The Political Economy of Football V2

Bournemouth owner Black Knight Football Club is in advanced talks to buy a 25 per cent stake in last year’s Croatian double-winners HNK Rijeka. Founded by American insurance billionaire Bill Foley, Black Knight bought Bournemouth in 2022 before adding a minority stake in French side Lorient and winning the bid to become the majority owner of A-League expansion side Auckland FC in 2023. The following year, Foley’s group bought a minority stake in Scotland’s Hibernian and a controlling stake of Portuguese side Moreirense. Earlier this year, Black Knight entered into a “strategic affiliation” with Major League Soccer’s Orlando City and is now on the verge of adding a sixth and, most likely, final piece to its multi-club group. The investment in Rijeka, which was first reported by Croatian outlet Nepresusan, would give Black Knight a foothold in Eastern Europe, as well as a relationship with a club that has enjoyed considerable success in rece...

When Portsmouth host Preston North End in the Championship on Saturday, the club will also celebrate the centenary of their double-decker South Stand, the oldest surviving example of stadium architect Archibald Leitch’s work that is still in use in England. Between 1899 and 1939, Leitch cornered the stadium market in the UK and Ireland, and he was commissioned to design all or parts of more than 40 grounds, with his signature touches being latticework steel supports on the upper tier’s frontage and distinctive pediments in the middle of the stand’s pitched roof. Sadly, nearly all of his work has been demolished or radically altered over the years, as clubs have moved to more modern facilities. Rangers, Leitch’s boyhood club, still have modified Leitch designs at their Ibrox home but the only other double-decker still standing in England is at Everton’s Goodison Park, which the Premier League side waved goodbye to last season. Portsmouth’s North Stand is also one of Leitch’...

Championship club Hull City took English forward Louie Barry on loan from Aston Villa in January but then failed to pay his initial loan fee or monthly wages until early July. These sums came to more than £830,000 and the total number of days in default were 311, with the February-to-May wage payments adding up to 168 days between them. Under EFL rules, clubs get a warning when they hit a cumulative late-payment total of 10 days, an automatic fine of five per cent of the amount owed after 20 days and a transfer-window ban on paying fees for players after 30 days. All of this is managed by the EFL’s Club Financial Reporting Unit, with any disputes now handled by the Club Financial Review Panel, a bespoke group of experts on call for expedited decisions. Having been notified of their three-window ban on July 3, Hull City promptly appealed against the decision and were given a hearing on August 6. The club wanted the three-window ban replaced by a suspended sanction for the current ...

Apollo Global Management has lent millions of pounds to a company owned by football “super agent” Kia Joorabchian, as the private capital group continues its push into European sport. The US firm has extended £40mn to Joorabchian’s Sports Invest Holdings, charging an interest rate of 10.25 per cent, corporate filings show. The debt is secured against a number of the agent’s companies including AMO Racing, AMO Stables and Sports Invest UK, a branch of Joorabchian’s management group that works with footballers “from youth to international level”, according to documents filed with Companies House. These assets provide security to Apollo, which could potentially force a sale of them if Joorabchian, who has brokered deals including the £142mn British record transfer of Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool to Barcelona in 2018, defaults on the debt. As well as doing his own business with the private capital group, Joorabchian is actively looking for sports deals to pass to Apollo. The unor...

The first weekend of the Premier League season was also the beginning of an end. A new campaign that kicked off with Liverpool’s 4-2 win against Bournemouth on Friday will be the last to see gambling sponsors on the front of playing shirts, closing the book on over two decades of financial support. More than half of the Premier League’s 20 clubs have a gambling firm as their primary sponsor and they soon must look elsewhere for solutions to a commercial shortfall that collectively runs to £100million ($135m). There will still be the chance to display betting firms on the sleeves of kits, advertising boards and on training wear, but it is forecast that the value of some sponsorship deals could be halved in the next 12 months. Eleven clubs — Aston Villa, Everton, West Ham United, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Nottingham Forest, Fulham, Crystal Palace, Brentford, Bournemouth, Burnley and Sunderland — are all having one last dance with a betting platform this season. It has typically be...

