The Political Economy of Football V2

West Ham United have warned of the “serious and severe” financial consequences if they are relegated from the Premier League this season after announcing a loss of £104.2 million.    The east London club said their biggest loss since returning to the top flight in 2012 was a result of player trading, poor performance and not having European football. The wage bill increased from £161 million to £176 million for the financial year ending in May and their wages-to-turnover ratio rose to 77 per cent. They also owe £195 million in transfer fees to other clubs in next three years.West Ham United have warned of the “serious and severe” financial consequences if they are relegated from the Premier League this season after announcing a loss of £104.2 million. If relegated to the Championship, West Ham would expect to sell several players such as Bowen, Jarrod and Summerville. Turnover fell from £269m to £228m due to lower income from broadcasting and match days   The highest...

Liverpool posted record revenue of £703million ($947.8m) for the 2024-25 season as they made a profit after tax of £8m. The accounts for the year ending May 2025 show a significant upturn in the three main revenue streams during a campaign when they won the  championship. Media revenue increased by £60m to £264m, matchday revenue went up by £14m to £116m, and commercial revenue jumped by £15m to £323m. Overall revenue leapt by £89m to £703m — a rise of 14.5 per cent. As a result, Liverpool were the highest placed Premier League club in Deloitte Money League, in fifth spot behind Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, Barcelona and Real Madrid. It is a far rosier picture than 12 months ago when Liverpool posted a record pre-tax loss of £57m for the 2023-24 season — a year when the absence of Champions League football cut deep. However, the relatively small profit for 2024-25 is down to the fact that Liverpool’s wage bill increased by £42m to £428m, the highest in the Premier Leagu...

Swindon Town lost another £2.5 million during the most recent financial year, and have borrowed over £10 million from Clem Morfuni since he became owner.  The football club’s accounts for the financial year, which ended in May 2025, were published on Companies House and revealed the loss that CEO Anthony Hall said would be the case in his most recent interview on the club’s YouTube channel. The accounts showed the club now has debts of £10,683,645, which is up from £8,111,047, meaning there was a total loss of £2,572,598 during that financial year.   These losses exceed those of the last two financial years by over £1 million, with those being £1,073,519 in 2023 and £1,340,136 in 2024. Also, in the documents, Swindon are shown to have bank borrowings of £10,374,725, which have come from Morfuni to support the running of the club. During that roundtable discussion with Morfuni, Hall, and Ian Holloway on the club’s YouTube channel, the Australian businessman admitted that ...

Javier Tebas rarely pulls his punches, and the president of La Liga was in fiery form, ripping into Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi and the Premier League as part of a stout defence of the Spanish game at this week’s Financial Times Football Business Summit. Tebas took issue with the Premier League’s new “squad cost ratio” system that is replacing the profitability and sustainability framework, saying it would not end the financial imbalances he has long lamented between the English top division and continental European competitions. The Premier League’s new regulations will penalise clubs if they spend more than 85 per cent of revenue on transfers and wages, but Tebas faulted it for excluding other costs from the calculation. “They’re going to have more inflation and more problems,” he predicted. “A rule that does not take expenses into account is useless.” Premier League boss Masters later dismissed this criticism, insisting the squad cost ratio would ...

Perhaps the newsiest moment of this week’s Financial Times Football Business summit came when Richard Masters, Premier League chief executive revealed that the league is finally building a direct-to-consumer streaming platform, which will debut next season in Singapore. The idea has been floating around since before the pandemic, with most people referring to it by the rather tongue-in-cheek moniker “Premflix”. Its real name, we now know, will be Premier League+. Masters called it “an important step” and a “big change” for the world’s most popular football league. So, what does this all mean? Firstly, the Singapore move should be viewed as an experiment. The Premier League is doing this in a small but mature market and in partnership with a willing broadcaster, StarHub. The stakes, therefore, are relatively low. It gives the league the chance to test its capabilities in all sorts of things it hasn’t had to do before — such as taking subscription payments and pricing its own product...

Snoop Dog’s appearance at the Swansea v. Preston North End midweek match is one of the most surprising, if not bizarre, events of the Championship season. Indeed, the only thing that surprised me more was when one of my granddaughters told me she had discovered her inner Welsh woman and was moving to Swansea (Abertawe) despite not speaking a word of Cymraeg.    Swansea City do not seem to particularly emphasise their Welshness as much as Wrexham.   Paradoxically, I did some consultancy for a Swansea client.   They were happy with what I did, and asked me to do more, but I didn’t get paid until I got one of my Welsh speaking nephews to draft an email in Cymraeg. In some ways, it’s hard to make sense of the Swansea and Snoop Dogg story. But maybe this is just how the Championship rolls these days. Wrexham have their Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac, the seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady is a minority investor in Birmingham City, and if Snoop had hu...