The Political Economy of Football V2

A brochure detailing the sale of Leicester City and all its assets has been sent to potential investors. Global investment bank Citigroup has drafted the brochure, seen by  The New York Times , titled Project Lineup, which details Leicester’s assets, including its women’s team, academy, King Power Stadium and the £100million Seagrave training base they moved to six years ago.   Belgian sister club OH Leuven is also featured in the list of assets available. A source close to the process has told  The Athletic  that the Srivaddhanaprabha family, Leicester’s owners, are looking for $300m (£222m) for the entire portfolio, but a deal is more likely to be done at closer to $200m (£148m) due to the club’s recent drop into League One — English football’s third tier — and heavy recent losses. Over the last four accounting reports since 2021, Leicester have recorded losses of £92.5m, £89.7m, £19.4m and most recently £71.1m as the club has slipped from the top eight of th...

I take no pleasure in the rapid decline of Leicester City.  Many moons ago I went to university in Leicester and my personal tutor and many other staff were keen supporters.   I was delighted when they won the Premier League. What follows is a summary of points made by the authoritative Swiss Ramble.    Much more analysis and charts are available on his Substack page, there is often a free trial. Going down last season represented a significant under-performance, as they enjoyed one of the highest budgets in the Championship, boosted by a hefty parachute payment, and a squad that contained internationals and numerous players with Premier League experience. Points deduction Leicester weren’t helped by being hit with a six-point deduction for breaching the EFL’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) by £20.8m for the 3-year monitoring period up to 2023/24. The club appealed, but every one of its arguments was dismissed. They had managed to avoid a...

I am rather sceptical of this list of Nigerian billionaires who might buy Leicester City.  They might find better uses for their money away from football:  https://www.afrik-foot.com/en-ng/leicester-city-nigeria-billion-epl-dangote Nigeria as a country has had quite serious issues with corruption, but there is genuine interest in football. Nevertheless, it does seem increasing likely that the Foxes will have new owners.   This is certainly the thinking in Thailand:  thaiexaminer.com/thai-news-foreigners/2026/07/24/king-power-in-tentative-talks-with-citigroup-about-leicester-city-sale-after-freefall-to-uks-third-tier/ Football finance guru Kieran Maguire notes: ' The interest costs at Leicester on the loans are a bit troublesome at £200k a week. The player sales this summer should offset that and cover the costs for the next few months at least. Club increasingly reliant on sales in recent years. '

This week we learnt that Liverpool FC is in talks over a potential stake sale with a consortium backed by money from the Mittal family, but likely to include some US investors. A valuation of more than $6 bn would suggest the bullish thesis — that football clubs remain a good asset appreciation play — is still intact. Meanwhile Leicester City’s Thai owners also see now as a good time to attempt a sale. The club, which won the Premier League a decade ago, dropped into English football’s third tier last season. There are other clubs, including Crystal Palace, looking for investors — or potentially new owners. Is this a sign that the market is heating up again? Does the World Cup alter the equation? To some extent, nothing much has changed. Lots of clubs have been quietly open to offers for some time, but the bids haven’t come. Liverpool itself was in the market not so long ago, and ended up selling a very small stake to a fund with close ties to the existing owners. If any invest...

Increasingly the most important people in any football club are not the accountants, but the lawyers.  A career as a sports lawyer offers good prospects and is more interesting than many branches of the legal profession. Leeds United have opened legal proceedings and served a statement of claim against Leicester City after being denied automatic promotion in 2023-24, when the latter broke financial rules.    This follows Burnley’s recent successful action against Everton. A statement of claim sets out why the claimant is taking action against a respondent. In this case, Leeds have included specific losses, but also requested an assessment of damages as a result of Leicester’s PSR breach. As it stands, the hearing is not set to take place until next summer.   It is always possible that it will be settled out of court. Last month, it was revealed Everton had been ordered to pay Burnley £35m in compensation and interest. In 2021-22, the Lancashire club were rel...

Leeds United are considering taking legal action against Leicester City in the wake of Burnley’s landmark compensation victory over Everton. Everton were ordered to pay £40m after Burnley argued they would have avoided relegation from the Premier League in 2022 had the Merseyside club’s six-point punishment for breaking Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) been applied during the season of the breach and not in 2023-24.  Last week’s decision, which was handed down by an independent disciplinary commission and is the subject of an appeal by Everton, was deemed to be a watershed moment that could open the door to further action between rival clubs. Leeds are now exploring how Leicester’s PSR issues affected two of their own seasons. The first is 2022-23, when both Leeds and Leicester were relegated, and then 2023-24, when Leicester gained automatic promotion back to the top flight and Leeds lost in the play-offs.  In September 2024, Leicester won an app...

