The Political Economy of Football V2

It’s no longer just accountants who are the biggest financial service providers in football, lawyers are increasingly finding it a source of lucrative business.   It is no accident that Manchester City have some of the best lawyers advising them. The next step was likely to be private equity, already invested in clubs, taking a stake in a law firm. A boutique UK law firm behind some of the biggest football deals has taken an investment from a US private equity group, in a sign of the growing interest from private capital in both the legal and sports industries. San Francisco’s Cordillera Investment Partners has taken a minority stake in Northridge Law, whose clients include English Premier League football clubs such as Chelsea. The deal, which will give Cordillera a board seat at Northridge, comes as private capital has shown an increasing appetite to invest in professional services firms. Several legal and accounting firms have taken investments over the past two years, wi...

WhyA 94-word statement released by the English Football Association on Thursday has cast a cloud over Chelsea.  The news that the club had been hit with 74 charges relating to alleged breaches of rules on agent payments did not come as a surprise to club executives, given the issue has been hanging over them since 2022, but it has sparked concern among supporters. The 74 charges are related to alleged breaches of FA rules regarding regulations on working with intermediaries and third-party investment in players.   The alleged offences took place between 2009 and 2022, although the focus is on what took place from the 2010-11 to 2015-16 seasons. Chelsea say the offences are all related to the regime of the club’s previous owner, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, although the FA declined to confirm that point when asked about it by  The Athletic . Chelsea also say that they flagged the discrepancies to all the governing bodies — the FA, the Premier...

Once again the game's governing body has been made to look foolish. The FA will be forced to pay Nottingham Forest hundreds of thousands of pounds after losing a landmark legal battle with the Premier League club. Forest faced disciplinary proceedings after a 2-0 defeat by Everton in April last year — a game that included three disputed penalty appeals — having posting on X that they had warned referee chiefs that the VAR in the game, Stuart Attwell, was a fan of relegation rivals Luton Town. But Forest then complained that the barrister appointed to chair the disciplinary panel had been “biased” against them after the club questioned the £1million fine being sought by the FA. Graeme McPherson KC had said at that hearing that he rejected “the club’s somewhat hysterical submission”. To the embarrassment of the FA, lawyers have now found that McPherson’s comment could be viewed as an “unjustified, inappropriate, and personal attack on the club” after they were eventually f...

The recently published annual report of the Football Association (available online at Companies House) discusses the changes in European club competition proposed by Uefa to operate from 2024. These have important implications for clubs outside the top six. The UEFA Champions League would be made up of 32 teams and be selected on the basis of club domestic rankings in the previous four seasons. Beyond the first season one would have to win the domestic league to be guaranteed a place. In other words, if you finished second in the Premier League you wouldn't be guaranteed a place unless your previous record justified it or you got to the semi-finals of the Europa League (or 'League Two' as it is confusingly termed. The Europa League of 32 teams would be based on domestic rankings in the previous four seasons. The new Europa Conference League would have 64 teams but would be very much a third ranked competition and would not generate much revenue for clubs. It would al...

Shahid Khan has withdrawn his £600m offer to buy Wembley Stadium: Deal off. It had become evident that the proposal would not receive the hoped for two-thirds majority from the FA Council or anything near it at a meeting scheduled for next week. The 127 person Council is dominated by the 'blazer brigade' from the county associations whom I see strutting around at non-league matches. This of itself says something about the FA's cumbersome and outdated decision-making. One person close to the process told the Financial Times 'There is a reason why England has not won a World Cup since 1966 when decisions are made by a governing body that is organised like this.' Reaction has necessarily been mixed to what was a divisive proposal. Mark Palios, a former FA chief executive and now chairman of Tranmere Rovers, said on Radio 5 that decision-making should not be driven by emotion and sentiment. David Conn among others has said that the Premier League should increas...