The Political Economy of Football V2

Work on redeveloping Elland Road should give Leeds United a stadium more befitting of a vibrant regional capital and its team.  Construction projects are very reliant on materials and specialists turning up on time, and often they don’t, but the Leeds work has a special plus (see below). My stepdaughter undertook design work on the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium and upgrading a stadium in situ is no easy task.   She more usually works on venues such as airports and they present challenges, but of a different kind.   There are not that many people who specialise in football stadiums. On May 17th, hours after full time in the final home game of last season, the builders moved in at Elland Road. The redevelopment of the John Charles Stand, which will take its capacity from around 8,000 to more than 17,500 seats, was underway, and the clock has been ticking.    The overall capacity will be 53,000 when the work is finished. The Bremner Suite has been b...

Gemcorp, the London-based emerging markets asset manager, has been through many iterations and not a little controversy over the years. Is the next step the sunlit uplands of English League Two football? The firm headed by Bulgaria-born financier Atanas Bostandjiev appears to be backing an offer by a Brazilian investment group to invest in lossmaking Northampton Town Football Club, according to company filings. Gemcorp, Northampton Town, and the Brazilian investor did not respond to requests for comment from the Financial Times.  But they seem to be linked by public filings that point to a deal beyond the usual emerging markets fodder. We’ll lay it out here. Firstly, the Cobblers   have not had a good year. Relegated to League Two after a loss to Luton Town left them bottom of League One, they epitomise the financial challenges for teams trying to turn their fortunes around at these lower tiers of the English game. For the year to the end of June 2025, the club reported...

Recently I have suggested sports lawyer as a good career for an ambitious youngster, but there are other off the pitch options.  Professional football clubs’ share of UK hiring has tripled over the past five years, with a jump in demand for data experts as Britain’s top teams use their growing financial strength to expand their off-field operations. The clubs have emerged as a bright spot in an otherwise sluggish British jobs market, now accounting for more than seven in every 10,000 roles advertised, up from 2.4 per 10,000 in 2020, according to data from recruitment website Indeed. Data and analytics make up five per cent of the roles advertised by Premier League teams this year, according to job analytics firm Lightcast. This is double the share two years ago. The hiring boom has been fuelled by the deep pockets of Premier League clubs, which have seen revenues soar off the back of strong performances in European competitions and lucrative new commercial deals. “Data and anal...

Serie A is trying to close the financial gap on the Premier League.   It may be possible to narrow it, but a range of structural forces underpin the dominance of the EPL, Italian commentators admit:  https://football-italia.net/how-serie-a-close-1-billion-gap-premier-league/  

Chelsea have ended their search for a front-of-shirt sponsor by agreeing a one-year deal with internet financial platform company Circle. The club has been in talks with the American-based firm for several months and while the size of the investment remains undisclosed, sources have told  The Athletic  it is the going rate for a top Premier League club. Chelsea were looking in the region of £50-60 million ($67.9m-$81.5m) a year. While the initial contract is for the remainder of the season, there is an option to extend it for longer included in the agreement, according to club sources. USDC will now be displayed on the front of the men’s, women’s and academy shirts in all competitions from now on, starting with the matches this weekend. That means it will be seen for the first time at Chelsea men’s Premier League game at home to Brighton & Hove Albion on Sunday. USDC, according to its website, “is a stablecoin issued by Circle, fully reserved by cash and cash equiv...

So much was different at Selhurst Park for this opening home game of the season. Some of it has been enforced, but it begs the question of how much change Palace can withstand and, perhaps more pertinently, how quickly that can shift to familiarity again asks the New York Times ? From kick-off, the atmosphere was different. Gone were the Holmesdale Fanatics and the familiar, repetitive beat of the drum and their repertoire of orchestrated songs, after the group announced it would “stop all organised activity”. Gone are most of the modern add-ons to the Main Stand, a temporary hospitality suite built while the redevelopment of the stadium is ongoing, Selhurst didn’t just look different, but it felt different. The atmosphere ebbed and flowed more naturally but in the difficult moments it missed that orchestrated HF presence when it mattered most. By the fourth City goal, the visible empty seats told their own story. It was impossible for the process of following on from Glasner to...

