The Political Economy of Football V2

Six EFL clubs are showing signs of financial distress according to BTG, but finances at Scottish clubs are stabilising:  https://www.btguk.com/news/football-distress-report-q1-2026

I have always been sceptical of the viability of the fan ownership model in professional football and the recent experience of AFC Wimbledon and Exeter City confirms this.  Exeter City badly need external investment to survive and flourish:  https://www.devonlive.com/sport/football/football-news/exeter-city-external-investment-necessity-10940501

Yasir Al-Rumayyan will lead a 25-strong delegation of PIF officials flying in for Newcastle United’s board-level meetings in Northumberland this week. The club’s chairman and governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), Newcastle’s 85 per cent owners, will hear from senior figures throughout the club, including Eddie Howe, the head coach, and David Hopkinson, the CEO, during an annual ‘off-siting’ conference at Matfen Hall, the luxury country hotel 16 miles west of Newcastle, on Wednesday and Thursday. Hopkinson has confirmed that Newcastle’s plans for their stadium — with a decision to be made on whether to expand St James’ Park or build a new ground nearby — and their training ground, with a site identified at Woolsington near Newcastle International Airport, will be on the agenda, as will his already approved plan to turn the club into one of the world’s best by 2030. Around 25 PIF officials, according to Hopkinson, will be joined by Jamie Reuben, the minority owne...

 Andrea Agnelli, one of the architects of European football’s controversial Super League, is launching a comeback as a sports investor. Five years after his failed attempt to upend the continent’s footballing landscape, Agnelli has established Gamma Waves Partners, an investment firm that will target opportunities in innovative sports competitions and formats, as well as teams and athletes. Based in Amsterdam, where Agnelli now lives, Gamma Waves will manage money invested by the former Juventus boss and co-founders including Rocco Benetton of the eponymous fashion dynasty and former Italian football captain Giorgio Chiellini.  Agnelli acted as vice-chair of the European Super League, a closed league for the continent’s biggest clubs. The project collapsed in 2021 within days of becoming public knowledge after a backlash from supporters and politicians forced clubs to pull out. His new venture will take minority stakes in businesses seeking to boost fan engagement with s...

After multiple bankruptcies and a 21-year absence from Italy’s uppermost football league, Serie A, Como 1907 now finds itself near the top of the ranks as the season closes. Just two years after it rejoined the league, a lucrative Champions League place lies within reach. Yet for some, the most striking part of Como’s recent turnaround lies beyond goals on the pitch. Club executives have been positioning it less as a conventional football team dependent on match-day successes and more as a global lifestyle brand that has Lake Como — and fashion — at its heart.   Under the club’s chief brand officer Rhuigi Villaseñor, a seasoned fashion industry creative director and club shareholder appointed in 2024, Como works with four high-profile brands on lines for fans, including Brioni for formalwear, Rhude on casual and streetwear, Hublot on luxury timepieces and Adidas on its technical kits, including a sailing collection called Lago di Como. The team also offers luxury lake experienc...

One branch of my family now lives in Spain, but unfortunately none of them are interested in football.   That would be a lot to ask of my great-granddaughter who is three, but I have watched the older pupils from her school (boys and girls) enjoying a kick about in the village square. From his Zurich fastness, the Swiss Ramble has been casting his eye over the finances of Atlético Madrid.    Much more detail and analysis are available on his Substack page.   Some highlights follow. Private equity firm Apollo Sports Capital became majority shareholder in Atlético Madrid last November, buying a reported 55% stake. Following this deal, Quantum Pacific, founded by Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer, is the second largest shareholder with a stake of roughly 25%, while American investment firm Ares Management now has 5%. Gil Marin has seen his stake reduce to 10%, though he will remain as CEO, while club president Enrique Cerezo is down to 3%. Apollo’s investmen...

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire is relatively positive about Burnley's financial position after relegation as the Clartes have future proofed themselves against the eventuality, although some players may have to be sold:  https://www.burnleyexpress.net/sport/football/kieran-maguire-discusses-financial-impact-of-burnleys-relegation-from-the-premier-league-7449247 Maguire reckons that the real challenge is to make good use of the parachute payments and not suffer the fate of teams like Charlton and Stoke after they each had several years in the top flight.

