 calories. Photograph: Linda Nylind for the Guardian

Ever-longer working hours, shrinking real incomes and the rise of the internet have made couch potatoes of many of us after a day's work – and that has been very good news for the pizza delivery business.

Britain's biggest pizza delivery chain, Domino's – which has recently been opening nine new outlets a month and now has 777 shops – announced "exceptionally strong" UK sales on Wednesday for the three months to the end of December. Total sales were up nearly 16% to just over £170m, and, excluding new branches sales, rose 11%.

The appeal of an American Hot Double Decadence pizza turning up at the front door after a quick phone call, or a few clicks on a mobile phone, seems unstoppable. Even in the depths of the 2009 recession Domino's boomed as cash-strapped consumers swapped restaurant meals for an evening in.

Britain's Domino's habit started in 1985 with a single branch in Luton, Bedfordshire. A decade later there were 100 stores and in 1999 the company became the first home-delivery business to float on the London stock exchange's Aim market.

A Domino's Pizza shop in Bromley, one of the many franchises in the UK. Licences now cost at least £280,000. Photograph: Martin Godwin for the Guardian

Sales soared as the company tapped into greater demand for convenience and the popularity of simply staying in and watching telly. Sponsoring Saturday night TV shows such as Britain's Got Talent and Splash! only increased the temptation for customers.

Such is the chain's ubiquity in the UK, it is easy to forget that Domino's is American. In 1960 Tom and James Monaghan opened their DomiNick's pizza delivery store in Ypsilanti, Michigan.

A year later, Tom exchanged his Volkswagen Beetle for his brother's share of the business and set himself the goal of expanding to three stores. The rest is fast-food history.

Monaghan expanded around the world using the franchising model. Domino's in the UK pays 2.7% of sales to Domino's US to use the brand.

A Domino's Pizza delivery rider in Melbourne, Australia. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

Individual store owners pay the UK company at least £280,000 for a licence upfront, plus a share of sales, and buy their ingredients from the company, prepared at three giant "commissaries" at Milton Keynes, Penrith in Cumbria and Naas in Ireland.

Domino's has 26% of the UK pizza market, just ahead of the longer established Pizza Hut at 25% but with much greater dominance of the growing delivery market.

Wayne Brown, an analyst at City brokers Canaccord Genuity, said Domino's dominance is down to "first-mover advantage" – it launched and rode the home-delivery wave earlier than anyone else.

But it has also kept up with its customers, going online as far back as 1999, embracing social media and launching a smartphone app in 2010.

Domino's Pizza internet ordering service at their Milton Keynes headquarters pictured in 2000, shortly after it launched. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

"It plays to how the customer is behaving. They are using devices for a whole range of reasons and Domino's is benefiting from that, as well as impulse purchasing and British people being time-poor."

Domino's has also kept its delivery times quick, with a target of 30 minutes or less. But is it any good?

With obesity levels rising in the UK, critics will point to the calories lurking in Domino's corrugated cardboard delivery boxes. A large cheese and tomato Dominator pizza contains 2,650 calories – more than a man's daily requirement.

Peter Backman, head of food service consultants Horizons, said: "I think it's all right. It's better than most of the competition and it's better than some of the stuff you can get in the supermarket. Even I order from Domino's, though not too often.

Dire day for UK high street as retailers reveal poor Christmas trading

Morrisons issues surprise profit warning in tough market while Tesco and Marks & Spencer post worse-than-expected sales

Morrisons, Tesco and Marks & Spencer have all posted disappointing trading over the crucial Christmas period. Photograph: David Levene

The dire state of the UK high street was laid bare on Thursday asMorrisons, Tesco and Marks & Spencer unveiled weak trading over the crucial Christmas period.

In a surprise statement to the stock exchange, Morrisons warned its profits would be at the bottom end of City forecasts. The supermarket chain blamed consumers' lack of spare cash and its lack of a home delivery service and too few convenience stores for a 5.6% fall in sales at established branches in the six weeks to 5 January.

The chief executive, Dalton Philips, said: "In a very tough market our sales performance over Christmas was disappointing." He said shoppers who would traditionally stock up for Christmas at Morrisons had instead turned to discounters Aldi and Lidl.

Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, also announced worse-than-expected Christmas sales, which fell by 2.4% in the UK. "Clearly Christmas was disappointing," said the chief executive, Philip Clarke.

Clarke said that while online and convenience store revenue had risen, the group's large out-of-town stores had suffered falling sales. He said: "It's tough because the market is tough and consumers are still feeling they don't have as much to spend."

Adding to the grim day for big retailers, Marks & Spencer said non-food sales in the three months to 28 December fell below its own expectations. Group like-for-like sales in the eight weeks before Christmas were up 1% but over the past three months they were down.

Marc Bolland, the M&S chief executive, blamed unusually warm weather in October for the sales fall and said improved business over Christmas, helped by big discounts, could not make up the lost ground. Turning round M&S's ailing clothing business is Bolland's biggest headache.

All three bosses are under pressure to revive their businesses while dealing with fierce competition and reduced household spending power. Morrisons is trying to catch up with its rivals in the growth areas of online sales and convenience stores while Tesco is ploughing money into its long-neglected UK stores. Both are losing out to Aldi and Lidl, which have claimed record UK Christmas trading.

