The Political Economy of Football V2

'Crazy' soaring wages in League One have seen Northampton's losses increase from £1m to £2.5m a year:  https://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/football/cobblers-open-to-more-investment-to-stay-competitive-after-crazy-rise-in-league-one-wages-5421603 The club is open to more investment, but the chairman is proud of what they have achieved over the last ten years in terms of creating a stable club:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnv2qz98mz0o

As one of the world’s most prominent sports teams, it’s no surprise that FC Barcelona has dozens of companies lining up to associate with it. Partnerships range from headline sponsors Nike, Spotify and Philips Ambilight to local cava producer Codorníu via toolmaker Stanley and Malaysian lender Maybank.   Those commercial partners get to sell their wares to Barça’s vast fan base and bask in the reflected glamour of the club that gave us Lionel Messi. In return, they get cash. Earlier this month, Barca made a curious addition to its partnership team sheet: Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP). The previously unknown crypto company will be the club’s “official blockchain technology” partner for the next three years. “This new sponsorship deal, in a cutting-edge area of technology, is yet another example of FC Barcelona’s leadership in the commercial field,” the club said when announcing its ZKP tie-up. Yet, despite access to Barça’s digital channels and hundreds of millions of fans —...

Defeats are always difficult to accept at Liverpool, a club where expectations are enormous but the last two have been humiliations, in front of their own crowd, at Anfield, where the fate of all managers (or a head coach in this case) still tend to be determined, regardless of what people are saying on the internet. Frustration has been aimed at players and the person leading them but, so far, it has not manifested into the kind of groundswell where Arne Slot’s position has been questioned loudly enough to influence decisions at executive level. Some of his critics have suggested that Slot benefited from inheritance. All of the regulars in the squad last season were, after all, bought in the Jurgen Klopp era, but it seems ridiculous to use winning the league against Slot, particularly when Klopp was unable to achieve the feat with exactly the same group of players.  There are no indications that Liverpool, or more specifically, their owners, Fenway Sports Group, which is hea...

The final battle to secure ownership of Championship club Sheffield Wednesday is set to feature six bidders, as administrators prepare to name their preferred option in the next two weeks. Wednesday have been in administration since October 24, when former owner Dejphon Chansiri, a Thai businessman, marked the end of a 10-year reign with an ignominious exit from Hillsborough. Five formal bids have now been tabled in the last week, with the expectation of another still to come.   Among those still in the running are U.S. businessman John McEvoy and former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley. The latter’s opening bid, in the region of £20million, has not met the administrators’ desired threshold of £30m, but at least two of those other suitors’ bids have. Multiple sources, granted anonymity by the New York Times to protect working relations, do not currently consider there to be a clear frontrunner in a process that is now likely to go beyond the initial target date of next Frid...

The replacement of PSR by SCR by the Premier League from 2026/27 may seem to be a highly technical matter: indeed it is.   It needs someone with the forensic skills of the Swiss Ramble to unravel what it all means for the competition and individual clubs.   I recommend subscribing to his Substack page to get the full analysis by the Zurich-based football finance guru.  Even so, I had difficulty in getting my head round some of the complexities, but here are some highlights. First and foremost, PSR and SCR differ in what they measure. PSR evaluates a club’s overall profit by including all revenues and costs, while SCR focuses specifically on on-pitch spending. Under PSR, clubs were assessed based on their financial performance over a rolling 3-year period, whereas the SCR sets clear spending limits for each season Compliance is monitored in-season as well as at the end of the season, allowing for earlier intervention if a club is breaching the rules. This s...

Chelsea understandably feel constrained by having a smaller stadium than London rivals Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham.   Match day revenue is smaller and there is little opportunity for the kinds of alternative uses pursued by Spurs. The possibility of Chelsea building a new stadium at Earl’s Court has hit a setback after an alternative plan for the land was approved by one of the councils involved.   Personally I never thought it was viable. At a meeting on Wednesday night, Hammersmith and Fulham council approved proposals for a development on the site of the old Earls Court Exhibition Centre which will include a mix of new homes, retail and hospitality, and workplaces. The plans are led by the Earls Court Development Company (ECDC). The land had also been mooted as a potential site for a new stadium for Chelsea, who are looking at future options to develop or move away from Stamford Bridge. The ECDC’s plans do not include a football stadium. Hammersmith...

