The Political Economy of Football V2

Manchester United have published their financial results for the 2023/24 season, which even their most fervent supporters would admit was not a great success on the pitch.  Manchester United’s results were a mixed bag. On the plus side, revenue rose £14m (2%) from £648m to a new club record of £662m, and profit from player sales increased by £17m from £20m to £37m, their best result for 15 years. However, the good news ends there, as the pre-tax loss quadrupled, widening by £98m from £33m to £131m, the second worst in United’s history.    United’s £131m pre-tax loss was higher than any other club in the previous season’s Premier League, though ten others lost more than £50m that season, led by Aston Villa £120m, Tottenham £95m and Chelsea £90m. The revenue growth was driven by the return to the Champions League, which ed to an increase in broadcasting, up £13m (6%) from £209m to £222m, while match day was slightly up from £136m to £137m, though this was a new high for the club. Com

The Championship loss before tax has actually widened since fans returned to the stadium, rising from £217m in 2020/21 to £300m in 2022/23. Looking at the last decade, it is clear that this division bleeds money with total losses of £2.6 bln, including £1.5 bln in last five years alone.   To highlight the overall deterioration, operating losses were £2.8 bln in the last five years, compared to “only” £1.9 bln in the preceding 5-year period. Put another way, this was equivalent to £4.7 bln in the last decade, which is not exactly small change. Of course, many football clubs aim to offset operating losses with player trading, but there is little sign of any comfort here, as profits from player sales have fallen off a cliff in the Championship, decreasing from the record £322m in 2020/21 to just £113m in 2021/22 and £181m in 2022/23. Only two Championship clubs made more than £20m from player sales in 2022/23, namely Watford £59m and Middlesbrough £22m, while no fewer than 15 clubs

Manchester United’s full-year losses have risen after a tough season on the pitch and exceptional costs from Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s purchase of a minority stake in the club in December. Revenues increased 2.1 per cent to £661mn in the year ending on June 30, while operating expenses were £768.5mn, a 12.8 per cent rise. United also crashed out of the lucrative Champions League in the early stages and, despite winning the FA Cup, the men’s team slumped to eighth in the domestic table, its worst result since the Premier League began in 1992. Full-year net losses rose to £113mn from £28.7mn the previous year, partly because of higher spending on players and wages. The club also incurred £47.8mn of exceptional costs, primarily from the sale of a 27.7 stake to petrochemicals billionaire Ratcliffe. It expects to generate £650mn to £670mn in revenue this season and adjusted earnings of £145mn to £160mn, against a figure of £147mn in the year to the end of June. United expects to cut about

Todd Boehly has been, for many outsiders, the face of the American consortium that paid £2.3billion ($3bn) to acquire Chelsea from sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in May 2022, but the ugly public fallout from his breakdown in relations with majority shareholders Clearlake Capital — and in particular the private equity firm’s co-founder Behdad Eghbali — has exposed that he is not the main driver of decision-making at Stamford Bridge. Clearlake largely flew under the radar during the Chelsea sale process, but its 61.5 per cent stake in BlueCo — the parent company set up by the consortium that also includes Ligue 1 club Strasbourg among its assets — meant its influence on the club’s strategy was baked into the original ownership arrangement. As its most visible and actively engaged representative at Stamford Bridge and Cobham, Eghbali has been the most powerful figure for the last 18 months. Boehly retains veto power as co-controlling owner; all major Chelsea decisions re

Hong Kong prosecutors have told former Birmingham City Football Club owner Carson Yeung Ka-sing to sort out his finances in a month or face jail time after he missed a payment over his HK$338 million (US$43.4 million) debt resulting from his conviction in a money-laundering case 10 years ago. Yeung, 64, appeared in the High Court on Tuesday, six years after he was ordered to pay half of the HK$721 million linked to the high-profile money-laundering case. He was first convicted in 2014 and jailed for six years.

The biggest story at Chelsea is finally out in the open: a little more than two years after their £2.3billion ($3.02bn) takeover of the club from sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, majority shareholder Clearlake Capital’s marriage to co-owner Todd Boehly is in tatters. Rumblings of discontent have been audible behind the scenes for some time, but specific accusations of a breakdown in relations between Boehly and Clearlake co-founder Behdad Eghbali — the most visible and actively engaged member of Chelsea’s ownership consortium over the past 18 months — were always denied until now. Now, in the wake of a Bloomberg report last week that revealed Clearlake and Boehly are each exploring the ownership options, all parties have for the first time acknowledged the scale of the rift. People familiar with Boehly’s thinking say he considers his relationship with Clearlake and Eghbali to be “irreconcilable”, and others claim the two men barely speak to one another. Amid the many