M&S's food business performed solidly but Bolland needs to revamp the group's clothing range, which is losing out to Next, arch-rival John Lewis and high-fashion chains such as Zara.

Bolland blamed other retailers for starting a price war in December that he said had forced M&S to offer discounts of up to 30% on general merchandise. Debenhams discounted aggressively in the runup to Christmas and unveiled a profit warning last week.

"Holding our nerve was something we were doing but the market didn't. We were not the first in; we were one of the last."

M&S said its discounting would reduce the profit margin in general merchandise.

Britain's big retailers face multiple problems – shoppers are buying more online and are cutting back on big weekend trips to the supermarket. With incomes squeezed by rising prices and stagnant wages they are spending less and taking their custom to discount chains.

Andre Spicer, a professor at Cass Business School, said: "The big companies have been resting on their laurels. This means while they are trying to change things around the fringe, they may have overlooked the reason that customers go to them in the first place – for good value in the case of Tesco or for quality in the case of M&S."

While John Lewis uses its stores to let shoppers browse, have a coffee and order online, "going into the average Tesco is a depressing experience most people avoid if they can", he added

Cambodia's garment workers needled by low wages and poor conditions

Growing discontent among workers generating huge profits for scant return threatens to derail Cambodia's garment industry

Stitched up … a garment factory in Phnom Penh. Many workers in Cambodia are dissatisfied with conditions. Photograph: Tang Chhin Sothy/AFP/Getty Images

Khmom, 19, is one of the estimated 400,000 factory workers toiling inCambodia's garment factories, the country's biggest export earner. She recently lost her job at a factory in the capital, Phnom Penh, after taking time off to look after her two-year old daughter, who clings silently to her shoulder. "The factories don't care about us," she says. "They pay us so little, work us so hard and throw us away when we cannot work for a moment."

Khmom is from Damnak Sdach, a village about 50km from the capital that has no running water or electricity. She was the only one of her five siblings with a job that pays. Her elder brother, the first born, is a Buddhist monk, as is traditional in many Khmer families.

Khmom lives in a single rented room in Phnom Penh's Boeung Trabek commune. Her situation is typical. "My husband is a moto-bai-kong [tuk-tuk] driver and his salary is so little – some days nothing at all," she says. "My parents are uneducated and unable to find paying jobs. There is no work in the countryside, so I have to work in the factories."

This precarious existence – pressure from rural families to remit money while struggling to deal with urban inflation, long shifts in poor conditions, and job insecurity – has resulted in discontent. In May, protests led to the deaths of two workers at a footwear company. Between 2010 and 2012, the number of strikes increased by nearly 170%, according to a July report on working conditions in Cambodia's garment sector produced byBetter Factories Cambodia, an International Labour Organisation (ILO) project that monitors and reports on the country's industrial facilities.

The report found that over the past three years insufficient attention has been given to working conditions, particularly fire safety, child labour and worker safety and health. "At the moment when global garment and footwear buyers are publicly stating that they seek factories and business partners that show workers more consideration, the current and recent synthesis reports reveal a lack of attention to working conditions. This can have a direct impact on workers and on the health of the industry as a whole," it said.

Cambodia's garment industry is now worth $1.5bn, employing almost 400,000 workers – 90% of them young women – in more than 400 factories nationwide. The country has a reputation for fair treatment of workers, based on its labour laws, the presence of workers' unions and a minimum wage. Most of the garment companies are contract manufacturers for overseas firms.

However, according to David Welsh, Cambodia programme director for the Solidarity Centre, employees are becoming increasingly agitated that they are not profiting fairly from the spoils of their work. "Workers are, frankly, far more savvy than they get credit for, and can see these vast amounts of money being made off the backs of some of the poorest workers in the region and how little they get back in return", he says.

Wages are top of the list of worker concerns. In May 2013, there was an increase from $60 to $75 a month, plus a $5 living allowance. But Welsh says this type of incremental increase has brought little benefit for workers, since it has been swallowed up by increases in rent and other expenses.

The political opposition has campaigned for $150 a month – with some unions pushing for more. But Ken Loo, secretary general of the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), said this could have negative implications for the industry. "The garment industry is a footloose industry – it is not difficult for any investor to uproot and move its investment elsewhere," he said. "In Cambodia the industry is made up of predominantly foreign investors. If investors decide to relocate, there would be no local factories that would rise to take these places."

He added: "We do not own the brand of the items we are producing [so] our profits are determined by the brands and retailers who place orders with us – they have the ability and the finances to increase the minimum wage, not us. The focus has to be on the brands and retailers to start paying factories more, so that in return we have the ability to pay our workers more."

According to Welsh, Cambodia, with its decent labour laws and wages, is the perfect ground to showcase responsible garment production. "There is no better market in the world than Cambodia to make changes on an industry-wide level," he says. "There are only 400 factories in Cambodia so this could become a genuine model for others around the world."

But the industry and government need to deliver on the reputation for decent working conditions touted as a competitive advantage for the past decade, said Jason Judd, technical specialist at the ILO Better Factories programme, echoing a view reflected in the Better Factories Cambodia report. "In the post-Rana Plaza era, improving working conditions – and a willingness to show it through public disclosure – needs to become the norm," he says.

For Khmom, who soon landed another factory job at the minimum wage, powerlessness is an expected aspect of poverty. "The poor are always unlucky, there is nothing we can do," she said with a shrug. "One cannot break a stone with an egg."