The Political Economy of Football V2

Real Madrid want the six Premier League clubs that signed up to the European Super League (ESL) to pay a share of the initial costs of the abandoned project. Multiple sources with a close understanding of the situation told The New York Times that the Spanish club believe Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur should still be liable for the setup costs of the plan, despite subsequently pulling out. One source said these costs could be as high as €80 million (£67.3m; $89.9m) in total. Madrid, alongside domestic rivals Barcelona and Juventus of Italy, have so far shared promotional costs associated with the ESL, plans for which were announced in April 2021. Of the 12 founding ESL members, nine — each of the six English clubs, along with Spanish side Atletico Madrid and both Milan and Inter of Serie A — pulled out swiftly in the days following its launch. Another, Juventus, said in 2023 that they had withdrawn from the proposal, before ...

From his Zurich eyrie, the authoritative Swiss Ramble turns his attention this week to Porto who have changed their strategy.  Here is a summary of his main conclusions, much more on his Substack page. Porto have started the season in great form, at least domestically, where they have won their first eight games in the league, though results have not been so impressive in the Champions League, as they have lost both games to date. There has been a marked change in strategy, as the club chose to spend heavily on strengthening the squad and retain some of its talent, as opposed to its usual approach of selling players to balance the books. The “significant investment made to restore sporting competitiveness” clearly paid dividends in the league, but it was also reflected in Porto’s financials, as they swung from the club record pre-tax €45.0m profit to a €20.3m loss, a significant year-on-year deterioration of €65.3m.   Porto’s €20.3m pre-tax loss was actually the worst in...

Sunderland could get a big financial boost from the Europa League, although there is always the rsik of their domestic performances being affected by the additional demands:  https://www.sunderlandecho.com/sport/football/sunderland-afc/sunderland-europa-league-prize-money-financial-boost-9291882

Spain is facing a closely fought and arguably historic general election, but probably most football fans are more interested in a clash between Real Madrid and the president of La Liga.  With one branch of my family now resident in Spain and my great-granddaughter likely to become a Spanish citizen, I have been reading up on the country’s politics and history.   My preliminary conclusion is that some of the rows in football have deeper historical roots in a country that was wracked by a civil war. Real Madrid have demanded the “immediate resignation” of La Liga president Javier Tebas after he likened the approach of the club’s management to that of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazis’ infamous propaganda chief.     (Nazi Germany gave active support to Franco during the Spanish Civil War). Madrid described Tebas’ remarks as “deeply offensive” and “morally repugnant”. Madrid said they disqualified him from continuing to hold his positions as head of the Spanish to...

One issue that has surrounded financial fair play rules is whether they are really designed to protect the position of existing top clubs and prevent well-funded aspirational clubs breaking through the glass ceiling.   If that could be shown to be the case, the courts could rule that the Premier League’s rules are a breach of competition law by a private entity that has facilitated cartel activity. Newcastle host Aston Villa, a meeting of the division’s aspirational interlopers, who both recently ended long waits for silverware and each qualified for the Champions League twice. Both have found their pathways blocked by more stringent rules than those faced by City. Newcastle’s takeover, which was led by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) and completed in October 2021, brought an immediate stiffening of the Premier League’s rules, with fellow clubs concerned they would use their extraordinary wealth to game the system. Having spent big in a bid to avoid relegatio...

I know that I am old fashioned kind of guy and that I don't fully understand high finance.  Nevertheless, at a time when many football clubs are technically insolvent, the idea of borrowing against players concerns me.  After all, they can get injured or just lose confidence. Private credit funds are targeting football’s biggest transfer market with a push to extend loans to English clubs based on the value of their players, as increasingly exotic financing filters into the sport. Discussions over so-called squad-value financing are picking up among English clubs and their lenders, according to several specialist football advisers. The novel loans are sized according to the value of a club’s playing squad and sometimes involve the lender only taking security over hypothetical receivables from potential player sales, the people said. London-based sports finance firm 23 Capital, which was wound down during the Covid-19 pandemic, has relaunched with squad-value loans as a core ...

The English Football League (EFL) and Premier League are now only £27 million apart from agreeing a comprehensive new financial solidarity package for the men’s game after years of stop-start talks. While there are still some other details to decide, the EFL has told the Premier League it will accept the so-called New Deal for Football if the latter ups its latest offer of an extra £180m a year in solidarity payments to £207 m annually, with the additional amount ring-fenced for Leagues One and Two. Under the terms of  the last solidarity deal the leagues agreed in 2019, the Premier League currently shares 13 per cent of its £4billion-a-year media-rights income with the rest of the game, just over £430 m a year. Of that sum, more than half goes to half a dozen or so clubs recently relegated from the top flight in the form of parachute payments, with just over £140 m shared between the rest of the EFL’s 72 clubs in solidarity payments and a similar sum dished out to fund communi...