It’s a long way in more ways than one from Zurich’s financial district to New Cross, but the authoritative Swiss Ramble provides his usual balanced and forensic analysis of Millwall’s finances.  Much more detail is available on his Substack page. Millwall’s ability to punch above its weight should no longer be a major surprise, given that Millwall have finished in the top ten of the Championship on no fewer than six occasions since they were promoted from League One in 2016/17. There’s normally a decent correlation between wages and performance in the football world, but Millwall comfortably outperformed their budget in 2024/25 by finishing 8th in the league, which was seven places better than their wages ranking of 15th.   In fact, Millwall have consistently punched well above their weight, as their league position has been better than their wage bill in all but one of the seasons since their promotion to the Championship, often by a considerable margin – and they we...

The National League posted the following statement this afternoon (Wednesday) in regard to the Ebbsfleet United’s position and extended suspension. “The National League’s Compliance and Licensing Committee convened this morning to further consider Ebbsfleet United FC’s compliance with National League rules and regulations, and particularly the Club’s ongoing suspension.   The position remained significantly as previously.   The Committee considered the response provided by the Club and noted that its outstanding PAYE arrears to HMRC remain unpaid and that the winding-up order remains in place. The Committee also considered information relating to the recent change in ownership of the Club and its current financial position, including whether, under its new ownership, the Club has the financial capacity to meet its obligations for the 2026/27 season, as required under National League rules and regulations. Following careful consideration of all the information available t...

A fourth Premier League season has now begun with 115 charges hanging over Manchester City, who have repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. You must go all the way back to March 2019 to find the root of this disciplinary action, a time when the Premier League confirmed they were investigating City following a series of allegations published by German newspaper Der Spiegel. Using documents provided by Football Leaks, the whistleblower platform set up by Portuguese computer hacker and activist Rui Pinto, it was claimed that City had manipulated the value of several commercial deals in order to circumvent UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. Abu Dhabi-based companies, namely Etihad Airways and Etisalat, were alleged to have helped a club owned by Sheikh Mansour, de facto leader of the country, reach financial compliance.  UEFA launched and completed its own disciplinary case against City, who successfully appealed a two-year ban from UEFA competitions through the Court of Arb...

This is very technical high finance stuff, but scroll down to the section on 'relevance to football finance'. It's quite scary from the perspective of the average fan, but helps us to understand why high rollers are investing in loss making football clubs:  https://theesk.org/2026/08/23/the-analysis-series-private-credit-governance-and-relevance-to-football-financing/

It is now nearly a year since Daniel Levy was dismissed as Tottenham Hotspur chairman by the Lewis family.  It has been 12 months of dramatic twists and turns, with Spurs avoiding relegation on the final day of the Premier League season, and then spending unprecedented sums this summer to try to make sure such a scare never happens again. But while most fans focus on the football — and a dubbing by Brentford   — another set of issues have been bubbling away separately. These relate to Levy’s continued position as a minority shareholder in the club. This has been in the news for much of this summer, even as we approach the first anniversary of Levy’s dismissal, and specifically this month, after he missed the opportunity last week to participate in the Lewis family’s latest equity injection into the club. On Thursday morning the club confirmed that his shareholding has been diluted, down by roughly two per cent, after the creation of new ENIC shares. Levy’s dism...

The authoritative Swiss Ramble provides an overview of Premier League finances.  Much more Information and analysis is available on his Substack page. The Premier League has now lost money seven years in a row. Obviously, this was adversely impacted by the pandemic, which led to the huge losses reported during the COVID seasons with £992m in 2019/20 and £689m in 2020/2.   However, it has not been much better since then, losing a hefty £2.3 bln in the last four seasons, leading to an annual average loss of £564m.   That represents a dramatic worsening compared to the performance before the pandemic, e.g. it generated £786m profit in the four seasons up to 2018/19. ‘ Creative accounting; The Premier League’s losses in recent years would have been even higher without the inclusion of exceptional gains from selling assets to other group companies.   This amounted to a record £293m in 2024/25, including Newcastle United £133m, largely from the sale of St James’ Park...

