The Political Economy of Football V2

While many of us downed tools over the holiday period, the sports stadium building boom continued without a pause and the new year has seen things ramp up.  On Thursday, US-owned Premier League team Leeds United secured planning permission to expand Elland Road to a capacity of 53,000. Earlier in the week, Nottingham Forest — owned by Greek billionaire Evangelos Marinakis — unveiled plans to redevelop the City Ground, with a view to taking capacity there north of 50,000 one day too. Crystal Palace, which announced redevelopment plans for Selhurst Park eight years ago, may soon start putting spades in the ground.   Further down the English football pyramid, Millwall secured a new 999-year lease on its stadium, The Den, which will help clear the way for a potential expansion and upgrade there too. Work to build a new stand at Wrexham is now under way, while Birmingham City’s eye-catching designs are still fresh off the printing press. As the UK economy has sput...

 The New Year may typically be the season of goodwill, but two of football’s biggest clubs chose to swing the axe. Private equity-owned Chelsea sacked head coach Enzo Maresca, while Manchester United ditched Ruben Amorim. The two teams have since slipped from fifth and sixth in the league respectively to seventh and eighth. In the hotly contested race to reach the Champions League, those few places are pivotal for a club’s financial fortunes. Chelsea’s owners chose to hire from within their (small) multi-club operation, bringing in Liam Rosenior from the French club they own, RC Strasbourg. MCOs regularly trade players, but moving a manager within the group will be an experiment worth watching.     United are set to wait until the summer to appoint a permanent replacement for Amorim, with Crystal Palace coach Oliver Glasner among the favourites. The double sacking raises an important question — do head coaches actually make that much of a di...

When you think about it, fans of three leading London clubs are not happy with the way they are being run - West Ham, Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea. A snap survey by Chelsea Supporters’ Trust has revealed that over 90 per cent of fans do not have confidence in “the ownership group’s football-related decision-making”, while more than 80 per cent are not confident that the club is being run in a way that will deliver “sustained success over the next three to five years”. The survey, which garnered nearly 4,000 responses in 48 hours, also found that more than 40 per cent of respondents felt the club’s current sporting structure is “not fit for purpose”, with a further 42.69 per cent believing it has “significant weaknesses”. The most damning response was surely in relation to satisfaction with the owners’ football decisions, with 53.7 per cent of respondents having “no confidence at all” and 36.9 per cent “not very much confidence”. Chelsea are owned by BlueCo, the Todd Boehly and C...

Brighton & Hove Albion suffered a £54.4million ($72.9m) loss before interest and tax in the 2024-25 season.  The transformation from big profits in previous years to a hefty deficit was anticipated, due to an unprecedented spend of nearly £210m on signings during Fabian Hurzeler’s first season as head coach, which ended in an eighth-place Premier League finish. Brighton made a £73.3m profit for the 2023-24 season, when they reached the last 16 of the Europa League under former head coach Roberto De Zerbi and finished 11th in the league. The profit included £115m from the then-British record sale of Moises Caicedo and £25m for goalkeeper Robert Sanchez, as their transfers to Chelsea in the summer of 2023 fell outside the accounting period for the 2022-23 campaign. Brighton made a Premier League record profit across all clubs of £122.8m in 2022-23. That was aided by player sales, merit money for finishing sixth to qualify for Europe for the first time and compensation for the...

The authoritative Swiss Ramble asks which clubs have benefitted most from European competition over the past decade.  Real Madrid have earned the most TV money from UEFA competitions in the last 10 years, being the only club to break through the billion Euros barrier with €1,021m. Four other clubs have received more than €800m in this period: Paris Saint-Germain €974m, Manchester City €935m, Bayern Munich €935m and Barcelona €836m. Half of the top six are from La Liga, as Atletico Madrid are in sixth place with €761m. The next highest English clubs are further back, namely Liverpool €725m, Chelsea €589m, Manchester United €537m, Arsenal €480m and Tottenham €429m. As might be expected, the so-called Big Six English clubs have received the lion’s share of UEFA TV money in the last 10 years, amounting to €3.7 bln or 90% of the English distribution.   Manchester City have been by far the most successful English club in Europe with their €935m being €110m more than the next hig...

Some highlights from the Swiss Ramble's authoritative analysis of Hull City's finances.  An exhaustive analysis can be found on his Substack page. Hull have lost money in all three of the seasons since Ilıcalı bought the club, adding up to £34.3m. In fact, they have now posted losses in four of the last five years.    This is in marked contrast to the preceding period, where the Allams’ tight-fisted/sustainable approach (delete as appropriate) led to the club posting profits six years out of seven. A key element of the club’s business model is to make money from player trading, so the £57m generated in the last three seasons has been very important. This marked a “return to form”, as their profit only amounted to £5m in the preceding 2-year period. Hull’s revenue has grown by an impressive £10.4m (68%) in the last three years, rising from £15.4m to £25.8m. This is easily the club’s highest revenue outside the Premier League in a season without parachute payments. It w...