Arsenal have told staff that redundancies are being planned, despite them winning last season’s Premier League title and announcing record revenues for 2024-25.  The club told employees the intention is to make 60 positions redundant, with cuts set to be across a number of departments. The coaches will be among the departments unaffected, along with the performance backroom teams for the men’s and women’s sides, the academy, the club’s community operation, the Arsenal Foundation, security personnel and workers dedicated to the women’s setup. A consultation is underway and the decision could yet be subject to change. The news comes in the wake of Arsenal’s first title win in 22 years and an encouraging set of financial results for the season before last. In February, the north London club announced they had almost broken even for the 2024-25 financial year, recording an overall loss of £1.4million, while posting record revenues of £691m. The biggest rise in revenue was a £45...

PSG taught Manchester City a footballing lesson last night.   With City’s fate in the balance, it may be the last meeting for a long time which will surely undermine the attraction of the Champions League.   Losing European visitors will not be good for the Manchester economy, Both clubs have been generously funded by Gulf states, but PSG managed to stay the right side of financial rules.   Over the past decade or so both clubs established themselves as European heavyweights thanks to unprecedented funding from Gulf owners. Both escaped full bans from Uefa competition as part of sanctions imposed on them because of Financial Fair Play breaches. Both moved on from there to win their maiden European Cups. Both clubs strategically aligned themselves with major investment in their cities from the nations of their transformative backing: the pair of them have been thanked for that by heads of state. English football’s power balance means it needs a successful C...

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire was asked on Radio 5 this morning if the interim State of the Game report issued by the independent football regulator was a surprise.   He said that it was not and he had written a similar report for the Government in 2020. As long as benefactor owners keeping turning up, do fragile finances matter.  As Maguire pointed out, fewer clubs are going into administration than 20 years ago. I cannot think of any other sector of the economy where the producers are largely those in existence 100 years ago, including most of the leaders.   Given their importance to fan identity, mergers usually only occur at the non-league level. It is one thing to identify the problem, another to come up with workable solutions.   Meanwhile, faas and last night even players criticise owners for failing to 'invest'. English football brings in over £9bn but IFR finds 94 per cent of clubs are loss making.  Nearly two-thirds of EFL and Nat...

Concern is growing in business and political consequences of the scandal at Manchester City.  The Financial Times devotes a whole page it today under the headline 'Man City cheating scandal risks growing geopolitical quagmire.' It is important to keep a sense of proportion as the FT does.  The leading sports business paper is not presenting a worst case scenario, simply pointing out some of the risks. Relations between the UK and the UAE are important both economically and politically, but have been subject to recurrent tensions.  They are best described as 'volatile'. The row over the acquisition of the Telegraph caused particular turbulence with some in the UAE taking the view that opposition to the deal (which eventually failed) was driven by racism. As the FT notes, 'Abu Dhabi has a history of using commercial contracts to exert pressure on the UK.'  Britain has often needed UAE funds.  In the global financial crisis the UAE provided a £3.5 billion emergency...

 'We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality.'   So said Thomas Macaulay many years ago. There is certainly an outbreak of sporting morality over Manchester City with fans of other clubs salivating at the prospect of their destruction.  However, it is important to weigh up the consequences both inside and outside football. I am not a City supporter and clearly they have to be sanctioned for their conduct (what that sanction should be is above my pay grade).  However, it is also important not to bring the whole horse of cards down.   I deal with the geopolitical concerns in another post, but it is worth quoting at length from what Martin Samuel had to say in the Sunday Times. 'What if the unforeseen consequence of any punishment finishes not just a corrupt regime, but an entire football club? Manchester City’s executives did wrong. That does not mean Manchester City should cease to exist. It does n...

One of the missing pieces in the complex jigsaw that makes up the scrutiny and regulation of football finance is the role of auditors.  Indeed, the Financial Times devoted a whole page to the subject in its weekend edition. Such has been the level of concern among chartered accountants that they have produced a training video relating to finances at a fictional dodgy football club using actors from Eastenders and Game of Thrones :  https://www.icaew.com/about-icaew/news/2025-news-releases/football-finance-focus-of-new-icaew-film-to-help-train-accountants-may-2025 City were audited by BDO which is the fifth biggest accountancy firm in the UK and self-described as a market leader in football.  Industry insiders have suggested that BDO may need to contain 'brand damage' as a result of the City episode.  No one is suggesting that BDO have fallen below the highest standards of professional conduct and probity: the issue is bigger than any one firm. BDO also audits Aston V...

