The Political Economy of Football V2

Manchester United are offering fans the opportunity to buy a tiny chunk of turf from the Old Trafford pitch for £125.  For the first time in 14 years, United relaid the playing surface this summer and have decided to sell small clumps of the grass, cast in 7cm x 7cm acrylic cubes.  The cubes are encased in a black box that also contains a picture of the stadium.   What a great Christmas present for a fan! United’s latest financial results, published on Wednesday, revealed they spent £63.5million on buying land for their new ground.   The results also showed that United paid back £180million of a bank loan over the past six months as their chief executive, Omar Berrada, said the club would take a “disciplined approach” to their spending. In a statement accompanying the accounts, Berrada said the club approached strengthening their men’s and women’s squads this summer “with financial sustainability in mind”.   United spent about £150million on Carlos Bale...

Daniel Levy was paid £27 million ($36.08m) when sacked by Tottenham Hotspur last year.  The former executive chairman’s tenure was suddenly ended in September 2025 when he was dismissed, after 24 years running Spurs. When Levy was dismissed he received a payout taking into account his salary, bonus for the year and the club’s long-term incentive plan, according to sources with knowledge of the terms, speaking on the condition of anonymity. That sum of £27m, one of the largest pay-outs ever made to a football executive, represented his contractual fulfilment in event of termination, rather than an agreed settlement package. No further settlement has been reached. The figure is comparative to the payouts received by former Chelsea executives following the end of the sanctioned Roman Abramovich’s tenure in 2022. Chelsea accounts, from April 2023, showed a total of £49.75 million ($66.47m at current rates) was given to former directors in connection to the sale of the club to BlueC...

The Deloitte Sports Business report for 2026 states that the 2024/25 season was one of transformation and expansion, with both UEFA and FIFA launching refreshed competitions for their flagship men’s club competitions.   These saw more clubs compete for larger prize pots, with distributions for participating clubs bolstering otherwise plateauing broadcast revenues. These changes underpinned a 6% strengthening of the European football market, which surpassed €40 billion for the first time in 2024/25. The ‘big five’ leagues’ relative contribution to this total remained consistent with the prior season, at 54% (€22 billion).  Football cannot rely on more of the same to deliver sustainable growth, though. An increasingly saturated market is not good for players nor fans, and the Game is in danger of prioritising short-term gain over longer-term prosperity.  The complex trajectory of media rights values, coupled with the ongoing shift towards revenue-linked spending ...

For a brief moment in the summer, fans of the Rome’s Lazio football club were united in declaring that in order for the club to survive, its owner, Claudio Lotito, must go. Lotito’s sin, according to supporters, was not using enough cash from his office-cleaning business to buy star players. So far, so normal, for top-flight football. But it was a new low for Lazio, which has never had the same support as its Rome rival AS Roma but enjoyed a glorious era in the 1990s. It began with the arrival of Paul Gascoigne before the club won the Italian league title in 2000 under manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, the Swede who would go on to manage the England team. The July protest offered a snapshot of how politics, show business, football, economics and sometimes criminals are linked in a city where it often feels like everyone knows everyone. As a result of the club’s malaise, and its owner’s alleged failure to spend cash, supporters have boycotted home games this year, giving the Olympic stad...

Barcelona are going to leave the Camp Nou again.  This was already part of their plans to finish ongoing rebuilding works at their iconic ground, but now we know — following comments from vice-president Ferran Olive at Saturday’s annual general assembly — exactly what they expect to happen next. Olive said Barca would finish this 2026-27 season at the Camp Nou, but would then have to play away from the stadium for around half of 2027-28. He said the club hoped to come back in January 2028. At that meeting, Barcelona also requested club members approve another big loan — taking on €510million (£437m; $584m) in further debt, €300m being earmarked for Camp Nou construction and €210m in further operational borrowings — in order to complete the works. This was voted through, meaning Barcelona’s total debts are now set to surge well past £2 billion and could hit €2.6bn in total, depending on repayment dates. It takes the budget for the Espai Barca projevt which encompasses the Camp...

The high court in London has issued a winding-up order against Sheffied United’s former parent company, COH Sports Bidco Ltd, as a result of a dispute between United’s current owners, Steven Rosen and Helmy Eltoukhy, and their predecessor, Prince Abdullah’s United World, which claims it is owed £35m in unpaid fees after the £110m sale of United in December 2024. The action was initiated after United World accused the current owners of transferring ownership from COH Sports Bidco Ltd to1919 Partners LLC in a bid to avoid paying the amount outstanding on the purchase price.   United World noted, “no defence was filed and the debt of more than £35m was not disputed”, adding that it had made “every effort to resolve this matter amicably”, but received no response. They concluded, “It appears that Helmy Eltoukhy and Steven Rosen are simply not concerned about this means for the club. What happens to Sheffield United now is the result of their choices.”   For its part, the club ...