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire has discussed the financial consequences of Leicester City’s relegation to League One. “I don't think they’ve got a lot of money coming in, so realistically it's going to have to be a fire-sale, and the other thing is that the owner is going to have to dig the club out...It really does now come down to the level of commitment from the owner, which has been missing in recent years.” Maguire says Leicester can’t rip up player contracts just because they have been relegated twice and continued: “You say the players will walk away, well the average wage at Leicester last season was £67,000 a week and if they've got a contract, which has another two or three years remaining, they can say to Leicester ‘You either pay us up or we stick around’ because the players' first responsibilities are towards their families not the club owner.” One can sympathise with fans who held up 'King Power Out' banners up on Tuesday, but after years...

If Leicester’s dramatic rise under the ownership of the Srivaddhanaprabha family and their King Power business empire was meteoric, their decline over the past three and a half years is proving to be equally astonishing. These days, they are a club facing up to the possibility of sliding into third-tier League One for only the second time in their 142-year history. So how did it come to this? When Leicester were relegated from the Premier League for the second time in three seasons last summer, there was some belief that they would repeat the feat of two years ago and bounce straight back up into it. But for those who knew the true state of the club, after several seasons of posting crippling financial losses that had pushed them to the PSR edge, and the extent of rebuilding required, expectations were rather more tempered. They knew, also, what was potentially coming down the line in terms of sanctions for three charges of breaking the EFL’s PSR rules for that promotion season...

As Leicester City approach this new season, they will hope to repeat the feat of immediately returning to the Premier League, as they managed on the previous occasion they were relegated. After a troubled year in the top flight, which their former striker Jamie Vardy memorably described as “a shitshow”, Leicester will again be one of the best resourced clubs in the Championship, but their problems have mounted up off the pitch. There is also the threat of a points deduction hanging over Leicester after the Premier League referred the club to an independent commission for an alleged breach of Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR) for the 2023/24 monitoring period. Leicester had managed to avoid a similar fate for the 2022/23 assessment, as they successfully argued that they could not be charged for a breach, as they were no longer a member of the Premier League when the PSR calculation was carried out, having been relegated to the Championship. Their legal team play...

The Premier League has referred Leicester City to an independent commission for an alleged breach of profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) in 2023-24.  The club, whose relegation to the Championship was confirmed last month, could face a significant points deduction when they begin next season back in the English game’s second tier. This is the latest chapter in an ongoing battle involving the club, the Premier League and the English Football League (EFL), the body which runs the Championship, plus third-tier League One and League Two, the fourth division. As Leicester have moved between England’s top two divisions over the three-year accounting period up to 2023-24, getting relegated, then promoted and now relegated again, the issue of jurisdiction was looked into by the tribunal, which found the Premier League can investigate them for alleged breaches. Leicester have been attempting to stave off PSR sanctions ever since their shock relegation from the Premi...

Ten years ago, Leicester City had defied the odds to tee up the most astonishing period in the club’s history, winning a Premier League title, lifting the FA Cup, and competing in three European campaigns. That Leicester side had unity, work ethic, dependable leadership, good planning, excellent recruitment and a never-say-die spirit that pulled them through. This season’s Leicester have none of those, and have meekly surrendered to a relegation that was confirmed on Sunday. Their 1-0 defeat against Liverpool was a ninth consecutive home defeat without scoring — a top-flight record. Acrimony against members of the hierarchy is growing, with some fans hiring a plane that flew over the stadium carrying a banner that read: “King Power Clueless. Sack the Board.” Another banner displaying similar sentiments was seen in the corner of the Kop at full time. Director of football Jon Rudkin is the figure many protesters see as the most culpable for Leicester’s decline. Others can certain...

The Championship has the most stretched finances of any UK football league and in effect functions as a Premier League Division 2, reinforced by the distorting effects of parachute payments.   What follows is an edited and slightly enhanced version of forensic analysis by the Swiss Ramble. The 24 clubs generated just under £1 bln of revenue (£956m to be precise) and £22m other operating income, but then paid out £1.7 bln in operating expenses, split between £892m wages, £260m player amortisation and £505m other expenses. This led to a sizeable £678m operating loss, exacerbated by £73m net interest payable, which was only partially offset by £420m profit from player sales and £17m exceptional items. As a result, the division as a whole lost £314m. Revenue shot up £207m (28%) from £749m to £956m, while profit from player sales more than doubled from £183m to £420m. However, this was offset by a steep increase in operating expenses, which were a third higher, rising £417m; ...

The Premier League may have good intentions in trying to curb over spending by clubs and level the playing field to some extent.  However, clubs keep finding loopholes, most recently in the case of Chelsea and their women’s team. The League then changes the rules (if it can get consent from member clubs) but it is often a case of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.    Fans of particular clubs often feel they are being unfairly targeted while others get away scot free.   We are still waiting for the result of the Manchester City case, but whatever it is, I anticipate further litigation.    The real winners in these cases are the lawyers who charge fees that reflects their expertise and their ability to deliver results off the pitch.    The Premier League continues to insist  that there is no case for an externa; regulator while failing to put its own house in order (and the EFL is no better). The Premier League has moved ...