When I was growing up in London after the second world war, I would have been surprised to be told that one day I would have a great-granddaughter who would be educated in Valencios (a dialect of Catalan).   D.v.  I will be going to see her in the procession at the Three Kings festival.  Meanwhile, my interest in Spanish football increases but as a neutral. The authoritative Swiss Ramble has undertaken his usual forensic analysis of the finances of FC Barcelona.   Much more is available on his Substack page. Despite the impressive increase in revenue, which rose €95m (10%) from €916m to a club record €1,011m, Barcelona actually reported a pre-tax loss of €14m in 2025/26, which was slightly worse than the prior year’s €8m deficit.    This was due to a steep rise in operating expenses, which grew €111m (12%) from €900m to €1,011m, while net interest payable increased €13m (47%) from €26m to €39m.   This was partly offset by an improvement in pro...

Confirmation on Friday that TFG, headed by the billionaire Dan Friedkin, is now exploring the potential sale of Everton is not surprising, although the timing of the announcement blindsided executives and manager David Moyes. An asking price of about £800million, inclusive of debts of about £400million, has been mooted. The clarity regarding TFG’s position suggests confidence that a sale can be completed although whether it will happen this season is unclear. The Independent Football Regulator can take up to 90 days to ratify a deal once a buy-out is in place. There is no doubt that TFG has helped Everton. The club’s financial problems under the former owner, Farhad Moshiri, meant the threat of administration loomed. There has been stability, debts have been refinanced and the move to the club’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium was completed in August 2025. This is not going to be the fire sale of a distressed asset. TFG’s outlay since buying Everton has been about £450million and, given...

The UK Government has been seeking to develop the sub-region between the universities of Oxford and Cambridge as a British ‘Silicon Valley’.  The United Arab Emirates has been courted as a source of investment, but ministers have been advised that this may no longer be possible given the Premier League’s proceedings against Manchester City. When Khaldoon al-Mubarak, chief executive of Abu Dhabi’s investment fund, met with then Chancellor in 2023 he made it clear that it represented an attack on an important Abu Dhabi asset by an unregulated cartel.     It was an affront to some of the emirate’s most esteemed companies.   Hunt stressed that the Premier League was an independent body. Manchester City formed the anchor investment for a broader Abu Dhabi-led regeneration project that helped transform east Manchester with new housing, office space and entertainment facilities. For countries from the Gulf football had become an important projection of soft power. Onc...

The 17 th century political philosopher Thomas Hobbes defined the state of nature as a war of all against all.  This is what looks like happening on football.  As rival fans relish the prospect of Manchester City playing in the non-league, clubs in the Premier League and outside it try to work out how much compensation might come their way. What sanctions should be applied to City are a matter for the relevant decision-makers, but I am interested in the consequences for football mote generally.   I am going to post separately on the somewhat neglected geopolitical dimension. One Premier League owner told the New York Times that it would be wrong for just the current top-flight teams to split the pot equally. Why, he argues, should a club such as Coventry City, who were not in the Premier League at all from 2009 to 2018, receive a financial windfall, while those including West Ham United, Southampton, Stoke City and Leicester City, all now outside of the Premier Leagu...

The Friedkin Group (TFG) is open to a full sale of Everton as it seeks external investment in the Premier League club.  The New York Times reported in September that Everton’s American owner was looking for fresh investment into the club. The idea had been to find strategic investors who could help push the club forward through a minority sale, but sources with knowledge of the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to protect relationships, said a sale of TFG’s majority stake is now also being considered. TFG is only open to selling full control of Everton if it is convinced the new owner is the right person or group to take the club to the next level. The Houston-based group is completely happy to hold onto and support the club for as long as it takes for such an owner to appear. Despite the openness to selling Everton less than two years into its ownership, TFG has a feeling of pride at stabilising the club and putting it in a position to be attractive to a buye...

The events at Manchester City have led to some strange reactions, but the prize must go to Simon Jordan on Talksport who has suggested that the Premier League should be disbanded. We need to remind ourselves that the Premier League is one of England's few successful products, providing soft power around the world.   The clubs I support are in the Championship and the third tier of the non-league, but I enjoy seeing some of the world's best players compete in the top flight.  It should, however, be seen more as a branch of the entertainment industry rather than a sporting contesrt One of the difficulties with bringing this unhappy episode to a reasonably prompt close is that so many actors are involved apart from the Premier League itself: The Football Association The Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Lisa Nandy as secretary of state The prime minister HMRC The independent football regulator (whose credibility is said to be at stake, but in many ways it is above h...

