The Political Economy of Football V2

John McEvoy and the Storch family, two wealthy American bidders interested in buying Sheffield Wednesday, have joined forces to strengthen their chances of acquiring the club. Administrators Begbies Traynor have received offers worth a minimum of £30million from at least two prospective bidders, including the one backed by McEvoy and the Storch family. California-based billionaire McEvoy is a minority shareholder in NHL team Nashville Predators and MLB side Colorado Rockies.   The Storch family, whose net worth amounts to more than £1billion, were linked with a bid for Plymouth Argyle, the League One club, in the summer. Insiders believe that the new owners may not have the keys to Hillsborough for another six weeks even though the administrators took charge of the club on October 24 after gaining control from the outgoing chairman Dejphon Chansiri. Wednesday’s administrators, Begbies Traynor, said initially that they would not consider offers beyond December 5, but th...

Germany’s leading football club Bayern Munich held talks this year with EQT over selling a minority stake to the private equity firm, in a deal that would have reignited a heated national debate over the merits of private capital firms investing in football. Negotiations fell apart when Bayern’s chief financial officer Michael Diederich, EQT’s contact at the club, left in the summer to become co-head of Deutsche Bank’s corporate banking business, according to three people familiar with the matter. German football fans have historically been highly critical of outside investment into the sport, with widespread protests prompting the country’s football league last year to call off talks over a potential private equity investment. With a few exceptions, clubs in Germany are subject to the ‘50+1’ ownership rule, which stipulates members must hold majority voting rights, in effect blocking commercial entities from gaining control.   The rise of RB Leipzig, a German club whose r...

Real Madrid’s 2024/25 accounts cover a season which was very much a case of “close, but no cigar”, as they finished runners-up in La Liga and were defeated in the final of the Copa del Rey and the Supercopa de Espana, losing out to their great rivals Barcelona on all three occasions. They were also eliminated in the quarter-finals of the Champions League by Arsenal, which would be good result for most clubs, but actually represented their worst performance in this competition for five years. Despite the less successful season, Real Madrid managed to increase their pre-tax profit by €11m (57%) from €20m to €31m.   Revenue continued to grow, rising €112m (10%) from €1,073m to a staggering €1,185m. This meant that the club broke the one billion Euros barrier for the second season in a row, a feat that no other football club has yet achieved.   In addition, profit from player sales increased by €11m (52%) from €21m to €32m. The latest positive result means that Real Madrid h...

Wrexham, the struggling football club catapulted to global fame after it was bought by the Hollywood duo Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, has received £18 million in taxpayer funding. The Championship club was awarded the non-repayable grants to refurbish its stadium and the surrounding area despite the sizeable wealth of its owners. The amount of money received by Wrexham in state aid vastly outstrips public spending on any other football club in England and Wales. A year after the actors’ purchase of the club, it was awarded £3.8 million by Wrexham county borough council, the first of two grants. A second payment of £14 million was awarded in September. The grants, which were first reported by The Guardian, are for the redevelopment of the club’s Racecourse Ground. This includes the construction of a Kop stand, floodlights and pitch to make the stadium suitable for international football and rugby matches. In recent years, both the council and Welsh government have her...

The Arizona state pension fund that bought Ipswich Town in 2021 has sold a large chunk of its shares in the Suffolk-based club in a deal that values them at more than £350million ($446.9m), a record for a Championship team. The Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS), via its investment manager ORG, paid about £30million ($40m) for 90 per cent of the then-League One club in April 2021, which was also a record price at the time for a team in England’s third tier. PSPRS, which provides pensions to 24,000 former firefighters, police officers and prison officers in Arizona, halved its stake in the club in March 2024, when Ohio-based private equity firm Bright Path Sports Partners took a large minority stake in the club two months before they secured their second straight promotion and a return to the Premier League after a 22-year absence. Bright Path’s £105million ($140m) investment valued Ipswich at about £250million ($333.5m) which was already a healthy return o...

Foreign investment is reaching well down the pyramid, National League North King's Lynn being the latest example.    Singapore-based Turn Sports Investment have been buying into the club since 2024 and are now completely in charge. A minority shareholding has been taken by the Blue and Gold Supporters' Trust to ensure local community involvement.   They state: 'TSI has stepped in a responsible custodian to stabilise the club in the short term.'   They will relinquish their role 'once the right structures are in place.' Former owner Stephen Cleeve has written off his director's loan and will have no further involvement. More about TSI here:  https://turncapital.io/2024/01/08/turn-sports-investments-invests-in-kings-lynn-town-football-club-inks-strategic-investment-and-partnership-deal/