The Political Economy of Football V2

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...

The Premier League has a seemingly unassailable position at the top of the football money tree. English top-flight clubs churned out revenues of almost €7.4bn in the 2023-24 season, almost equal to their German and Spanish rivals combined. Italian teams made €2.9bn, with the French at €2.5bn. That’s feeding through the summer transfer window. Led by top clubs including Liverpool, Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Manchester City, Premier League spending is approaching the €2.5bn mark, according to Transfermarkt, already clear of last summer. The problem with being number one is that there’s a target for everybody else. Competition sometimes means doing what your rivals can’t. Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A have spotted an opportunity. Plans are in train for FC Barcelona and Villarreal to play a domestic league match in Miami, catering to a large Hispanic population, while Serie A wants to hold a game in Australia. Villarreal president Fernando Roig said: “We would be...

Premier League CEO Richard Masters refused to be drawn on questions surrounding the apparent delay to the league’s ongoing legal case against Manchester City. City were charged with 115 breaches of Premier League regulations in February 2023, with the formal hearing concluding on December 6 last year. Over eight months later, the independent three-person panel has not released any decision. Asked at a media event on the eve of the Premier League season whether he was disappointed with the length of the process, Masters replied: “I really can’t comment and there are very good reasons for that. As you know, our rules are very clear. “I can’t talk about the process in any aspect between the period when allegations and charges are announced until a decision is handed down, and it would be wrong for me to speculate about when or whether there are any frustrations in the system.” This has been a testing process for Masters, with Premier League clubs seemingly at loggerheads over the ...

Aston Villa supporters are accustomed to pre-season optimism coursing through their veins.   Even if increasing competition and financial obstruction have influenced summer recruitment, making this season’s challenges tougher, the confidence in Unai Emery and Villa’s football department remains unerring. And the respect appears mutual. For Villa’s Premier League curtain-raiser against Newcastle United this Saturday, it will cost £77 ($105) for an adult ticket in the Holte End. This is not a hospitality or a premium seat, but a standard ticket in Villa’s most famous stand. For anyone over 66, the price is £58. In other parts of the stadium, including the Trinity Road Stand and Doug Ellis Upper, the cost can be up to £82. The surrounding areas of Villa Park, in Aston, are among Birmingham’s most financially deprived areas, according to a factsheet provided by Birmingham City Council. A 2021-22 census indicated 58.6 per cent of children lived in poverty. The #StopExploiting...

Tickets for Saturday’s opening game at Sunderland all went within a day of going on sale. Season cards, too, are long gone. Kit sales have never been higher and the club shop, two floors below that share certificate, has a snaking queue of supporters wishing to add Premier League badges to the sleeves of new shirts. Eight years were spent awaiting this moment. There was the ignominy of falling into League One and then the long, arduous road back that climaxed with promotion via the Championship play-off final in May. Those dramatic victories over Coventry City and Sheffield United are already the stuff of Wearside legend. There is the very real danger of the Premier League’s formidable strength quickly putting an end to Sunderland’s rise in the coming months but this is a very different club to the one that parted with English football’s elite. The ambition now is to be sustainable and strategic after a string of wasteful, aimless years began a ruinous slide captured in the Netfl...

Globalisation may be under threat elsewhere, but it persists and indeed accelerates in football, La Liga want to stage December’s scheduled domestic league fixture between Villarreal and Barcelona in Miami. According to multiple sources familiar with the discussions, who asked The Athletic to remain anonymous to protect relationships, the Spanish top-flight league have held preliminary discussions to relocate the fixture, which would ordinarily take place at Villarreal’s Estadio de la Ceramica home in eastern Spain, to instead be staged in Florida. It would be the first time a European top-flight league fixture has taken place in the United States. On Monday, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) will discuss their approval of the proposal, which if granted, would lead to UEFA being asked to initiate the procedures for FIFA to grant authorisation for the fixture change. The Spanish league first attempted to stage a match abroad in 2018 with a proposal for Girona’s home league ...

Crystal Palace had lost their appeal to the Court for Arbitration in Sport in Lausanne against demotion from the Europa League:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c1kzzpp04kgo I am yet to read the judgment, but it is what I expected.   This is about the letter of the law rather than justice and fairness. The summary of the decision states: 'The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed an appeal by Crystal Palace FC (CPFC) against UEFA, Nottingham Forest FC and Olympique Lyonnais (OL) concerning a decision by UEFA to remove CPFC from the UEFA Europa League 2025/2026 due to a breach of UEFA multi club ownership regulations. As a result, CPFC will be admitted to compete in the UEFA Conference League 2025/2026. The appeal sought to annul the decision by the UEFA Club Financial Control Body on 11 July 2025 which found CPFC and OL non-compliant with multi club ownership regulations.   Alongside the annulment of the decision, CPFC requested readmis...

