The Political Economy of Football V2

Brentford FC has announced that it has strengthened its ownership base with additional investment and the appointment of two new directors to the board of its holding company, Best Intentions Analytics Limited. Prakash Melwani, a longtime senior executive at Blackstone, and Sir Lucian Grainge CBE, chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group, have joined the board of Best Intentions Analytics, which serves as the holding company for Brentford FC and Mérida AD. They join existing investors Gary Lubner and Sir Matthew Vaughn, whose respective companies have each increased their minority shareholdings in the ownership group. Matthew Benham remains the majority owner of Brentford FC, having taken full control of the club in 2012. Gary Lubner and Sir Matthew Vaughn initially became minority shareholders in July 2025 through their companies This Day Sports and Media Limited and MARV Bee Limited. The increased investment reinforces the group’s commitment to supporting Brentford’s continued...

Prices for season tickets have increased markedly since the resumption of matches after the Covid-19 pandemic. This season, there has been a change in attitude, with seven clubs freezing prices for attending their 19 home league matches. However, all but one club — Crystal Palace — raised prices last term. Still, attending football remains an expensive hobby, with nine clubs charging more than £1,000 for their most expensive offerings and several others coming close to that mark. Clubs had previously expressed sympathy with fans and referenced the cost-of-living crisis while simultaneously increasing prices. This year, those reasons are less prominent, with the latest argument being that the increased cost of national insurance employer contributions has necessitated an increase in prices. Ten Premier League clubs have some form of minimum usage policy. Arsenal, Aston Villa, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion, Leeds United, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Sunder...

Since Matthew Benham became their majority owner in June 2012, Brentford have been on an upward trajectory. They have risen from the third tier of English football into the Premier League, opened a new stadium and upgraded their training ground. Substantial setbacks have been few and far between, with the most notable being defeat to west London rivals Fulham in the 2020 Championship play-off final. But this summer will provide Brentford with their biggest test since promotion. Back then, they needed to assemble a squad packed with quality as they prepared to play in the top flight for the first time in 74 years. Now they have to adjust to life without Thomas Frank, who has left after nearly seven years in charge to become Tottenham Hotspur’s head coach. Frank took three members of his backroom staff, including Justin Cochrane, who was viewed as his potential successor, and they need to be replaced. Captain Christian Norgaard only signed a new contract in March but Arsenal ar...

Thomas Frank looks set to be Spurs manager, but many of their fans were disappointed to see Ange go and argue that the club’s problems are far deeper than the manager but stem from the owner’s strategy. Brentford have flourished in the top-flight despite having one of the lowest wage bills. Frank’s side finished 13th in their first year and recorded memorable victories over Chelsea and Arsenal. Ivan Toney, David Raya and Bryan Mbeumo blossomed into superstars under Frank’s guidance. After finishing ninth the following season, they placed 16th in 2023-24 as they struggled with injuries. But this season they bounced back to record a top-10 finish, coming close to qualifying for Europe for the first time in the club’s history. Brentford’s rise under Frank has been meteoric, and it is no surprise that Spurs have him in their sights. Frank initially joined Brentford in December 2016 as an assistant and the long-term plan was for him to replace Smith. Two years later, Smith moved to hi...

The scale of Manchester United’s underachievement has been highlighted by a financial analysis that rates their performance last season compared with money spent as one of the worst ever by an English club. United had the third-highest outlay in the Premier League on wages, transfers and agents, behind Manchester City and Chelsea, but finished in 15th place on 42 points. The analysis suggests that was 33 points fewer than the club should have achieved. Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur were the next biggest underperformers, while Nottingham Forest were the biggest achievers compared with their spending, followed by Brentford and Brighton & Hove Albion. The analysis, carried out for The Times, was based on figures reported in clubs’ most recent annual accounts (2023-24) to measure spending on wages and amortisation, which reflects the outlay on transfers over several years, as well as on agents’ fees for the 2024-25 season. The sports intelligence agency Twenty First Gro...