Millwall say they are “considering their legal position” after the club’s badge was placed on a photo of a Ku Klux Klan figure in a children’s educational book. The image appeared in a booklet called ‘The Paul Canoville Story’, written by Peter Daniel, an education and interpretation officer at Westminster City Council. Millwall said they had since received a “full apology” from Westminster City Council. “The club has received a full apology from Westminster Council following their serious misuse of a registered club badge, which was placed on an illustration of a white supremacist hate group member in a children’s education booklet distributed in schools, creating a false and damaging image of the club,” a club statement, issued through their supporters’ trust, read. Millwall’s view is they are particularly disappointed as the club have made great effort in recent years to combat stereotypical and historical views held of the club, including on racism, and believe such incidents...

In the Premier League this season, heads are rolling faster than ever, as the financial pressures of under performance on the pitch push owners to take action. Since the start of the 2025-26 season, nine full-time managers of top-flight English clubs have been dismissed by their owners, averaging less than a year in the job, according to Financial Times analysis of Transfermarkt data. Managers who left this season lasted an average of 295 days in charge, the lowest tenure since the Premier League was launched 34 years ago. The previous record low was 415 days in 2008-09, excluding 1992-93 and 1995-96, when only one manager departed in each season. Alongside goals from corner kicks and the return of the long throw-in, managerial churn has been a feature of the season. Aside from Rosenior, Chelsea also sacked Maresca after 18 months in post, while Manchester United parted ways with Ruben Amorim after 14 months. Things have been even more brutal at the other end of the table. Nott...

I have a soft spot for Harrogate Town.  They are a fellow spa town team (I live in Leamington Spa).  For some years I was a consultant at Yorkshire Agricultural Society and the cab from my hotel to the showground always took me past their gronnd. Harrogate’s 2024/25 accounts show debts of £6.4 million owed to chairman Irving Weaver, who has said he does not intend to call-in the loans.   However, relegation would be a major financial blow. Asked to comment, football finance guru Kieran Maguire, an academic, chartered accountant and author of The Price of Football, said:  ‘Clubs get revenue from three primary sources: gate receipts, TV deals, and commercial income. Harrogate’s 2024/25 revenue was around £4 million. They could be looking at a £2.5 million to £2.75 million revenue drop if they are relegated. TV income would take a major hit. Harrogate currently receive £1.2 million to £1.3 million, but would lose Premier League solidarity payments and half their EFL...

Swansea City's recent heavy investment in its playing squad has been laid bare in the club's latest financial accounts. As noted by football finance guru Kieran Maguire, the club's turnover has plummeted from £126.8 m in 2018 to £22.3 m for last season.   It was revealed by filings earlier in the month that the club had posted a loss of £21.6 m for the year ending June 2025 – a record for the football club.   Those figures are also up from the £14.4 m for the previous 12-month period, and are £5.3m ahead of the previous record loss of £16.3 m.    Swansea have not made a profit since 2020. Operational costs have also increased from £47m to £51m, with player wages are up six per cent to £29m. The club also spent more on transfer fees during that time, shelling out £10.7m, a whopping increase of 80 per cent on the previous year, and the highest since the £55.5m spent in 2018. Gross squad costs also edged up by 17 per cent to £19.9m. Profit on player trading fo...

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire has discussed the financial consequences of Leicester City’s relegation to League One. “I don't think they’ve got a lot of money coming in, so realistically it's going to have to be a fire-sale, and the other thing is that the owner is going to have to dig the club out...It really does now come down to the level of commitment from the owner, which has been missing in recent years.” Maguire says Leicester can’t rip up player contracts just because they have been relegated twice and continued: “You say the players will walk away, well the average wage at Leicester last season was £67,000 a week and if they've got a contract, which has another two or three years remaining, they can say to Leicester ‘You either pay us up or we stick around’ because the players' first responsibilities are towards their families not the club owner.” One can sympathise with fans who held up 'King Power Out' banners up on Tuesday, but after years...