Wigan’s trials and tribulations started when the Hong Kong-based International Entertainment Corporation (IEC), a company that runs hotel and casino business in the Philippines, acquired the club in November 2018 for £22m (a price of £15.9m plus taking on £6.5m loans), ending 23 years of ownership by the Whelan family. In June 2020, ICE sold Wigan Athletic to the mysterious Hong Kong based Next Leader Fund (NLF) for £17.5m, giving ICE a £1.6m profit, plus the repayment of the £24.6m they had invested. However, the club was immediately put into administration, as a result of the new owners not putting any funds into the club. The club was kept going during administration by the sale of some of its young players, thus losing some of its prized “assets”, while the Supporters Club launched a fighting fund, raising more than £800,000, with former players joining fans in helping keep Wigan Athletic afloat. Wigan Athletic had been in the Premier League as recently as the 2021/13 season,

Chelsea's co-owners are looking to buy each other out after a rift at board level:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4gz5jg81d0o The club's big spending has not been reflected in results.

How did Leicester City end up struggling so much with PSR? They had been the shining example for clubs outside of the traditional elite, when they shocked all and sundry by winning the Premier League in 2015/16, then reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League the following season. However, this success came at a price, as chief executive Susan Whelan admitted, “Over recent years the club’s financial results have reflected necessary levels of investment in the playing squad that allowed Leicester City to compete effectively in the Premier League.” In fairness, this ambitious strategy very nearly worked, as Leicester then finished fifth in the Premier League two years in a row, which meant that they only just missed out on again qualifying for the lucrative Champions League. However, the 2022/23 season was very different, as “the regrettable results of the men’s team on the pitch” ultimately leading to relegation to the Championship, ending a nine-year spell in the top f

Talks on the sale of Shrewsbury Town are ongoing.   The club made a £3m loss in 2022/23:  https://www.shropshirestar.com/sport/football/shrewsbury-town-fc/2024/09/04/shrewsbury-town-sale-talks-ongoing-says-ceo-liam-dooley/

Aston Villa earned €18.6m for qualifying for the Champions League, will get €2.1m for a draw & €700k for a draw in the group stages, €11m for getting into the last 16 etc. in addition they get a share of a €835m pot linked to prior performance & money put in by TNT. So why the high match ticket prices asks football finance guru Kieran Maguire? Fans are complaining generally about high ticket prices in the top flight.

Leicester City will avoid a points deduction after the Premier League suffered a serious blow in its enforcement of the Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR). The club won an appeal against a charge for an alleged breach and said the appeal board, made up of three very senior lawyers, had identified “flaws” in the Premier League rules. The club had been charged by the Premier League for breaching the PSR limit of £105million in losses over three years for the 2022-23 season, when they were relegated from the top flight. Leicester, who were promoted again last season, launched a legal challenge on the basis that the Premier League did not have jurisdiction after they had been relegated. The ruling of the appeal board means the league is unlikely to be able to take similar action against any other relegated club. The challenge was initially dismissed by an independent commission but an appeal board made up of the Rt Hon Sir Stanley Burnton, the Rt Hon Sir Maurice Kay and R

Arsenal’s £112m gross spend was their lowest since the 2018/19 season, which was not overly surprising, given that they had splashed out around half a billion pounds in the previous two seasons. The Gunners also sold well, as their £92m was the highest the club has made from player sales since 2017/18, including two Academy products, Emile Smith Rowe to Fulham and Eddie Nketiah to Crystal Palace, plus Aaron Ramsdale to Southampton. Their net spend was only £19m, which was firmly in the bottom half of the Premier League. You have to go back as far as 2012/13 for the last time it was this low. Aston Villa Villa spent big this summer, but also recouped a lot of money via player sales.The £183m gross spend was their second highest ever, only surpassed by £204m in 2021/22, and the fourth highest in the Premier League this summer. However, they set a new club record for sales with £172m, which was much more than the previous peak of £103m in 2021/22 that included the mega sale of J

Taking the raw figures directly from Transfermarkt, we can see that reports of the demise of the Premier League, at least in terms of transfers, are a little over-stated, as the €2.4 bln outlay is the second highest in history for the summer window. That said, this was €0.4 bln (15%) less than last season’s €2.8 bln record. Although gross spend held up pretty well, the Premier League’s net spend this summer was its lowest since 2015/16 (though the January window is still to come). Chelsea had the highest gross transfer spend for the third year in a row, i.e. ever since the Clearlake Capital crew bought the club from Roman Abramovich, with a chunky £265m. The second highest spending club was Brighton, who used some of their gains from the last couple of years to fund a £235m outlay, while Manchester United again spent big with £219m. Perhaps unexpectedly, the two lowest gross spends this summer were Manchester City £25m and Liverpool £43m, while the next smallest were clubs faci