From next season, Visit Rwanda will not appear on the sleeve of Arsenal’s shirts.  The club announced that they will end their eight-year partnership with the Rwanda Development Board in June 2026. Many Arsenal fans will be relieved to see the association with Visit Rwanda conclude, with the relationship coming under considerable scrutiny due to the Rwandan government being accused of serial abuses by multiple human rights groups. Rwanda’s backing of M23 militia in neighbouring Congo has amplified those concerns. A recent survey among the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust showed that more than 90 per cent of respondents wanted the partnership to end, with 67 per cent voting to negotiate an immediate exit from the deal. A further 23 per cent were prepared to wait until the contract’s expiry next summer. An early termination was never particularly likely for Arsenal — extricating themselves from the Visit Rwanda agreement would have been incredibly complex, as well as po...

Scottish football has been given a big boost by World Cup qualification, but like all clubs outside the Big Five leagues, Rangers are still faced with a major challenge when trying to compete with the European elite. If Rangers were ever to compete in the Premier League, they should be able to acquit themselves pretty well, as they would benefit from the same TV deal, but be ahead of most clubs in the other revenue streams. The American consortium at Rangers has said that it “will chart a new strategic vision for the club’s future prioritising on-pitch performance and long-term financial sustainability”.   The authoritative Swiss Ramble surveys the position. Ranger’s pre-tax loss in 2024/25narrowed by £2.4m (14%) from £17.3m, but it still came in at a hefty £14.9m. Revenue rose £5.8m (7%) from £88.3m to a club record £94.1m, but this was more than offset by a worse result in player sales, which swung from a £5.6m profit to a £0.6m loss. Rangers’ revenue growth was largely d...

Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez will this weekend push ahead with plans to bring in outside shareholders for the first time in the member-owned club’s 123-year history, as the Spanish team tries to reinforce its status against the growing financial might of Premier League clubs. At Sunday’s annual meeting of members, Pérez is to outline the next steps of a plan to bring fresh capital into the club. That would allow an outside investor to take a 5 to 10 per cent stake in Real Madrid, in a test of the club’s valuation, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. While the meeting is a standard event, where members will vote to approve the annual accounts, Pérez’s speech will be closely watched for updates on potential changes to the club’s corporate structure, the way capital will be raised and the effect on members. Changes to the bylaws will require members to meet and vote, potentially as soon as next year. The stakes are high following US investment firm Apollo’s d...

The steep bowl design lof Birmingham City’s new stadium features 12 chimney-form towers, designed to echo the brickworks that once sat on the site and point towards how the hard-working people of Birmingham changed the world during the Industrial Revolution. The chimneys — undoubtedly the biggest talking point — will provide structural support for the roof while accommodating lifts and staircases and helping with ventilation. One tower will even include a lift to what is claimed will be Birmingham’s highest bar, offering city-wide views. Once completed, they will be viewed from 40 miles away. Early reaction to the £1.2billion ($1.57bn) project from locals has been largely positive, but considerably more mixed across the country. Long-serving supporters of football clubs are sensitive to changes around history and tradition, with a stadium move the most delicate issue, yet the initial signs are that many Birmingham fans are on board. The design includes seating as close to pitch...

The Swiss Ramble looks at club funding in the Premier League.  Almost two-thirds came from the Big Six, led by Manchester United £5.6 bln, Manchester City £5.4 bln and Liverpool £4.7 bln. The Premier League made a hefty £7.1 bln operating loss in the last decade with four clubs losing more than half a billion: Chelsea were far worse than anyone else with a massive £1.4 bln deficit, followed by Everton £895m, Aston Villa £871m and Fulham £507m. Four clubs had more than £2 bln cash to spend in the last ten years, namely Chelsea £2.7 bln, Tottenham £2.6 bln, Manchester City £2.3 bln and Manchester United £2.2 bln. There were another four clubs above the £1 bln mark: Arsenal £1.8 bln, Everton £1.8 bln, Liverpool £1.6 bln and Aston Villa £1.0 bln. However, the sources of these funds were quite different. At its simplest, the larger clubs could use money they had generated themselves, either through operating activities or player sales, while the aspirational challengers had to rel...