Plymouth Argyle are set to have operating losses of £10.6 million this season, chief executive officer Paul Berne revealed at a Fans' Forum at Home Park on Thursday night. Turnover is expected to be £18.5m, with a loss before player trading of £11.2m, Berne told an audience of supporters in Club Argyle. Player trading of £600,000 will slightly reduce that deficit to £10.6m. Argyle's football budget this season has been £10m, which is £4m more than when the club were last in League One in 2022/23. That has placed them seventh in the division. Berne said: "We are striking a similar budget for next year, which we expect to be similarly competitive. We are planning to retain all contracted players, and round out the squad with the seven or eight contracts coming to an end which are currently under review." Over the last 12 months, the club has needed £20m to cover losses, and to cover Foulston Park developments, and other capital. Berne said: 'We took the de...

Chelsea's owners are rational actors so what is their strategy? Under the ownership of free-spending oligarch Roman Abramovich Chelsea Football Club lost about £1mn a week for almost two decades. The losses racked up by the club’s current owners have made the Abramovich era appear restrained by comparison. Chelsea this month reported a £262 mn pre-tax loss in 2024-25, a record for a Premier League club, as owners Clearlake Capital and financier Todd Boehly try to wean the club off Abramovich’s millions. When US investment firm Clearlake and financier Boehly bought Chelsea for £2.5 bn almost three years ago, the football industry expected a new era of financial rigour at the west London club. But they have since spent about €1.7bn (£1.5bn) on players, parted ways with four head coaches and have yet to agree on a critical revenue driver: whether to modernise Chelsea’s existing stadium or move elsewhere. With the club at risk of missing out on a place in next season’s lucrative Ch...

The dismissal of ‘Linkedin Liam’ solves one problem at Chelsea, but one has to ask why he was appointed in the first place.  Most Chelsea fans would acknowledge there are far deeper problems under the current ownership. Do the owners really understand what is involved, particularly emotionally, in running a top football club?    As was remarked on Radio 5 this morning, it’s hardly the same as turning round a ball bearings company in Wisconsin.    Nevertheless, the owners clearly think they will eventually be able to cash in on their investment. So let’s step back and see what the Swiss Ramble has to make of their 2024/25 accounts from his Zurich fastness. Chelsea’s strategy has been far more reliant on player sales than any other major English club, so they have generated an impressive £859m from this activity in the last decade. In this period, they made more than £100m on four occasions. They made £273m in the three seasons since BlueCo got involved, w...

The departure of Baroness Karen Brady from West Ham has seen other departures following, with Nathan Thompson, the executive director, stepping down with immediate effect. Financial director Andy Mollett will retire at the end of the season. Tara Warren, Brady’s trusted No 2, resigned from her role as executive director in December. In light of Brady’s exit, sources with knowledge of the situation say Sullivan has no plans to step down and remains fully committed. The 77-year-old, who owns 38.8 per cent of the club, and Kretinsky who owns 27 per cent (via 1890s Holdings), are in the process of purchasing shares from Vanessa Gold — the daughter of the late David Gold. She inherited 25.1 per cent after his passing in January 2023. The deal is expected to be completed in a month’s time, which would bring Sullivan and Kretinsky to just over 40 per cent each. The pair also have a joint-option to purchase more of Gold’s shares. “This must now be a turning point — not a rebrand,” said...

Chelsea’s defeat at Brighton last night places their European hopes in even greater jeopardy.   Fans have been eager to criticise the coach, but there are deeper problems. Next month marks the fourth anniversary of the arrival of an ownership group who need Chelsea to be worth a lot of money if they are to make a success of the most brazen deployment of private equity strategy football has ever seen. Four seasons of new ownership have seen almost £2 billion ($2.7bn) spent on new signings as BlueCo undertake the most aggressive player-trading strategy in football. Financial regulations have been skirted at home and breached abroad. A second club, Strasbourg, have been added to the group. Players and coaches have been ferried between the two clubs at pace. The over £4 billion committed to the project has been added to with borrowings that don’t show on Chelsea’s books, accruing interest at significant rates. The fate of the club’s home ground, an impediment to higher earni...

