The Political Economy of Football V2

The board of the Shrimps Trust at Morecambe have written to the club’s owners, Panjab Warriors, and the club’s chairman Kuljit Singh Momi, expressing their concern at the direction of the Lancashire club. The open letter details a number of concerns relating to both on-pitch and off-pitch matters, with the trust claiming that promises made have not seen results delivered or communication with fans. The new ownership group took over at the start of the season following a long campaign by fans to oust previous owner Jason Whittingham, who presided over their relegation from the EFL. Supporters hoped that after this period of turmoil which saw club wages going unpaid, a gutting of the club’s playing staff, and their early fixtures in the National League suspended, that new ownership would steady the ship. Now the club find themselves in the relegation places of the National League. The trust, however, are concerned that promised recruitment, strengthened board governance and a l...

January has been a difficult month for Tottenham Hotspur, to put it mildly. The Premier League results have been disastrous, with Spurs taking just three points from five games, none against top sides. The defining sound has been booing.   That negativity has corroded Frank’s standing at Spurs over time. What no one knows today is the impact of Wednesday’s triumph on Sunday’s mood. If the last few weeks have taught us anything, it is that the club’s boardroom executives control the head coach’s future, and they have been consistently supportive of Frank since his appointment in June. The hierarchy will soon face more pressure from fans than they have at any point since Daniel Levy’s dismissal in September. That was the Year Zero moment, the sudden rupture when the Lewis family took back control of the club. The old way of doing things, built around Levy, was out. In came a new modern corporate structure. At the heart of it was CEO Vinai Venkatesham, who had arrived ...

The Athletic has been looking at the hardest clubs in England to support.   Bristol Rovers were selected due to their 2025, which featured relegation as well as a record 10 consecutive defeats. The club have never been in the top flight in their 143 years, and the last time they were in the second tier was 1993. They have never won a major trophy or reached a semi-final.  It was the first home game of 2026, a new start and all that. An old face, Steve Evans, is the new Rovers manager, appointed shortly before Christmas. Rovers’ anthem, Leadbelly’s Goodnight Irene, gets an airing and there was some familiarity in the scoreline, too: Bristol Rovers 0-1 Colchester United. It was Rovers’ 13th home league game this season: they have won three, scoring eight goals. Eight. In the second half of last season, there had also been 13 home matches. Rovers won five of those. Nicknamed ‘The Gas’ and the ‘Pirates’, it meant in 2025 ‘Gasheads’ made 25 trips to the stadium, saw eigh...

I am sceptical about the fashion in football for constantly changing the manager.    The New York Times has run a feature on managerial turnover in the Championship.    T heir view is that more changes are on the way.   However, the evidence of a new managerial bounce seems to be mixed to say the least. Of the 24 managers to start the season in charge of a Championship club, only 15 remain. The relentless and ruthless nature of England’s second tier suggests there will probably be further casualties before the end of the season, too. Over a third of the total sackings (25) across the four divisions in England have been in the Championship, with Leicester City, West Bromwich Albion, Oxford United, Southampton, Swansea City, Norwich City, Watford, and Sheffield United all pulling the plug after experiencing struggles. Of the eight clubs to move a manager on, seven make up the bottom 11 positions in the Championship, with Watford, who have a managerial recrui...

Moving away for once from their obsession with Wrexham, The Athletic (New York Times) has named the the three clubs hardest to support in England: Preston North End, Bristol Rovers and Darlington. Remember that when Preston were first formed they dominated the Football League as 'the Invincibles'.  When I started watching football, Tom Finney was a leading England star (he later went to work in his plumbing business!) Given there has been no PNE Championship play-off since 2009 and the last five season finishes have been 20th, 10th, 12th, 13th, and 13th, there is not huge expectation PNE will be anywhere other than mid-table come May and facing another season in the Championship. In the league, Preston haven’t played Arsenal since 1960, Man United since 1961, Liverpool since 1962. When QPR arrive in April, it will be a 38th league meeting of the clubs since 2000. The club relies financially on the Hemmings family, who invest around £12million ($16.2m) a year. Preston are esti...

The Deloitte Money League has received extensive coverage, but It is well worth picking out some highlights from the Swiss Ramble’s forensic analysis in which he identifies key trends in football finance.   Subscribe to his Substack page for much more detail – and insights. There are no fewer than six Premier League clubs in the Top 10, split between three from the North West of England (Liverpool 5th, Manchester City 6th and Manchester United 8th) and three from London (Arsenal 7th, Tottenham 9th and Chelsea 10th).    That’s pretty impressive, though it was also the first time in this report’s history that no English side featured in the top four, largely due to the positive impact of the FIFA Club World Cup on some continental clubs. In addition, we find three other English clubs in the bottom half of the Top 20: Aston Villa 14th, Newcastle United 17th and West Ham 20th.    The total number of English clubs in the Top 20 was unchanged at nine, but was...