Spurs’ state-of-the-art stadium is the envy of the Premier League and has been widely considered one of the best venues in Europe since it opened in April 2019 — after a three-year build — at a cost of £1.2billion ($1.6bn). The Emirates, now nearly 20 years old, remains a spectacular ground in its own right, and one of the best in England, but it has aged quickly over the past six years due to the competition it faces from the blue-and-white part of north London. Whether it is hosting the biggest music artists, annual NFL matches, boxing events or housing the F1 Drive — an electric go-karting track — under the South Stand, Spurs’ stadium is light years ahead of Arsenal’s home. As part of their agreement with Islington Council, Arsenal can host six non-football events attended by more than 10,000 people per calendar year. Only three of these are allowed to be music concerts. Spurs, on the other hand, can host up to 30 non-football events. That is an increase on the 16 Haringey C...

Majority control at Norwich City passed to Attanasio’s Norfolk Holdings group from Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones after 28 years. Attanasio, the owner of American baseball team Milwaukee Brewers, first purchased a minority 22% stake from former director Michael Foulger in September 2022, before increasing his shareholder to 40.4% in April 2024.   In March 2025 Attanasio converted his loans into equity, giving him 85% of the football club. Smith and her husband have retained 10%, while the remaining 5% is owned by independent shareholders, including the supporters’ group, Under the former owners, the club had been promoted to the top flight on no fewer than five occasions, but they had become the classic “yo-yo” club, most notably in the four seasons between 2018/19 and 2021/22, when they were twice finished top of the Championship, only to twice come last in the Premier League. Norwich City’s pre-tax loss in 2024/25 widened from £14.4m to £20.7m, mainly due to a steep red...

Liverpool owner Fenway Sports Group (FSG) has ended its interest in buying La Liga club Getafe. The cost of the takeover — coupled with Spain’s strict limitations on spending linked to the club’s limited revenue — are understood to have ultimately made it prohibitive. Getafe president AngeloTorres, who had previously put off potential bidders with a valuation of around £160million ($211m), had lowered his price tag to closer to £100m ($132m), while publicly downplaying talk of selling the club he has owned since 2002. However, FSG were the latest in a long line of suitors to show serious interest in a club which has built a reputation for being well run and developing young talent. FSG have been committed to building a multi-club group around Liverpool since Michael Edwards was appointed as their CEO of football in March 2024. Over the past 18 months, FSG technical director Julian Ward has also been heavily involved in trying to find the right opportunity. French club Bordeaux ...

A replica of Mbappé’s Adidas-branded shirt, with his name on the back, retails for as much as £185 — or £200 for one with long sleeves and Champions League badges.  The advent of the £200 shirt is seen by some industry executives as a byproduct of prevailing trends reshaping football finance. Merchandise is an increasingly important growth driver for clubs, as the media rights market slows significantly — and with onerous new regulations linking transfer spending limits with revenues, generating growth off the pitch is crucial to stay competitive on it. Revenues at the retail and licensing division of FC Barcelona — which charges fans £320 for a shirt with teenage star Lamine Yamal’s name in a limited edition font on the back — rose 55 per cent to €170mn last year. Manchester United’s retail sales grew 16 per cent to £145mn last year, despite flat revenue overall. Meanwhile, Liverpool FC has built a retail network across Asia and the Middle East, opening its 22nd store las...

Barcelona actually reported a pre-tax loss of €8m in 2024/25, though this was significantly better than the prior year’s €204m deficit, reports the Swiss Ramble.  This was largely driven by a steep reduction in exceptional items, which fell from €225m to €10m, mainly due to movement in economic levers. As a reminder, Barcelona had pulled these famous levers (“ palancas ”) to raise funds, albeit at the expense of sacrificing income in the future. As it stands, Barcelona have made around €850m from pulling these financial levers, split between TV rights €665m, Barça Vision €112m and Personal Seating Licences €70m.   Looking at the five seasons between 2019/20 and 2023/24, Barcelona’s reported loss was €298m, but if the €842m gain from economic levers is excluded, the underlying loss would have been a cool €1.1 bln.   The good news is that on this basis Barcelona have actually posted profits in each of the last two seasons, first €20m in 2023/24, then €2m in 2024/25. In ...

Last season was the third for Derby County under the ownership of David Clowes, a local businessman and lifelong supporter, who bought the club out of administration in July 2022, splashing out around £55m in the process. As Clowes said, his purchase had “ended nine months of uncertainty and fear over the future of our club.”  The authoritative Swiss Ramble analyses the 2023/24 accounts. Following promotion to the Championship, Derby’s pre-tax loss narrowed from £14.2m to £11.1m. Revenue shot up £12.5m (64%) from £19.4m to a club record £31.9m, but this was more than offset by the increased cost of competing in the higher division, as operating expenses rose £15.0m (39%) from £38.2m to £53.2m. The net improvement was thus thanks to a significant increase in profit on player sales, which more than doubled from £4.6m to £10.3m. The main driver of Derby’s revenue growth was the higher TV deal in the Championship, which led to broadcasting income more than quadrupling from £2.9m to...