Europe’s top spenders in the summer transfer window include some familiar names. Chelsea lead the way with a net spend of €245mn, followed by Arsenal and Real Madrid, according to Transfermarkt data. More surprising is the presence of Ipswich Town and Coventry City, sides newly promoted to the Premier League, in fourth and fifth place.  Ipswich have spent a net €159mn on the likes of attacking midfielder Julio Enciso as they seek to retain their place after a second promotion to the Premier League in three years, while Coventry’s owners have authorised a net spend of €138mn for the club’s return to the top division for a quarter of a century. The net spend of both exceeds that of Liverpool, the two Manchester clubs and reigning European champions Paris Saint-Germain, although this could change by the time the window closes on September 1. It is conventional wisdom that promoted clubs must spend big to have any hope of competing against the established sides ...

West Ham are not facing an immediate crisis, but the financial imperative of returning to the Premier League at the first attempt is becoming apparent. The club lost £104.2million on a revenue of £227.5million in the 2024-25 financial year, while employment costs climbed to £175.9million, a club-record high. The club’s own accounts had already warned that a liquidity shortfall was forecast in summer 2026, even before the “severe but plausible” scenario of relegation was considered. Kieran Maguire, the football finance guru, estimates West Ham face a £100million-plus reduction in annual revenue as a result of relegation. He calculates that broadcasting income could fall from about £132million to £45million, with commercial income also potentially falling sharply. The most eye-catching number attached to West Ham’s most recent financial accounts is the almost £195.8 million owed to other clubs in player-related transfer payments, but this does not necessarily represent an immediate c...

Finance and tech companies have piled into Premier League club sponsorship this season after a ban on gambling operators appearing on the front of shirts opened up some of football’s most valuable advertising space to new bidders. Betting firms have featured on the front of more than half of Premier League shirts over the past two seasons, but a ban agreed by clubs in 2023 came into effect this summer, prompting teams to find new deals. L Lynsey Pennie-Douglas, head of UK client strategy for Nielsen Sports, told the Financial Times that the changes amounted to “a genuine reset” for the sponsorship market. “Over the past decade, the value of that real estate has risen dramatically,” she added. For clubs outside of the league’s so-called big six — Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool, Manchester United, Chelsea and Tottenham — the average value of front-of-shirt deals has grown from £3.4mn in 2016-17 to around £9mn a year for the new season, according to Nielsen. Crystal Palace have s...

For years, Coventry had lived a charmed life in the top flight, pulling off a few dramatic escapes either side of a glorious FA Cup success in 1987.  I knew someone who spent a season with the club writing a book in the anticipation of relegation: they stayed up. But by May 2001, making the short trip to Aston Villa for their penultimate game, they needed a minor miracle.  It didn’t happen, but fans hoped they would soon return. Those next 25 years saw three relegations, one administration and, worst of all, two periods of exile from their own city, forced to play their home matches in Northampton and Birmingham due to a bitter rent dispute between Coventry City Council, which part-owned the stadium, and SISU Capital, the hedge fund that bought the club in 2007. Sky Blues fans had more than their fair share of setbacks For a time, Coventry became the ultimate illustration of English football’s need for governance reform: playing in front of meagre crowds 35 miles away in N...

Although the team I support Is not in the top flight, I enjoy the quality of the Premier League.  My wife takes a probably common position when she insists that football is limited to the Premier League, La Liga and the Champions League. Yet this successful global product is in danger of devouring itself by becoming less competitive. In 18 of the 33 Premier League seasons to the end of 2024-25, the club with the largest wage bill won the division (including six years out of the last eight); the second-highest payer has won it nine times, the third-highest four times and the fourth-highest on one occasion. Only once, with Leicester City’s title in 2016, has a club outside of the top four payers won England’s top tier since 1992. At their core, the different (financial) SCR rules (Premier League and Uefa) do have one through-line: they limit club spending on the above costs to a set percentage of relevant income, which in the Premier League’s case amounts to annual turnover plu...