I have to admit I enjoyed last night’s battering (as every media outlet is calling it) of Manchester United, but there is a little more to the Cleethorpes-based club than meets the eye:  https://www.thetimes.com/article/d25b79a8-fea2-4842-a99f-58cdc2b4a9b3 In every other respect, though, United’s Carabao Cup second-round opponents are every bit the modern 21st-century football club: buoyed by ambitious investors, cutting-edge data and progressive coaching. Most intriguing of all, perhaps, is Grimsby’s nascent partnership with Jamestown Analytics, the guiding hand behind Brighton & Hove Albion’s much vaunted recruitment. Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the United co-owner, was memorably scathing in his appraisal of United’s data department last season, which he described as being in the “last century”. Yet Grimsby appear to have snared a competitive edge in their search for talent that the other clubs in League Two — or United, for that matter — can only dream of. Jamestown is an offsh...

There is no doubting the sizeable and growing divide between London and much of the rest of England.  A recent report found London wages were 33 per cent higher than the national average and as high as 68 per cent more than in Burnley. But what about football? Do London clubs hold an advantage when it comes to signing prospective players?   Well, there has certainly been a geographical shift in where the Premier League’s clubs are based. Last season, there was a record-low number of northern clubs — just five — since the league’s rebranding in 1992. Conversely, there were seven London clubs and a further three from the south (Southampton, Bournemouth, and Brighton), meaning half the division came from London or further south. This season, the balance has been restored slightly, with three northern clubs promoted from the Championship, but the growing trend has certainly driven south in the past three decades. There were 10 northern clubs in the inaugural Premie...

Everton fans have been through the mill in recent years, but now they have a splendid new stadium at Bramley Dock.  The patience of the owners of the Bramley Dock Inn has paid off and the area is reviving. American architect Dan Meis, pitchside to witness his vision come to life, had been mindful of recreating the atmosphere from Goodison Park. The 52,769-capacity stadium is vastly more modern than its predecessor, but it has very much been built to keep the sound in. Meis, based out of Los Angeles and New York, designed the steep South Stand to have a 34.99° gradient. The legal limit is 35°. The stadium’s metallic roof is meant to reverberate sound. New beginnings are not always painless. It has taken a while for Everton’s Premier League rivals, such as Arsenal, Manchester City and West Ham United, to adapt to different surroundings. West Ham, it could be argued, never have. And while there will be inevitable teething problems — on and off the pitch — for Moyes, his side and s...

Football can be a strange game.  Even successful managers can be vulnerable to mercurial owners, particularly when those owners enjoy popularity with fans because of the way they have turned a club around. Some consider that the crisis at Nottingham Forest has been overblown by the media and will get settled one way or another, amicably or not.    Certainly there is a sense in which it is open season or having a go at Forest. Nevertheless, is there any way to fix this mess, given that Nuno’s working relationship with Edu, the newly appointed global head of football for Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis’ multi-club empire, has got off to such an alarmingly bad start Nuno offered a glimpse into his own mindset before the 1-1 draw away to Crystal Palace on Sunday, when he confirmed he wanted to continue as Forest’s coach — some reports had questioned whether he was trying to engineer his own sacking — but accepted the three relevant people needed to get t...

Back in the 1920s Huddersfield were a leading club in English football.   Prime minister Harold Wilson (1964-70, 1974-76) was a declared supporter. Huddersfield Town have had a pretty good start to the season, winning four of their first five games in League One.  The expectation is that they should be among the clubs challenging for promotion, especially as they are one of the bigger spenders in the division, splashing out £1.2m on striker Alfie May from Birmingham City, while bringing in quite a few players on free transfers (but on decent wages). The club’s supporters will hope that this recruitment works out rather better than last season, when their £4.4m outlay was only bettered by Birmingham City’s record-breaking £30m gross spend. There was a lot of noise about Wrexham, but they were actually outspent by Town (at least according to  Transfermarkt ). The main signing last season was Joe Taylor from Luton Town, but they also invested a fair bit in Dion Char...

