The Political Economy of Football V2

Everton succeeded in achieving the one thing no club wants from a transfer window. On many different levels, they have ended up weaker than when the window opened.   Squad numbers alone indicate that is the case with manager David Moyes having 22 outfield players last season only to find himself left with just 18 now. Thierno Barry is his only recognised striker.  The Friedkin Group (TFG), who have inflicted immeasurable damage on themselves by presiding over the entire farce which started with them pushing for the sale of homegrown midfielder Harrison Armstrong to Nottingham Forest for £35million only to then pull-out amid the prospect of a supporter uprising.  Certainly, this is not how matters were supposed to play out in January when club officials stressed that funds were being stockpiled for the summer when phase two of Everton’s rebuild would be implemented.  TFG’s entire ambition for the club is being scrutinised 20 months into its reign and Everto...

Another summer gone, another record broken. The rest of Europe will once more have gazed with envious eyes (or scarcely contained fury) as Premier League clubs indulged in another year of lavish spending. It had seemed at one point that last year’s figure of £3.1billion gross spending during the summer transfer window, which obliterated the previous record of £2.4billion, would not be reached. But as the end of the transfer window neared, clubs embarked on a spree that to some looked more akin to panic buying, perhaps for fear of being left behind by their rivals. Even before Manchester City had set a joint British transfer record by signing Enzo Fernández from Chelsea for £125million, the summer 2025 figure had been passed but once that move was confirmed, a new £3.3billion mark of gross spending had been set. There are some significant differences compared with last summer, however. Chelsea are once again among the biggest spenders with £349million splashed out, but they are ac...

The Swiss Ramble provides a forensic analysis of Championship finances.  The figures relate to 2024/5 and accounts for four clubs are not available.   One club (Wycombe Wanderers) published abbreviated accounts.   Sheffield Wednesday was in administration. It should be noted that overall Championship figures are very susceptible to the mix of clubs in any one season, i.e., ‘big’ versus ‘small’ clubs.      Spending by one club can have a distorting impact on some metrics, e.g., Sunderland spending on transfers. The underlying finances remain as crazy as ever as clubs compete to reach the promised land of the Premier League.   In effect what we have is a Premier League Division 2. Anyway, here are some highlights from the Swiss Ramble.   Much more is available on his Substack page. The 23 clubs (i.e. excluding Sheffield Wednesday) generated £907m of revenue and £22m other operating income, but then paid out £1.6 bn in operating exp...

The message was clear, loud and passionate from Everton fans at Bournemouth.   “Don’t sell Armstrong! Don’t sell Armstrong! I just don’t think you understand,” the away end sang at Bournemouth. “If you sell Armstrong, Harrison Armstrong, you’re gonna have a riot on your hands.” The news that prompted this outpouring was that 19-year-old midfielder Armstrong, the finest player produced by Everton’s youth academy in years, was likely to move to Nottingham Forest. Wary of breaching squad cost ratio rules (SCR), the club’s leadership were reluctantly willing to sanction the England youth international’s exit for some £40million. Had the Bournemouth game not taken place, giving Everton supporters the platform to vent their frustrations, Armstrong would likely be posing for photos holding a Garibaldi-red Forest shirt now. Instead, he will remain in the royal blue of Everton. For all of the owners’ billions, the episode shows that fan power remains in the Premier League — ...

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...