By pushing boundaries in commerce and technology, Jeff Bezos has become the third-richest person on the planet — as of Wednesday, Forbes’ real-time online calculator estimated his fortune to be $267.4billion.  Bezos has lost $1.6bn since the markets closed on Tuesday.  An astronomical sum, but loose change to Bezos, and ultimately typical of the way water flows in the extreme world he inhabits. The volatility of the markets helps explain why Bezos has targeted Liverpool for investment.   He needed to analyse only the profits the club’s owner has made from selling a chunk of its assets to him to realise that high-end English football is a safe place to spread a small proportion of your money if you can afford to stick around over a long time. Fenway Sports Group bought Liverpool in 2011 for around $470m. Fifteen years later, it has sawn off around 38 per cent of the club to the consortium that includes Bezos for around $2.7bn.   With a new television rights deal t...

Premier League clubs are on course to break the record for transfer spending this summer as they hire and fire managers at an unprecedented rate, underscoring the increasingly cut-throat economics of the world’s richest football league. With 12 days before the transfer window closes, the 20 clubs in English football’s top flight have spent a combined €2.7bn on transfers ahead of the new season, which kicks off this Friday evening. Spending is running ahead of the rate of last year’s record summer transfer window, when Premier League clubs had spent €2.6bn at the equivalent point, according to data from Transfermarkt. The outlay also exceeds the €2.3bn cumulatively spent by all of the clubs in Italy’s Serie A, the German Bundesliga and La Liga in Spain this summer. This summer’s biggest deals include Chelsea’s €138mn purchase of Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa and Manchester City’s €135mn deal to sign fellow England international Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest. Chelsea ha...

David Sheepshanks’s beloved club used to be run by those colourful  bon viveurs  John and Patrick Cobbold, the brothers who said their idea of a crisis was running out of white wine in the boardroom. Sheepshanks has shared his memories with The Times as he publishes his autobiography.  He has survived bowel cancer. When Sheepshanks took over as chairman in 1995 he ended decades of the Cobbolds’ benign dynasty. He tells a story of a game against Arsenal when the Portman Road boardroom was stocked with six bottles of gin, six bottles of whisky, six bottles of white wine, six bottles of red wine, and six sausage rolls. By the end of the day most of the booze was long gone but there were still five untouched sausage rolls. “And Patrick Cobbold held an inquest as to who the hell had eaten the one sausage roll.” “Ipswich was a beautifully run club. But if I draw an analogy in the nicest possible way, it was sort of like a golf club. It was all quite staid and traditional. I...

The value of English football’s biggest clubs is spiralling.  The new investment attaches a valuation of around £5.5bn to Liverpool, eclipsing the 2024 arrival of Sir Jim Ratcliffe into Manchester United, where a 25 per cent stake had valued the club at £4.3bn. The figures are stretching beyond what most industry experts — such as Forbes and Sportico — consider to be the value of these clubs. International advisory firm Football Benchmark, another to compile annual assessments of Europe’s biggest clubs, valued Liverpool at between £3.9bn and £4.2bn in its 2026 rankings, with Chelsea listed at between £2.5bn and £2.7bn. More than £3.1bn was distributed centrally among the Premier League’s 20 clubs last season, almost double the £1.63bn handed out in the 2015-16 campaign. It means the biggest clubs, including Liverpool, can now expect to generate annual revenues north of £700m, with aspirations to eventually follow Real Madrid beyond the £1bn mark in the years to come. Matchday r...

The buy out of the minority owners at Chelsea should enable the club to be run more smoothly.   Long-term challenges remain, notably whether to redevelop or replace Stamford Bridge to boost matchday revenue. No agreement is expected imminently, but the sale would provide a form of resolution to long-standing tensions among Chelsea’s owners while also potentially easing the regulatory pressure that Walter is facing in the United States. None of the principal parties are commenting, but it is very difficult to view this development as unrelated to Mark Walter’s unexpected sale of the LA Lakers to Josh Kushner and Bob Iger in a deal that valued the NBA franchise at $12.5billion (£9.2bn) last week.  That news — just 14 months after Walter had bought a controlling interest in the Lakers from the Buss family at a then-record $10billion valuation — broke against the backdrop of an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice into the 66-year-old billionaire’s bu...