I don’t know which UK TV channels the Swiss Ramble can watch in his Zurich fastness but in any event, he may not have seen a recent edition of Have I Got News For You in which it was joked that Manchester City would be deducted 45 points which would put them two points ahead of Tottenham Hotspur. I should hasten to add that I have two good friends who are Spurs fans and I feel their pain. The Swiss Ramble knows how to read a set of accounts and has an unrivaled data set on football finances.   He admits that this analysis of Spurs is ‘very detailed’ which is saying something for him.   Subscribe to his Substack page to get some fascinating detail.    But here are some highlights. Tottenham splashed out a hefty £312m this summer, the major signings being Sandro Tonali from Newcastle United for £92.5m, Mateus Fernandes from West Ham for £85m, Savio from Manchester City for £75m and Jan Paul van Hecke from Brighton for £52m, as well as Tosin Adarabioyo from Chelse...

In my opinion discussion of Manchester City's conduct has often bordered on the hysterical and it is the financial and economic press (principally the FT and The Economist) that  have attended to the geopolitical dimensions that might ultimately be influential. I was therefore interested to read an Op Ed piece by Stephen Bush in the Pink 'Un yesterday.   I must admit that I was quite surprised when I saw Bush on Sky's The Wrap the other night - not the fact of his being there but that he seemed to be to the right of the senior political correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.    He needs to remember that his paper endorsed Labour in 2024! It has to be noted that in large part the article is a pop at Andy Burnham and makes the arguably valid point that what 'Manchesterism' amounted to was selling the city to global investment capital. Bush argues: 'The fact that Manchester City have been found guilty of 114 of the 115 charges brought against them by the Premier Lea...

UK tax authorities probed Manchester City in 2018 over whether it used complex arrangements to underpay tax, nearly a decade before the club was found to have breached the Premier League’s financial rules, the Financial Times has exclusively revealed.  HM Revenue & Customs opened a civil investigation into Man City’s tax affairs in the wake of the publication of a trove of leaked internal emails by Der Spiegel in 2018, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The emails prompted a Premier League investigation, launched in December of that year, into whether the club had manipulated its accounts and disguised funding from owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family, as commercial revenue. Last month, an independent commission found that Man City had artificially inflated its financial position by more than £900mn between 2009 and 2018 by arranging “sham” commercial deals. The club allegedly paid former manager Roberto Mancini thro...

Crystal Palace have hired Raine Group as they seek investment in the club at a valuation of £900million.  The investment banking firm Raine will handle the process as they did when John Textor hired them to sell Eagle Football’s 43 per cent stake in the club, concluding a deal in July last year with the New York Jets owner Woody Johnson. Palace — owned by chairman Steve Parish, Johnson and fellow U.S. businessmen Josh Harris and David Blitzer — are looking for ways to fund the redeveopment of the club’s Selhurst Park stadium and any external investment would likely contribute towards that. Parish, told The New York Times   last week that starting meaningful and major work on the stadium had taken longer than anticipated and that was in part due to finances not being in place yet, instead being redirected towards a playing squad which saw 11 new arrivals in the summer.  “We’re looking at different ways of funding, but that will be in place,” he said. “We’re workin...

As a supporter of another Championship club, I get mildly irritated by the way in which The New York Times coverage of the highly competitive division focuses on Wrexham.  But I suppose I am just jealous. Is Wrexham a model for other clubs?  Or does it represent an unwelcome Disneyfication of football (soccer)?   In the wake of events surrounding Manchester City, the answer might be a bit different from a few weeks ago.  But, as Simon Kuper has argued, why not let foreign owners spend as much as they like on a franchise, particularly if the club is located in an area with economic and social challenges. Wrexham may be just 50 miles from Manchester, the so-called capital of the north, but it is a different world. The trend of Americans taking over British football is long established — two-thirds of Premier League clubs are now at least part-owned by US investors. But Wrexham’s new owners added an improbable twist. Using a documentary series that mixes an underdo...

Don’t think that it’s just in England that clubs are instigating legal action against each other.  In Spain the tensions between metropolitan Spain and Catalonia form the geopolitical backdrop to tensions between Real and Barca.  My great-granddaughter is taught in Valnecios which is really a variant of Catalan which in turn is closer to French than Spanish. UEFA says it has received “a substantial amount of documents” from Real Madrid in relation to Barcelona’s payments to a former Spanish referees chief.   European football’s governing body released a statement on Thursday confirming the documents will be “assessed” by its “ethics and disciplinary inspectors” as part of an “ongoing investigation”. Payments totalling €8.4million (£7.2m; $9.4m at current rates), made by Barcelona between 2001 and 2018 to former Spanish referees committee vice-president Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira, first came to light in February 2023. Back in June 2023, UEFA’s investigators decided...