West Ham are in a relegation battle.  No one gains financially from demotion, but it impacts some more than others. Existing cost bases play a big part, likewise a team’s ability to generate money by selling some faces that didn’t look out of place in the top tier. Beyond that, club owners come into play. Between 2015 and 2024, Championship clubs lost a collective £3.2billion, all of it (and a little more) funded by benevolent shareholders. Amounts required for recently relegated clubs can vary, but a general rule is that the longer you stay in the second tier, the more you’ll need to lean on an owner or two. One thing is for certain — if relegation comes, West Ham’s revenue will drop. That has been the case pretty much since the Premier League’s inception, but it has become more pronounced since 2016, when a new TV deal exploded onto the scene. Since then, only one club has seen post-relegation turnover fall by less than a third. That was Bournemouth in 2020-21, and even tha...

 Hearts made a net operating loss of £400,000 in 2024/25 despite increased turnover and European football.  However, it should be noted that  the 29 per cent investment made by Brighton owner Tony Bloom, shows up on the balance sheet rather than the profit and loss accounts:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c33p83vll0yo In any case the loss is relatively modest compared with some English clubs.

Derby County lost £11.3m in 2024/25.   An increase in revenue saw a £3m reduction in losses compared with the previous year:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c867vjlpl1vo Billionaire John Textor is said to be interested in acquiring the club if his bid for Sheffield Wednesday fails, but many fans think that his track record suggests he would not be a good fit for the club.

In 2017 Barcelona had posted six straight years of profits, where wages were less than 60 per cent of revenue and where those revenues were growing healthily — up €164m and 34 per cent in three seasons. Barcelona made a profit again in 2017-18, but its size, considering it included a world-record fee for Neymar, was miserly. The club booked a €20.1million pre-tax surplus but only after more than €200m in player profits. Operating performance collapsed, from a €10.5m profit in 2016-17 to a €176.8m loss  Before accounting for any of the other costs involved in running a club of Barca’s stature, 81 cents in every euro were gobbled up by football staff costs or the fees paid to bring players to the Camp Nou. And those other running costs were and are massive. The club very quickly became structurally unsound. In 2020-21, Barca recorded a €555.4million pre-tax loss, by a long way the worst financial result ever recorded by a football club. In June 2022, when Barca announced the sa...

Celtic’s results off the pitch in 2023/24 saw their pre-tax profit further improving from £18m to £46m, a record for Scottish clubs.  Revenue rose £19m (15%) from £125m to £144m, another all-time high for Scotland, while profit from player sales shot up from £7m to £31m. The significant increase in Celtic’s revenue was was driven by the successful Champions League campaign, which led to uplifts in match day, up £10.7m (21%) from £49.6m to £60.3m, and broadcasting, up £8.8m (24%) from £36.4m to £45.2m. Both revenue streams established new club records. Celtic have pretty much been in a class of their own in Scotland when it comes to generating money from player trading, as seen by looking at the latest available accounts, where the next highest profit was only £5.6m at Rangers, followed by £1.3m at Aberdeen. Celtic have posted profits in nine of the last ten years, the one exception being the COVID-impacted loss in 2020/21. As a result, they have generated an impressive £135m ...

The owner of Fulham FC is betting a £350mn investment in its stadium that includes adding a private members’ club will provide the Premier League club with the financial firepower to compete with its richer rivals. “I think it’s going to go a long way towards making Fulham competitive and compliant with [financial] fair play rules,” Shahid Khan told the Financial Times on a tour of the west London development, which features a grand piano, marble bar and a riverside walkway.   The multibillionaire said the additions to Craven Cottage, the club’s home since 1896, were made viable by its Thameside location, which was a “key asset” — adding Fulham has the “most educated, richest fan base in English football”. Khan is seeking to build new revenue streams to help reduce his financial support and fund player signings after Premier League clubs spent a record £3bn-plus in the summer transfer window.   The league’s financial regulations mean clubs cannot lose more than £105mn over...