 It’s not so long ago that some Brentford players were on £120 per week and the team were playing in front of crowds of 5,000 at a decaying Griffin Park.  The main aim for Brentford owner Mathew Benham and club executives is something that would have seemed fanciful at the time. It is no longer to avoid relegation into the fourth tier, but to get their global profile nearer to that of their west London neighbours Chelsea. While they are thriving amid Benham’s data science adventure, which involves a cell of PhD students mining the physiological and biological data of the first-team squad, they are looking for some help to make the club nicknamed “The Bees”, well, a bit more glamorous. Their geekery has helped to garner a smattering of new American fans, taking Brentford’s social media following to about five million, but that’s still a fraction of Chelsea’s 150 million followers. “When you’re not one of the top six or seven it’s very difficult to create a positioning,” t...

Brentford have clearly come a long way, as they were playing in League Two only 15 years ago. Supported by owner Matthew Benham, who fully bought the club in June 2012, both in terms of financial contributions and a smart, data-led recruitment policy, the club has made great progress on and off the pitch. However, last season Brentford swung from a £9m pre-tax profit to an £8m loss, a decline of £17m, as significant investment in the squad led to a £35m (21%) increase in operating expenses from £166m to £201m, while net interest payable quadrupled from £1m to £4m.   This was partially offset by a significant improvement in profit on player sales from £6m to £25m, though revenue was flat at £167m. The club said that it had done well to maintain revenue at the same level, despite external economic pressures and a drop of seven positions in the league.   That led to a £7m (6%) reduction in broadcasting income from £135m to £128m, though this was offset by commercial income ri...

 Greg Campbell has hit back at a recent article in the Financial Times by Brentford’s Cliff Crown on the subject of the proposed football regulator.  Campbell is a partner in Campbell Tickell, a management consultancy.   He has written a code of governance for football clubs. ‘I was interested to read the opinion piece from Cliff Crown, chair of Brentford Football Club (“Regulation must not stop football clubs that dare to dream”, Pink ‘Un, February 4). However I believe there is more to the story. While Brentford’s recent track record is impressive, parachute payments (to clubs relegated from the Premiership to the Championship) create a yo-yo effect instead of promoting competition. Clubs like Southampton, Leicester, Burnley, Sheffield United, Norwich, Ipswich, West Brom and not many others continually bounce up and down between the Premiership and the Championship. The parachute payments system distorts competition and makes it very hard for others to break thr...

Much of the opposition to the Football Governance Bill has been led in the House of Lords by West Ham’s Karren Brady and the bill has undergone a mauling.   The Commons can, of course, remove the Lords amendments, but one issue is how much political capital the Government is prepared to use up on the Bill, given that it has declared a deregulation agenda in the interests of economic growth. Baroness Brady has her critics so it was a smart move by those opposed to the Bill in its present form to get Brentford chairman Cliff Crown to write a critical article in the Financial Times.   Brentford and their manager are widely respected for what they have achieved in financial terms against the odds. The full article is available on the Pink Un’s website but some crucial passages are repeated below, followed by my comments. ‘Football is built on ambition, dreams and sometimes heartache. At Brentford FC, we’ve lived that journey. We’ve risen through the ranks to establish o...

When the top 22 teams broke away from the Football League to form the Premier League, 21 were English-owned (Wimbledon was the exception).  Now, just over three decades later, there are only three Premier League clubs that are entirely English-owned, with one more that is majority English-owned, two run by Englishmen with minority stakes and one still owned, for a few weeks at least, by a Monaco-based, Anglo-Iranian whose eight-year spell as custodian was generously supported by his Russian-Uzbek patron. That last one — Everton — should become the 10th American majority-owned club in the league by Christmas, while three of those other clubs are on the market, to one extent or another. It is entirely possible that by next November, the 1992 equation will have flipped, with just one English flagship in very international waters. Brentford Brentford’s no-longer secret benefactor Matthew Benham is, in some ways, a throwback to an earlier era. But in others ...

