The Political Economy of Football V2

As rival fans celebrate the potential humiliation of Manchester City, and the Premier League slaps itself on the back for standing up to one of its strongest clubs, be careful what you wish for.   The real winners may be the sports lawyers. City are clearly in a defiant mood and they have some of the best lawyers available.   I am not a lawyer, but I can see one way in which the whole governance structure of the Premier League and indeed football more generally could be challenged in the domestic courts. The Premier League, it is at risk of full-blown warfare. If City are guilty of systematic cheating, their rivals will argue they have been denied hundreds of millions in earning potential through unfair means. Already, the New York Times has reported that Manchester United have conducted internal analyses to assess the extent of the losses they incurred due to Manchester City’s success, including three second-placed Premier League finishes behind City and one occasi...

Manchester City has been found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges brought against it by the Premier League over breaches of its financial rules in a decision that will send shock waves through European football.  The club, owned by a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, was accused by the league of breaching rules between 2009 and 2018, and then referred to an independent panel in 2023 following a four-year investigation. The panel has found Manchester City guilty on 114 charges, according to people familiar with the matter, one of whom added that the charge that has not been proven was one of the most serious. The Premier League had argued that the club had broken the rules — such as by inflating sponsorship income and paying some staff off the books — to circumvent limits on spending. It also accused the club of failing to co-operate with its investigation.  Manchester City, owned since 2008 by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has maintained its innocence throughout and pl...

Outside Casablanca, thousands of workers are building the 115,000-seat Grand Stade Hassan II, set to become the world’s biggest football stadium. Cranes tower over the vast construction site, with the tall stands already visible and dozens of bulldozers readying the land for new roads and a high-speed train link.   The project is the centrepiece of a $20bn programme to transform sports venues, transport and tourism infrastructure ahead of the 2030 World Cup, which Morocco will co-host with Spain and Portugal. So crucial is the tournament to Morocco’s prestige that football is also at the heart of Wednesday’s parliamentary election. Morocco hopes the World Cup will cap off a string of economic achievements, which include building a strong tourism sector and a car industry that is the biggest automotive supplier to Europe. Government officials have said the tournament could boost annual growth by 1.7 per cent and create 100,000 jobs every year. But even if Moroccans are footba...

Manchester United are offering fans the opportunity to buy a tiny chunk of turf from the Old Trafford pitch for £125.  For the first time in 14 years, United relaid the playing surface this summer and have decided to sell small clumps of the grass, cast in 7cm x 7cm acrylic cubes.  The cubes are encased in a black box that also contains a picture of the stadium.   What a great Christmas present for a fan! United’s latest financial results, published on Wednesday, revealed they spent £63.5million on buying land for their new ground.   The results also showed that United paid back £180million of a bank loan over the past six months as their chief executive, Omar Berrada, said the club would take a “disciplined approach” to their spending. In a statement accompanying the accounts, Berrada said the club approached strengthening their men’s and women’s squads this summer “with financial sustainability in mind”.   United spent about £150million on Carlos Bale...

Daniel Levy was paid £27 million ($36.08m) when sacked by Tottenham Hotspur last year.  The former executive chairman’s tenure was suddenly ended in September 2025 when he was dismissed, after 24 years running Spurs. When Levy was dismissed he received a payout taking into account his salary, bonus for the year and the club’s long-term incentive plan, according to sources with knowledge of the terms, speaking on the condition of anonymity. That sum of £27m, one of the largest pay-outs ever made to a football executive, represented his contractual fulfilment in event of termination, rather than an agreed settlement package. No further settlement has been reached. The figure is comparative to the payouts received by former Chelsea executives following the end of the sanctioned Roman Abramovich’s tenure in 2022. Chelsea accounts, from April 2023, showed a total of £49.75 million ($66.47m at current rates) was given to former directors in connection to the sale of the club to BlueC...

The Deloitte Sports Business report for 2026 states that the 2024/25 season was one of transformation and expansion, with both UEFA and FIFA launching refreshed competitions for their flagship men’s club competitions.   These saw more clubs compete for larger prize pots, with distributions for participating clubs bolstering otherwise plateauing broadcast revenues. These changes underpinned a 6% strengthening of the European football market, which surpassed €40 billion for the first time in 2024/25. The ‘big five’ leagues’ relative contribution to this total remained consistent with the prior season, at 54% (€22 billion).  Football cannot rely on more of the same to deliver sustainable growth, though. An increasingly saturated market is not good for players nor fans, and the Game is in danger of prioritising short-term gain over longer-term prosperity.  The complex trajectory of media rights values, coupled with the ongoing shift towards revenue-linked spending ...