Baroness Karen Brady has stepped down as the vice-chair of West Ham United.  the timing is hardly ideal, coming at such a vital stage in the season. Brady put her announcement back 24 hours to avoid disrupting Monday night’s match against Crystal Palace, although it is hard to imagine any game will feel less than crucial from here given the relegation fight. Media speculation suggests that there may be a new role for her with the Premier League, FA or elsewhere in football, although many fans would not welcome her. Brady, 57, has been in the role for 16 years and is credited with leading the negotiations to secure West Ham’s move from Upton Park to the 62,500-seat London Stadium in 2016.  She has also become a major Premier League power broker, and her departure from the club marks the end of a business relationship with the joint-chair, David Sullivan, that dates back almost 40 years. She persuaded Sullivan to buy Birmingham City and it was a groundbreaking mo...

If the dark cloud of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ horrific season has one grim silver lining, it is that they have had plenty of opportunity to prepare for the worst. In fact, for the past few months, the powers that be at Molineux have been planning for the inevitable. It should be noted, however, that the highly competitive Championship is different from the top flight and adjusting after seven years away will be a challenge. Now, with relegation finally certain, interim chairman Nathan Shi and the rest of the Wolves hierarchy have the chance to prove that the rare luxury of time has not been wasted. Their challenges are many and varied, but the key aims include: Managing a huge summer of squad changes, with sales needed to help bridge the income drop created by relegation Taking advantage of risky January sales by ensuring the bulk of Edwards’ new squad is in place for the majority of pre-season Winning around angry fans and persuading back former ...

Protests have been fairly rare at Chelsea, and demonstrations against the current ownership — particularly one held before a home game against Brentford in January — have seemingly struggled to settle on a single message. But on Saturday evening it was clear, held up on a huge white banner at the front of the march by Chelsea fans and supporters of sister club Strasbourg: ‘BlueCo Out’. “We’re very disillusioned with the direction that the club is going at the moment,” said David Cook from NotAProjectCFC, the organisers of Saturday evening’s protest. “The best way to unify (the fanbase), really, I think at this point, is to push the message of BlueCo out. I don’t have any faith in them at this point, and I think we’re left with no other option.” Protesters’ complaints on Saturday varied. Some sported signs highlighting heavy spending, and multiple fans were unhappy with player recruitment. The ownership’s focus on youth is coming under increasing scrutiny, with suggestions recently ...

The Swiss Ramble reviews West Bromwich Albion’s finances as they face the threat of a points deduction that could seem them relegated.   It remains unclear whether there will be a points deduction or if it will be applied this season given the complications that could then arise for the competition as a whole.  If they do go down, this would be only the second time in their history that West Brom had been in England’s third tier. The club has spent many seasons in the Premier League with their most recent relegation taking place in 2020/21. Since then, they have finished between 5th and 10th in the Championship, getting close to promotion in 2023/24, when they reached the play-offs.   This underlines the extent of the decline this season, so the threat of a points deduction could not have come at a worse time. Ownership change It wasn’t meant to be this way after the club was acquired in February 2024 by Bilkul Football WBA, a company ultimately owned by Florid...

At Newport County  majority owner Huw Jenkins has made no secret of his desire to find a partner or a way out. The former Swansea City chairman bought the Welsh club two years ago, but has already loaned Newport £3m without seeing any improvement on the pitch. Newport are not the easiest sell, as they do not own their stadium or training ground, and they are currently one point and one place above the drop zone with three to play. But that does not appear to have put off Nicholas Beddis, a former soldier from nearby Pontypool, who went on to build a successful career in real estate in Dubai before more recently setting up AGS Capital Global, a financial advisory business aimed at professional athletes. There is, however, another chapter in his story: a stretch in prison for an assault that took place at a Halloween party in 2012 when he was 19. Neither Beddis nor Jenkins wanted to comment on the status of their talks, but  The Athletic  understands that Beddis knows...

Former FA chief executive Mark Palios and his wife, Nicola, have been trying to sell Tranmere Rovers for more than two years. They initially thought they had a buyer in the shape of an eclectic group led by Donald Trump’s former lawyer and pop star Rihanna’s partner A$AP Rocky, only for that to fall through last year. More recently, they have been in advanced talks with an American investment firm called Ascent Capital Partners. That deal has stalled due to a combination of the EFL wanting more information on Ascent’s investors and Ascent worrying about the club’s slide towards the National League. Ascent and Palio are still talking, but the latter is looking for alternative options, too, one of whom is understood to be Morley Sports Management, the London-based firm that owns Scottish League One side Hamilton Academical and Welsh semi-pro side Haverfordwest County. The challenge for Tranmere is always the accessibility of two Premier League clubs across the Mersey. T...