Birmingham City Council’s planning committee will convene on August 28, with a view to voting on plans to expand Villa Park.  Planning permission is sought for the extension of the stadium’s North Stand, increasing its size by 5,926 seats to take the ground’s overall capacity to 48,809. This marks a key date in Aston Villa’s ambition to raise the maximum number of spectators above 50,000 in time for the 2028 European Championship, being co-hosted by England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, in which theirs is set to be one of the nine grounds staging games. A raised capacity would also assist with Villa’s efforts to grow matchday revenues, helping them comply with profitability and sustainability rules (PSR). Presently, a major issue impacting the ability to drive revenues is stadium capacity. West Ham United, for example, boast a ground that holds 20,000 more spectators than Villa Park’s 42,640. Within draft papers seen by  The Athletic  are the de...

Nuno Espírito Santo has said that his relationship with mercurial Nottingham Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has broken down, claiming that there is division among those at the club. The Portuguese head coach, who signed a three-year contract extension this summer, confirmed that he was no longer speaking regularly with Marinakis and suggested that there was now an absence of trust between them. Nuno, whose Forest side face Crystal Palace on Sunday, said he was not entirely sure why his relationship with Marinakis had changed but his public complaints last week that his squad was not deep enough are unlikely to have impressed the Greek businessman, who has since spent close to £100million on four new players. “I always had a very good relationship with the owner, last season was very, very, very close, almost on a daily basis,” Nuno said. “This season, not so well, but I always believe that dialogue and what you say or your opinion, is always valid, because my concern is the s...

Are Wrexham a model for other clubs to emulate or will they hit a glass ceiling in the highly competitive Championship? AFC Wrexham’s return to English football’s second tier has had a bumpy start, reports the Financial Times . The team owned by two Hollywood actors has lost both its opening games, but will be hoping for better when hosting troubled Sheffield Wednesday this afternoon. Yet the club is continuing to prosper off the pitch. Last season it sold almost 100,000 kits — with around half going to its vast international fan base. Considering the town of Wrexham has a population of only 45,000, those figures are quite incredible. New distribution deals with two US retail chains have raised hopes of another big jump this year, while licensing deals mean that Wrexham will soon be making money from merchandise produced and sold by somebody else. The club’s roster of sponsors is also impressive for a team that was playing non-league football just three years ago. Meta Q...

Ed Woodward, Manchester United’s former executive vice-chair, claimed to analysts in 2018 that the team’s “playing performance doesn’t really have a meaningful impact on what we can do on the commercial side of the business”. United’s ongoing struggles on the pitch since then are bringing that assertion into question. After increasing its commercial revenues by a total of just 10 per cent over the past six seasons, the club has been leapfrogged by its two biggest rivals, Manchester City and Liverpool, which between them have won nine out of the previous 12 Premier League titles since United’s last triumph in 2013. Even after a 15th-place finish last year, and a failure to qualify for the lucrative Champions League, United’s commercial revenues remain commensurate with the most successful clubs in world football.   Andy Green, finance director at Manchester United Supporters Trust and head of investment at private equity firm Rockpool Investments, warned the Financial Times tha...

The 2025-26 season has already begun, but it is not yet clear where Barcelona are going to play their home matches.  Barca have not played at their Camp Nou ground since starting a €1.5billion (£1.3bn; $1.8bn) refurbishment project in June 2023, hosting games at the Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys across the city while works progress. Club president Joan Laporta has repeatedly said that returning to the 105,000-capacity remodelled stadium as soon as possible is crucial to boosting their troubled finances. The latest target for their return was their La Liga game against Valencia, currently scheduled for September 14 (although the date may be moved across that weekend). The plan was to reopen the Camp Nou at a reduced capacity of about 27,000. That would also make the stadium available for the league phase of the Champions League, which begins a few days later. However, the project continues to hit delays over factors within and beyond the club’s control, as  The Athletic ...