The Athletic has taken a look at the biggest investments in Premier League clubs, including subsequent payments.   They have used data from the Swiss Ramble and Kieran Maguire among others. It doesn’t cost much to this excellent online publication to get the full sp, but here are the top five: 1.        Chelsea (£2.65 bn) 2.        Manchester City (£1.5bn) 3.        Arsenal (£1.26bn) 4.        Fulham (£938m) 5.        Everton (£878m) And last but not least, Ipswich £123m.   Will it be enough for them to survive?    The price of an entry and survival ticket keeps going up.    But then Brentford in 19 th place have done well on £124m.

Arsenal’s £112m gross spend was their lowest since the 2018/19 season, which was not overly surprising, given that they had splashed out around half a billion pounds in the previous two seasons. The Gunners also sold well, as their £92m was the highest the club has made from player sales since 2017/18, including two Academy products, Emile Smith Rowe to Fulham and Eddie Nketiah to Crystal Palace, plus Aaron Ramsdale to Southampton. Their net spend was only £19m, which was firmly in the bottom half of the Premier League. You have to go back as far as 2012/13 for the last time it was this low. Aston Villa Villa spent big this summer, but also recouped a lot of money via player sales.The £183m gross spend was their second highest ever, only surpassed by £204m in 2021/22, and the fourth highest in the Premier League this summer. However, they set a new club record for sales with £172m, which was much more than the previous peak of £103m in 2021/22 that included the mega sale of J...

In today's Financial Times football (and many other things) guru Simon Kuper reviews Alex Duff's book Smart Money: the Rise and Fall of Brentford FC published by Constable at £22. Here are some excepts from his review: 'One day in 2005, when little Brentford Football Club were threatened with administration, a man named Matthew Benham phoned the club offices asking how he could help. He ended up making an anonymous loan. Benham, an unflamboyant professional gambler who grew up supporting Brentford, went on to use statistical insights to lift the west London club up the divisions to the Premier League. Founded in 1889, Brentford were for almost all their history a suburban neighbourhood club. They drew their support from the white working-class streets around Griffin Park, their ground until 2020, which had a pub on each corner. They had a brief heyday in the then first division either side of the second world war, marked by an ill-judged tour of Nazi Germany in 1937. Afte...

Matthew Benham has appointed Rothschild to oversee the potential sale of Brentford in a deal that is expected to value the Premier League club at about £500 million. Insiders insist that Benham, the British businessman credited with the transformation of the club since taking control in 2012, would ideally like to remain the majority owner while attracting fresh investment.  But that position could change if Rothschild finds an appropriate buyer, with Sky News reporting that Benham, 55, would then agree to relinquish control and seek to remain involved as a minority shareholder. Rothschild is expected to launch the process imminently, with interest likely to come from US investors attracted by the chance to gain a relatively inexpensive foothold in the Premier League, compared with clubs such as Chelsea and Manchester United, not to mention a smart new stadium. A Brentford spokesperson said: “Given the recent rise and growth of our club and the changing shareholder lands...

Brentford FC has achieved a record turnover of £166.5m, showcasing their financial stability in English football. The club emphasizes player retention and revenue growth to ensure long-term sustainability. In the ever-evolving landscape of English football, Brentford FC has emerged as a beacon of financial stability and growth. The West London club announced their financial results for the year ending June 2023, recording a club-record turnover of £166.5m, an operating profit before player trading of £4.4m, and a profit before taxation of £9.2m. Under the stewardship of owner Matthew Benham, Brentford FC has consistently demonstrated a shrewd approach to financial management. The club's latest financial results reveal a mix of player sales and contingent triggers in contracts, with a clear emphasis on retaining players and investing in the squad. The Gtech Community Stadium, the club's home ground, underwent a revaluation, resulting in an increase in asset value of £27.0m...