As Leicester City approach this new season, they will hope to repeat the feat of immediately returning to the Premier League, as they managed on the previous occasion they were relegated. After a troubled year in the top flight, which their former striker Jamie Vardy memorably described as “a shitshow”, Leicester will again be one of the best resourced clubs in the Championship, but their problems have mounted up off the pitch. There is also the threat of a points deduction hanging over Leicester after the Premier League referred the club to an independent commission for an alleged breach of Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR) for the 2023/24 monitoring period. Leicester had managed to avoid a similar fate for the 2022/23 assessment, as they successfully argued that they could not be charged for a breach, as they were no longer a member of the Premier League when the PSR calculation was carried out, having been relegated to the Championship. Their legal team play...

Contrary to widely held belief, the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia has contributed wonderfully to English football this summer. It’s done marvellously for Liverpool, excellently for Chelsea, great for Manchester City and, further afield, even found time to help Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid too.  For Newcastle United, not so much. Indeed, those who once welcomed the PIF to the city will increasingly worry whether it cares much for their club at all.  Saudi Arabian money propped up Fifa’s Club World Cup, which was only going to benefit two English clubs — Chelsea and City — plus a longer list of European royalty. Now, PIF-backed Al-Hilal have paid £46.3million for Darwin Núñez of Liverpool, a windfall that may help facilitate their continued interest in Newcastle’s crown jewel, Alexander Isak.  In landing Darwin Nunez from Liverpool in a deal worth at least £46million this week, Al Hilal will believe they have made another statement for the Saudi Pro Leag...

Everyone is piling into football clubs, even small and obscure ones.  However, they are high risk investments.   Lex in the Financial Times makes an interesting comparison with small cap investments in general. Small football clubs used to be seen as money pits for local business owners, but now everyone from hedge funds to tech billionaires wants a piece.   With top teams out of reach for all but the richest, Deloitte has described the English Football League — the 72 clubs in three divisions below the Premier League — as a “more accessible asset class”.  As the second-tier Championship kicks off this weekend, these potential diamonds in the rough will get to prove their worth. Investors, though, ought to think about them like another market full of deceptive “bargains” — small-cap stocks. The appeal is similar: big names might be safer, but find a future winner among the also-rans and the potential gains are enormous. Manchester United’s revenue grew 2 per...

The Financial Times previews the Championship season with a special focus on the challenges at Sheffield Wednedsay: 'The English football season is already under way outside the Premier League, with the Championship kicking off last night as upwardly mobile Birmingham City FC hosted recently relegated Ipswich Town. The game ended in a 1-1 draw. Birmingham are part of a new but growing breed in lower league football, one where international capital and celebrity combine. The club is owned by New York hedge fund Knighthead Capital and backed (or fronted?) by retired NFL superstar Tom Brady.  Rivals this season will include Swansea City, whose shareholders now include Snoop Dogg and Luka Modrić, and Wrexham, the Welsh side owned by Hollywood duo Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. In England’s second tier, competition is always fierce and unpredictable, both at the top and the bottom. This season will be no different, with the three relegated clubs enjoying the financial boost of pa...

The EFL have said that Sheffield Wednesday can start their season on Sunday despite the uncertainty surrounding the club's future.   They are trying to exert pressure on the owner to end the uncertainty:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cqle6w1k3p4o

Crystal Palace have obtained correspondence between leading European clubs and their lawyers which they hope will force Uefa to reinstate them to the Europa League. The FA Cup winners have been relegated to Europe’s third-tier competition, the Conference League, because of a breach of strict rules on multi-club ownership relating to John Textor’s stake in Palace and his company’s ownership of Lyon. The French club are also playing in the Europa League this coming season. Textor has now agreed to sell the Palace shares owned by Eagle Football Holdings to US billionaire Woody Johnson in a £160million deal, but Uefa says the club failed to complete a change of ownership before its March 1 deadline. Palace will argue in an appeal hearing at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on August 8 that Nottingham Forest, who are set to take their place in the Europa League, were given until April 29 for the club’s owner, Evangelos Marinakis, to divest himself of his directorship of th...