Fan owned Exeter City are having to make £1m in cutbacks as the League One club encountered cash flow problems:  https://www.devonlive.com/sport/football/football-news/exeter-city-make-1m-cutbacks

Fans see Liverpool as most likely to win the league, though most Arsenal and Man City fans also believe they have a realistic chance of the title  Ahead of Liverpool vs Bournemouth kicking off the new Premier League season on Friday, a new YouGov* study looks at fans’ hopes and expectations for the 2025-26 competition. What do Premier League fans see as realistic for their teams in the 2025-26 season? While most fans are optimistic of their teams’ chances this season, their sights are set at different levels.   Among the ten clubs with fanbase samples large enough for us to look at in detail, just three teams’ fans primarily think topping the league is within their grasp. Three quarters (75%) of Liverpool fans say they can realistically hope to retain the title, while 59% of Manchester City supporters and 55% of Arsenal fans believe they can win the league this season. Topping the table is an ambition also held by 32% of Chelsea supporters, though most (56%) see qualifyi...

After many years when Premier League debt levels were relatively flat, this has really taken off in the last few years, rising from £3.2 bln in 2017 to a high of £5.2 bln in 2020. This then dropped to “only” £4.0 bln in 2021/22, but the decrease was a bit misleading, as it was only due to Chelsea writing-off £1.5 bln of debt following Roman Abramovich’s forced sale of the club. Over half of the debt is at just three clubs, namely Everton £1.0 bln (new stadium and squad investment), Tottenham £851m (new stadium) and Manchester United £547m (the lingering effects of the Glazers’ leveraged buyout).   In addition, four other clubs owe more than £300m (Arsenal £342m, Liverpool £314m, Chelsea £303m and Brighton £300m). In the Premier League, 41% of the financial debt was from the club’s owners, while 59% was external debt.   However, as you work your way down the leagues, it is often the case that the majority of a club’s debt is provided by the owner, e.g. in the EFL Champion...

A ban on bookies' logos on the fronts of players' shirts is looming in 2026.   Meanwhile, half the Premier League clubs have bookies as their front shirt sponsors for the new season.  Brentford, Sunderland and West Ham have announced new deals this summer.   The voluntary ban was collectively agreed by the Premier League in April 2023. Clubs with betting firms as front shirt sponsors will face a 40 per cent fall in front shirt revenue when they have to ditch the front shirt logos as betting firms generally pay above the marker rate.   Deals can be worth as much as £23m a season. Betting firms will still be able to have logos on players' shorts or sleeves.   They also spemd heavily on perimeter advertising. The Government has been talking about 'sin taxes' on gambling to raise revenue.  Indeed, the horse racing industry is planning a day's strike in protest, not that many people have noticed. You rarely see a poor bookie or betting firm....

Should Palace avoid defeat in both legs of their UEFA Conference League play-off against Norwegian club Fredrikstad, and again on Sunday when they host Nottingham Forest, then they will equal their club record of 13 games unbeaten in all competitions while a top-flight side. Palace have an outstanding starting XI and a manager who has proven not only to be adept at bringing the best out of his team in his system, but also relatively adaptable within that system. With appropriate additions to replace any departures and strengthen the backup options, this Palace side surely could compete for a place in Europe via their league position.    This feels like a club at a crossroads and the fear will be that success is not built upon. The worry is that, if Glasner does not feel he is being sufficiently backed, he might well depart next summer when his contract expires — if not before. It would be a travesty to throw away the chance to push on. As always, some people will ar...

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire has called out West Ham United director Karren Brady about what he says are misleading statements about the club's finances and football more generally:  https://www.westhamzone.com/news/kieran-maguire-calls-out-misleading-karren-brady-claim-about-west-ham-finances-on-talksport/

After losing their first two games of the new campaign, Sheffield United find themselves at the wrong end of the Championship table, which is probably not what was expected after reaching the play-off final last season. If the Blades want to mount another promotion challenge, they will have to rapidly get over the disappointment of losing that game, where the pain was maximised by Sunderland scoring the winning goal in injury time. Ownership changes The club had actually led the table in December 2024, when a change in ownership took place, as Prince Abdullah managed to get a deal over the line after a number of failed negotiations. in fairness, United had dodged a bullet when deals with two of the potential investors failed to materialise, as American businessman Henry Mauriss was subsequently jailed for wire fraud, while Nigerian tycoon Dozy Mmobuosi has been accused of fraud by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Therefore, fans would have probably been somewhat rel...