The Political Economy of Football V2

National League system clubs paid over £1.2m to football agents in 2025/26. The largest sums were paid by former EFL clubs with Carlisle United, relegated last year, top of the list at just under £188k.   Promotion hopefuls York City spent £169k.  Forest Green Rovers forked out £164k and Southend United £80k.  National League leaders Rochdale paid £43k. Torquay United in National League South spent £15k as did Chelmsford City.   At Step 5 Bury managed to pay out £2,000.

John Foot is a distinguished historian of modern Italy.  He has written an acclaimed standard history of Italian football.   In this week's Sunday Times he laments the state of Italian football after the country's failure to qualify for the World Cup group games. It seems to me that a flaw in his argument is a failure to take account of the success of Italian clubs in European competitions.  Italy ranks after England in terms of its Uefa coefficient. He states: 'A few weeks ago I saw a game in San Siro in Milan. The stadium still looks magnificent from the outside, especially at night. But appearances can deceive. In reality this historic stadium is falling apart, like so many others in Italy. And the experience of watching a game there is not a good one. There is excessive security outside — a series of queues, gates, fences, and three requests to show your tickets, as well as a body search and an ID check. Inside, the stairs are filthy, the stairwells are covered...

Keen Super Hoops supporter Lord Young of Acton (he did briefly consider becoming Lord Young of Lofus Road) reflects on the travails of being a QPR supporter in his column in this week's Spectator. It occurred to me that the noble lord's remarks contained some universal truths that could be applied to supporters of any team outside the Premier League, or even the big six.  Being a football supporter is as much about disappointment as it is joy. Young confesses that at the beginning of the current season he thought that QPR would get promoted. 'We've been languishing in the second tier of English football for more than ten years and I thought that we might finally escape.'  [I don't think many pundits predicted that]. As it turns out 'this season is looking a lot like the previous three.  With seven more games to play, the summit of my ambitions is to finish in the top half of the table.' He tells his sons that 'watching the Hoops bounce up and down th...

Leeds United generated record Championship revenues for the second year running in their 100-point 2024-25 promotion season, even as the club continued to make significant losses. Per their accounts for that campaign, Leeds booked £137million in turnover, breaking the previous record for the second-tier Championship they had set a year earlier. A 34 per cent increase in commercial revenue offset a reduction in Leeds’ Premier League parachute payment and, at £58.1m, the club’s commercial income was the ninth-highest in England — a hugely impressive feat for a club not in the top division. Leeds’ latest financials reflect their commercial appeal, referencing the potential that comes with being ‘the only club in the United Kingdom’s third biggest metropolitan area’, something which confers a ‘structural competitive advantage’. Booming commercial income was driven by a multi-year partnership with Red Bull, which generated double what Leeds had earned in their previous spell in the Pr...

Southampton's latest accounts are not as good news as their victory over Arsenal.   The 2024/25 accounts cover a season when they finished 20th in the Premier League. Revenue was up 86 per cent at £115m.   Wages were up 43 per cent at £116m.   Wages constituted 73 per cent of revenue, an acceptable ratio just above the recommended level of 70 per cent. The underlying loss was 29 per cent down at £62m.  This reduction was due in part to player sale profits of £29m. The pre-tax loss was £54m, compared with a profit of £17m in the the preceding season.

The Swiss Ramble provides a forensic analysis of the accounts of Nottingham Forest. Much more detail and analysis is available on his Substack page. Despite the improvement on the pitch, Forest swung from a £12m pre-tax profit to a £79m loss in 2024/25, which represented a £91m decline, largely due to a significant decrease in profit from player sales, which dropped from £101m to just £7m.   Forest’s £79m loss was one of the worst in the Premier League in 2024/25, only surpassed by Chelsea £262m, Tottenham £121m and West Ham £104m. More positively, revenue rose £32m (17%) from £190m to £222m, which was a big new club record, though this was largely offset by a steep increase in operating expenses, which were up £24m (9%) from £263m to £287m, while net interest payable was up £6m (38%) from £15m to £21m. The club has been hit by the double whammy of having to spend more on facilities to meet more stringent standards in the Premier League and the impact of rising inflation on ser...