Typically, newcomers struggle to survive in the Premier League, especially in recent years — there’s nothing new there. But last season was the first time since 1998, and only the second time ever, that all three promoted Premier League clubs were relegated to the Championship. To provide some context to just how difficult it has been for Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton, last season’s relegated trio provide an unflattering reference point. Statistically, Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton Town were the worst bottom three in Premier League history. They picked up 66 points between them — 10 points fewer than the next lowest on record. Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton are currently on course to finish with a cumulative total of 63 points. They have two fewer wins than Sheffield United, Burnley and Luton at the same stage of the season and have conceded 174 goals compared to 178. The financial numbers are interesting, too, and, in many ways, highlight what promoted clubs are u...

No Premier League clubs have been charged with breaches of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) — though Leicester City could still be sanctioned.  Leicester remain in a legal battle with the Premier League over club losses incurred during the three-year accounting period ending in 2023-24. All clubs who had made aggregate losses over the first two accounting periods were required to submit their accounts on or before December 31 with the league committing to informing any in breach within a maximum of 14 days. No clubs were charged, the Premier League has confirmed, but Leicester are still at risk amid ongoing proceedings. The Premier League said on Tuesday morning: “Issues as to the jurisdiction of the Premier League over Leicester City Football Club in relation to PSR compliance are currently the subject of confidential arbitration proceedings. “Accordingly, neither the league nor the club will make any further comment at ...

As the financial regulations surrounding football become more complex and contentious, a first class lawyer is almost as important an asset for a football club as a good striker. We should find out early next week if Leicester are going to be charged with breaching PSR for the 2023-24 season, the campaign that saw them return to the Premier League at the earliest opportunity. Leicester have said nothing about their financial situation, a position they reiterated when contacted by  The Athletic  earlier this week.   But the consensus view in the industry is that once you strip out all the “good” expenditure clubs are allowed to make on community programmes, youth development and so on, they lost about £95million for the rolling three-year period that ended on June 30, 2024. According to the league’s understanding of its rulebook, clubs are assessed annually on the basis of their audited accounts, with the most recent season referred to as “T”, the season be...

A modern Subbuteo set doesn't just need accountants, it also needs lawyers.   Here are some of the recent key legal cases involving football clubs with the law firms involved in brackets: Manchester City challenged the Premier League rules on sponsorship which were found to be unlawful (David Pannick KC who reportedly charges £5k an hour, two other KCs, three additional barristers and law firm Freshfields.   The Premier League's three KCs led by Sports Silk of the Year Adam Lewis KC and four more barristers instructed by Slaughter and May). The European Court of Justice ruled that Fifa's transfer regulations were unlawful after a challenge by former French international Lassana Diarra. A joint action by players' union Fifpro and European Leagues claiming that Fifa's decision to launch a revised version of the Club World Cup had put player health at risk and is in violation of EU law. Leicester, Manchester City, Nottingham Forest and Everton have faced action for all...

How did Leicester City end up struggling so much with PSR? They had been the shining example for clubs outside of the traditional elite, when they shocked all and sundry by winning the Premier League in 2015/16, then reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League the following season. However, this success came at a price, as chief executive Susan Whelan admitted, “Over recent years the club’s financial results have reflected necessary levels of investment in the playing squad that allowed Leicester City to compete effectively in the Premier League.” In fairness, this ambitious strategy very nearly worked, as Leicester then finished fifth in the Premier League two years in a row, which meant that they only just missed out on again qualifying for the lucrative Champions League. However, the 2022/23 season was very different, as “the regrettable results of the men’s team on the pitch” ultimately leading to relegation to the Championship, ending a nine-year spell in the top f...

Leicester City will avoid a points deduction after the Premier League suffered a serious blow in its enforcement of the Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR). The club won an appeal against a charge for an alleged breach and said the appeal board, made up of three very senior lawyers, had identified “flaws” in the Premier League rules. The club had been charged by the Premier League for breaching the PSR limit of £105million in losses over three years for the 2022-23 season, when they were relegated from the top flight. Leicester, who were promoted again last season, launched a legal challenge on the basis that the Premier League did not have jurisdiction after they had been relegated. The ruling of the appeal board means the league is unlikely to be able to take similar action against any other relegated club. The challenge was initially dismissed by an independent commission but an appeal board made up of the Rt Hon Sir Stanley Burnton, the Rt Hon Sir Maurice Kay a...

Warm congratulations to Leicester City on their promotion to the Premier League.   In 1965/8 I was at university in Leicester and many of my tutors, including my personal tutor Bob Borthwick, were Foxes fans. It has been a rough ride for Leicester with the EFL seemingly determined to make an example of them.    Football finances are increasingly convoluted and if I was qualifying as a lawyer today, I would think that football finance was a lucrative area to practice in.   The lawyers collect their fees and the fans suffer.. Leicester’s usual business model was based on them being a Premier League club challenging for European qualification every season. Relegation hadn’t been factored in. There was no safety net, and they had just come crashing down to earth. The reality of dropping down to the EFL after nine seasons in the top flight was they had to sell players and dramatically cut the wage bill. Ten first-team players left, seven of them as free agents ...