Academic analysis has shown that wage spending is highly correlated with a club’s finishing position over time (with a statistical R² (variance explained)  of 90%), as first seen in the seminal “Soccernomics” by Simon Kuper and Stefan Szyminski.    Even in a single season (2021/21), we can observe a fairly linear relationship between wages and league position, especially in the bottom half of the table. Clubs like West Ham, Brighton and Brentford have performed compared to their wage bill.    In contras is the extent of Manchester United’s under-performance, as they only finished sixth in the league, despite enjoying the highest wages in England’s top flight. Manchester United’s £384m wage bill was not only the highest in the 2021/22 Premier League, but actually the highest ever reported in England. Three other clubs paid more than £300m in wages, namely Liverpool £366m, Manchester City £354m and Chelsea £340m. There was then a big gap of more than £1...

The cost of watching Spurs has always been on the more expensive side and, with the team now playing in what is unquestionably one of the best football stadiums in the world, tickets aren’t going to get any cheaper. However there was anger this summer when matchday ticket prices were increased. Season ticket prices for 2023-24 were frozen, despite demand being extremely high.   That meant the cheapest season ticket remained at £807 (for some corner seats in the lower tier), with the average being around £1,000 behind the goals, then up to £1,400 along the sides and as high as £2,233 for some proper nice seats with access to a private bar and some decent grub. Despite how big a financial commitment is required to take up a season ticket at Spurs, the price freeze was certainly welcome. However, the same goodwill wasn’t afforded to the average match-going Spurs fan. Instead, prices jumped up £17 for the top home matches this season (i.e. Arsenal, Liverpool, Chelsea) and bet...

The Fair Game Index has rated the top 92 clubs in the pyramid through 80 different touchpoints across four criteria: Financial Sustainability, Good Governance, Equality Standards and Good Governance. At the moment over half of England’s top 92 clubs are technically insolvent, and a majority of Championship clubs are spending more than they earn on players’ wages. AFC Wimbledon emerge as England’s best run club with an overall score of 73.58 out of 100. The Premier League’s top club are Brentford.  Championship side Plymouth Argyle boast a perfect score in the Financial Sustainability metric, whilst League One’s Cambridge United set the standard for Good Governance. Exeter City are the highest scorers for Fan Engagement, with Lincoln taking the honours for Equality Standards. In fact, clubs in Sky Bet League’s One and Two scored higher overall across all four criteria than their counterparts in the Sky Bet Championship. The top three clubs for financial sustainability are ...

Which Premier League clubs performed best and worst in relation to their budget? One measure is how much each club paid in wages for each point gained in the Premier League. As an example, Manchester United’s wages were £384m, while they registered 75 points in the league, so they effectively paid £5.1m for each point. On this basis, Brentford were in a class of their own, paying just £1.2m wages per point, ahead of the other club renowned for the quality of its data analytics, Brighton £1.9m. Thanks to their excellent performance on the pitch, Aston Villa £2.2m and Newcastle United £2.4m also did well here. In contrast, Leicester City paid a chunky £5.4m per point. If we restrict the analysis to the Big Six, Arsenal’s performance was the best by far with only £2.5m per point. At the other end of the spectrum, we find Chelsea with £7.7m, comfortably the worst in the top flight. Clubs can also be ranked by comparing their final position in the Premier League with the position im...

Last season’s £30m pre-tax profit is the highest in the Brentford’s history, though Cliff Crown cautioned “in a deteriorating economic environment in which higher salary and overhead costs remain essential to our retaining Premier League status, this financial performance will be difficult to repeat.” Combining fine sporting results with good financial performance is nothing new to Brentford, as seen by the very small loss achieved in the promotion season. Most clubs promoted from the Championship suffer massive losses, as they really “go for it” in pursuit of the “promised land”, but this was not the case for the Bees, who only lost £9m. This is only the second time that Brentford have posted a profit in the last 10 years, though they have managed to keep the size of their losses relatively small, which is no mean feat in the highly competitive Championship, especially given the club’s low turnover. The £24m profit reported in 2018/19 was boosted by £14m from the sale of land to...