The Political Economy of Football V2

Perhaps it says something about the landscape of Sky Bet League One that it took a run of ten consecutive wins for people to really sit up and take notice of Wycombe Wanderers — a club, after all, owned by a Georgian billionaire, with a bright, young, English manager in Matt Bloomfield and, in Richard Kone, a free-scoring striker whose journey could be turned into a movie one day. Such is life, though, for clubs in the orbit of Wrexham and Birmingham City, whose celebrity patrons and lavish spending cast a long shadow over England’s third tier these days. Wycombe, however, have registered more wins, collected more points and scored more goals than any team in the country — and, with a third of the season gone, they have a four-point cushion at the top. An 11th win in a row arrived at Wealdstone on Saturday, which put them in the hat for the FA Cup third-round draw on Monday night. Wycombe, who spent a season in the Sky Bet Championship in 2020-21, have long relished their underdo

Manchester United already seem to be getting their mojo back if yesterday’s win against Everton is anything to go by.   The gloomy Ten Hag has been replaced by a coach with passion and new ideas. As forklift trucks ferried building materials across Manchester United’s Carrington training centre this week as part of a £50mn upgrade, another reboot got under way at one of the world’s most famous sports teams. On Thursday Ruben Amorim made his debut at Old Trafford as United’s new head coach, the latest move by Sir Jim Ratcliffe to restore the club’s fortunes since his company Ineos acquired a 27 per cent stake in February.   In the months that have followed, United have cut a quarter of the club’s staff, while Ratcliffe has appointed his own people to all the top executive positions. Amorim’s arrival is meant to be the final piece in the puzzle. While the Glazer family still owns a controlling stake in United, this is now Ratcliffe’s operation.   “We have to improve as a club,” the 3

2023/24 was the second set of accounts reported for Milan under the ownership of US investment company RedBird Capital Partners, who purchased the club from Elliott Management in August 2022 in a €1.2bln deal that included a minority stake for Major League Baseball club, the New York Yankees. RedBird already had some experience in the world of football via their controlling interest in French club Toulouse and an 11% stake in Fenway Sports Group, Liverpool’s owners. Before and after the change in ownership, Milan have done pretty well on the pitch finishing in the top four in each of the last four seasons, including a league title in 2021/22. Revenue growth Milan posted a pre-tax profit for the second year in a row, though this fell slightly from €14m to €12m. Despite a poorer performance in the Champions League, revenue rose €9m (2%) from €400m to a new club record €409m. Milan have set new club records for operating revenue four years in a row, so this has shot up by €180m