The Political Economy of Football V2

One group of beneficiaries from modern big business football are the legal profession. West Ham United are considering launching an appeal at the Supreme Court after being ordered to pay £3.6million ($4.86m) to their landlords at the London Stadium. As part of West Ham’s rental agreement with the London Stadium, which has been their home ground since leaving Upton Park in 2016, an ‘anti-embarrassment clause’ required the club to pay their landlords a share of any profit they received from selling shares. The clause has been active after Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky bought a 27 per cent stake in 2021, which made him the second-largest shareholder at West Ham, after David Sullivan, the majority shareholder who owns 38.8 per cent. In 2021, West Ham’s landlords informed the club that share transactions within their company meant the London Stadium was owed a significant payment. The club paid £2.6m but challenged the additional £3.6m. The matter was referred to expert determina...

The withdrawal of the preferred bidders for Sheffield Wednesday is not a great surprise as rumours about  the crisis ridden historic club had been circulating for weeks.   There were doubts about where their money was coming from. T he shock is that the group has walked away claiming that it has only just discovered that a League One club with very few players under contract, a dilapidated stadium and a threadbare academy is not worth the £40 million it bid for Sheffield Wednesday two months ago. The good news is that Sheffield Wednesday are still one of the biggest and most famous clubs in the land. Investors will still want to take on the huge and very expensive challenge of turning the club’s fortunes around. They just will not want to do it having paid more than maybe £15m to buy the stadium and settle the tax and football creditor bills. That, of course, will mean Chansiri and any other unsecured creditor is not getting 25 per cent of what they are owed. The Thai bus...

The chair of England’s new football regulator has told Premier League clubs to view money passed down to lower divisions as an “investment” in the game, as he urged the sport’s bosses to strike an agreement on how cash is redistributed. In a stern warning to the Premier League, David Kogan, who chairs the Independent Football Regulator, said that clubs “enjoying the good times at the top must surely see that any money passed down through the leagues is an investment”. “My message today is that it can’t just be about the clubs at the top. It has to be about ensuring the whole pyramid can survive,” Kogan told the FT’s Business of Football Summit on Thursday.   He cautioned that the lack of a new deal on how money was redistributed from the top flight “creates uncertainty that is detrimental to the pyramid and to growth and investment in the English game”. Talks between the Premier League and the English Football League — encompassing the Championship, League One and League Tw...

European top-flight football clubs lost more than €1bn last year despite record revenues of more than €30bn, according to new data that highlights the challenges facing the growing list of professional investors pouring billions of euros into the game.  Figures from governing body Uefa, which was released on Thursday at the FT Business of Football Summit, showed that combined revenue of clubs playing in top leagues across Europe was set to surpass €30bn, up from €28.6bn a year earlier. The projection is based on initial filings from more than 700 teams across the continent, although the biggest 25 clubs accounted for almost half the total.  Uefa cited increased income from sponsorship, player transfers and prize money for teams playing in pan-European competitions as the key drivers of growth, offsetting weakness in domestic media rights in some countries. However, as clubs look to boost alternative revenue sources, such as stadium hospitality and hosting non-football events,...

Alex Lowe was writing in The Times about toxicity at Twickenham.   Egg chasers have an historic reputation for being good sports (well outside Wales, anyway). But what Lowe had to say about the breakdown of the social contract between fans and clubs in football is worth quoting at length. I'n the Premier League it is now de rigueur for boos to ring out at half-time if the home team are not winning. Why has it flipped? The cost of watching live sport has vastly outstripped wage inflation. Long gone are the days of paying on the turnstile at a top-flight football match. Now you often need to pay to be a club member for the right to buy tickets that can exceed £100. Fans are treated as consumers, which can lead to an estrangement from the team. There will always be a hardcore fighting against the tide, but the sense of community erodes. West Ham United fans had to launch a protest campaign to force the club to reinstate junior and OAP ticket prices. The club were prepared to ...

Premier League football teams could be banned from accepting sponsorship from gambling companies without a UK licence, as ministers look to crack down on black-market betting. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy on Monday said it was “not right that unlicensed gambling operators can sponsor some of our biggest football clubs, raising their profile and potentially drawing fans towards sites that don’t meet our regulatory standards”. The plans, which will be put out to consultation in the spring, are intended to reduce harm from gambling and “eliminate unfair competition” for companies regulated by the Gambling Commission, according to the government. Several teams in the English football leagues, including the top division, have sponsorship arrangements with unlicensed gambling operators. These partnerships are not prohibited at present, so long as UK customers cannot access the illicit platforms. But the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said ministers were “deeply concerned” that...