The Political Economy of Football V2

After six years David Beckham saw his Inter Miami team play their first game, a friendly, at the weekend. Their first MLS fixture is on March 1st. Their first match was at the Al Lang stadium, an antiquated baseball stadium in Fort Lauderdale with a 7,500 capacity. It is a 40 minute drive north of Miami. A 20,000 seater stadium in Fort Lauderdale will be ready for their first MLS match and will be their home for at least two seasons, perhaps for good. The longer term plan is to build the Miami Freedom Park stadium with a 25,000 seat capacity near Miami International Airport. However, many politicians oppose building on the site at the Melreese Country Club in a city lacking in green open spaces. Beckham has local partners in Jorge and José Mas, Miami-based Cuban-American construction magnates who have the ability to navigate South Florida political waters. Other investors include Masayoshi Son, the Japanese billionaire owner of multinational conglomerate SoftBank, and Marcelo C...

Even leaving aside the possible consequences of Manchester City's dispute with Uefa, PSG have overtaken Manchester City as the football's greatest financial power, according to a report by football business experts Soccerex, again highlighting the significance of the two clubs' Middle Eastern ownership: Soccerex report. You can download the whole report. The findings are in line with an offthepitch.com analysis which last month showed PSG and Manchester City, both clubs owned by oil-rich states, were the biggest revenue growers among the top European clubs over the past decade. PSG increase their revenue by a whopping 671 per cent from 2010 to 2019, while Manchester City's Abu Dhabi owners oversaw a 328 per cent increase. However, one should inject a note of caution. The oil price has probably reached its all time high in real terms as the switch to electric powered vehicles gains pace. The Gulf states don't produce anything else. The Paris club surpassed Ci...

Billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong is part of a consortium looking to take control of US Major League Soccer team DC United in a deal that would value the club at $500m, a record the top soccer competition in the US: DC United deal close DC United's chief executive Jason Levein is heading a group that is seeking to buy out Erick Thohir, the Indonesian businessman who owns 78 per cent of the team's operating rights. Mr Levein, who owns the remaining 22 per cent of the club, plans to bring on board new investors alongside Mr Soon-Shiong. It remains unclear how much Mr Soon-Shiong, a surgeon turned biotech investor, is seeking to invest in DC United. He is already a minority owner of NBA basketball team Los Angeles Lakers and, in February, bought the Los Angeles Times newspaper for $500m. Mr Thohir, who sold the majority of his controlling stake in Italy's Serie A club Inter Milan to China's Suning in 2016, has been seeking ways to significantly reduce his involvement in...