It is the prospect of Spurs, one of English football’s so-called Big Six clubs, exiting the league that is capturing media attention as the Premier League season approaches its end. “There’s not much hope. There is anger, just disbelief really that we’re in this situation,” Flav Bateman, host of The Fighting Cock, a Spurs fan podcast told the Financial Times . “I think a lot of Spurs fans feel the same. We’re not even talking about it anymore.” The club’s place in the Big Six has not chimed with performances on the pitch. Spurs have not won the league since 1961, while their last FA Cup trophy was 35 years ago.   Fans complain that the emphasis on the business side has led to years of under-investment in players. Spurs have spent about £1.3bn on transfer fees for players in the past decade, the sixth highest in English football and similar to Liverpool and Arsenal, according to estimates from Transfermarkt. However, Spurs spent just 43 per cent of revenue on player wages...

The Financial Times gives its verdict on the challenges facing Spurs: 'The next three days will be crucial for Tottenham Hotspur, one of English football’s “Big Six” clubs. Having won only once in the past eight games, the London team are in the drop zone, and the expectations among bookmakers and data wonks have now shifted: Spurs are increasingly expected to be relegated. Demotion would be calamitous and unprecedented for such a wealthy club. Some roots of the current crisis run shallow. A newly appointed manager failed to improve results after last year’s dismal league finish, the worst in decades. New players, bought at considerable cost, did not deliver what was hoped for on the pitch. And injuries to key squad members piled up. In an increasingly competitive league, such things can snowball quickly. Without the experienced hand of Daniel Levy — Spurs executive chair for almost 25 years until his ousting in September — perhaps the club reacted to those problems too slo...

Premier League clubs made a combined loss of almost £800 mn last season, highlighting the challenges facing investors who have spent billions of pounds buying teams in the world’s most popular football league. Annual accounts from the 20 teams in England’s top flight covering the 2024-25 season show that 14 clubs reported pre-tax losses, despite revenues rising to more than £6.8 bn across the league from £6.3 bn a year earlier.   Chelsea, controlled by US private equity firm Clearlake Capital, reported a loss of £262 mn, a record for an English club. Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham, both currently fighting to avoid relegation, made losses of £120.7 mn and £104 mn respectively. English football has attracted billions of pounds of investment, much of it from the US, including from wealthy individuals, hedge funds, private equity firms and sovereign wealth funds. However, M&A activity has cooled recently, in part owing to concerns about the ability to generate financial returns...

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire has told a Livepool fan site that the financial implications could be huge if the club fails to qualify for the Champions League next season:  https://www.rousingthekop.com/2026/04/16/how-hard-liverpools-finances-could-be-hit-by-missing-out-on-champions-league-football/ A difficult question for Liverpool's owners is whether the slot machine is no longer paying out.

Lincoln University's student paper looks at the financial challenges that will face Lincoln City in the Championship next season with a playing budget likely to be as small as that of Charlton this season:  https://thelinc.co.uk/2026/04/lincoln-city-finances-championship/

Having brushed aside Liverpool’s creaking defence and a slot machine no longer paying out, Paris Saint-Germain faces an exciting Champions League semi-final test against Bayern Munich.   The success of PSG comes against the backcloth of a Ligue 1 which is the most troubled of the top five European leagues.   Once one leaves behind a small number of clubs, the standard falls away rapidly. From his Zurich fastness, the Swiss Ramble casts his usual forensic eye over the club’s finances, much more detail and depth available on his Substack page.  He makes some interesting comparisons with other leading European clubs which are of interest given the relative failure of Premier League clubs. Paris Saint-Germain’s 2024/25 accounts covered a season that the club not unreasonably described as “the most successful in our history”, as they won (deep breath) the UEFA Champions League, the UEFA Super Cup, a 13th Ligue 1 title, a 16th Coupe de France and 13th Trophée des ...