The Political Economy of Football V2

Clubs even at Step 2 of the non-league system are going full time or have 'hybrid' squads with some fill-time players.   Last season at Eastbourne in the National League South wages cost the owner £1m on top of income.    Salisbury have been taken over by new Kuwaiti owners.   Chelmsford recently announced a seven figure sponsorship deal. I recently saw the accounts of a National League North club for 2023/4 which has just part-time players.  In 2023/4 the club was relegated to the third tier and this involved the loss of National League sponsorship of £38k, although this was offset by a £36k rise in commercial income.  £106k was received for transfer fees to EFL clubs.   Sponsorship this year from the League will be £45k. Turnover declined after relegation from just under £500k to £395k.  The gross loss went up from £4k to £103k, although this was partially offset by temporary rental income.  The seven directors put in an aver...

Scarborough Athletic face a projected loss of £150k in the coming season:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpqnzp7gxr9o

27-year old Puerto Rico based American businessman William Rush has taken over Alfreton Town.   The new owner has ancestral links in the area.   They will not be going full time next season. As more EFL clubs are snapped up by foreign investors, non-league clubs become more attractive.

As the financial year comes to an end, there is a fast and furious race by clubs to submit their 2023/24 accounts and they all show losses.   Information courtesy of football finance guru Kieran Maguire. Ayr United lost £187k in 23/24 taking total losses to over£1.7m. Club is dependent upon director loans of £585k to continue.    Scottish clubs are generally quite prudent so this is quite a big loss by their standards.   Gillingham losses almost doubled to £4.3 million in 23/24. The losses were underwritten by a £1.3m donation and £2.2m of loans Salford City lost over £5.3m in 23/24 taking total losses to over £28m since being acquired by new owners Promotion chasing York City lost £235k in 23/24. Scunthorpe United lost £499k in 23/24 despite losing two thirds of their employees. Club had over £4 million of liabilities at 30 June 2024.    Included in the Scunthorpe United accounts for 23/24 is a £250,000 bad debt write off. I wonder who is re...

The National League is a de facto fourth division of the EFL even if promotion and relegation is restricted.  It is no surprise that virtually all teams are full time as they seek the promised land of League Two or at least avoid relegation. But full time teams are now to be found in the next tier down.  In the National League North, Buxton, Kidderminster Harriers, Kings Lynn, Scunthorpe United (former EFL team) and South Shields are full time. Some teams have tried to develop a hybrid model which means that players generally come in three days of week for some kind of training/recovery/fitness/midweek game whilst part-time players generally operate on two evenings a week or one if there is a midweek game.  Some clubs remain entirely part-time, so it's not a level playing field.

Scunthorpe were in a parlous state back in the autumn, unable to pay staff wages and facing eviction from their home stadium, Glanford Park. Debts had climbed to more than £1.5million ($1.9m), with crippling losses running close to £100,000 a month in National League North, the sixth tier of English football. They stood on the cliff edge… and they tottered. A club dying in plain sight begged for a saviour and, against her better judgment, that turned out to be Michelle Harness.   In October, the 62-year-old lifelong Scunthorpe fan agreed a £100,000 deal to end the tumultuous reign of David Hilton, and six weeks later, she had secured further funding of £3million to buy Glanford Park from another of the club’s former owners, Peter Swann. Harness squirms at the suggestion she has been responsible for saving Scunthorpe. She points to the hefty donations of backers, volunteers and well-wishers, as well as the increased revenues driven by a long-suffering fanbase stirring to action....

King's Lynn Town need an injection of £300,000 or they may not see out the season.   The club costs £1m a year to keep going:  https://www.lynnnews.co.uk/sport/troubled-linnets-need-300-000-to-see-season-through-9344959/ 33 prospective investors in the United States had never heard of King's Lynn.

Scunthorpe United have been rescued by a local businesswoman with a close association with the club:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/67010923 The Iron are thought to be close to a deal to stay at Glanford Park.

Scunthorpe United is in a dire state after the owner withdrew his support and home games are to be played at Gainsborough Trinity:  https://www.scunthorpe-united.co.uk/news/2023/september/club-update/ As this detailed analysis suggests, the situation there is 'beyond grim':  https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/scunthorpe-united-football-club-dying-2646754

With the cupboards bare, bills to pay and another relegation looming, Scunthorpe United fans were holding out for a hero. Then David Hilton arrived.  The Nottingham-born businessman bought the club from the deeply unpopular Peter Swann in late January, clearing a six-figure tax bill and pledging to take Scunthorpe back to the English Football League. An investigation by  The Athletic  has found that a man we strongly believe to be Hilton was sentenced to two years in prison for 15 counts of fraud by false representation under the name of David Anderson. In a case that started at Nottingham Crown Court in late 2014, Anderson was also disqualified from being a company director for five years after pleading guilty to 15 charges. Hilton has made no secret of the fact he was born David White and changed his name to Hilton for unspecified “family reasons”. In fact, until very recently, Hilton still had a Facebook account under the name of David White. It is unclear if H...

Scunthorpe United, currently top of the National League North, will see the future of their Glanford Park ground discussed in court this week.   Former chairman Peter Swann is trying to get them evicted. Current Iron chair David Hilton took over from Swann in January, but an exclusivity period over the sale of the ground and the land it sits on expired in May. Hilton has been concerned about lack of progress on an unregistered strip of land which could deny the club access to its training pitch. Swann's company Coolsilk took over the ground in return for Swann writing off £11m of loans made during his tenure.   Given the complexity of the issues, the case could well be put on hold for months to be heard in full.

Darlington lost £183k in 21/22, compared to a profit the previous season, although this was mainly due to a huge amount of ‘miscellaneous income’, reports Kieran Maguire. Wage costs were almost £500k.  This is in the National League North. Darlington have made total losses over the years of £887k. These have been funded by share issues and loans. Club has large amount of cash.   Darlington have loans of almost £500k but some of these were converted into shares since end of season. Darlington spent £25k buying players in 21/22.

Player sales are becoming an increasingly important, if unpredictable, source of revenue for clubs.  This is even the case at non-league level as shown by the annual accounts of Leamington FC.  The National League North team is acquiring a good reputation for player development. The loss for the year was £22,284 compared to £52,282 in 2019. The accumulated loss now stands at £64,148 up from £43,814. Transfer fees were up from £20,000 to £62,500 without which the loss would have been much worse. The report notes, ‘It continued to be a challenge for the club to retain our National League status whilst operating on a playing and management budget that remains substantially below the average of our competitors. It is a credit to the structure and operational stability of the club and the manager that it continues to attract players when the financial rewards for them are greater elsewhere.’ The total revenue of the club increased from £331,000 to £359,800.    The p...

The average turnover of a club in the National League North is now just over £700,000 a year and the average playing budget is £268,000. This reflects the fact that there are a number of former Football League clubs in the division. However, a number of clubs have much smaller turnovers and playing budgets. The recently released accounts of one club for 2017/18 show a turnover of £294k and a player budget of £190k. Advertising and sponsorship was the biggest income stream at £90k while match receipts amounted to £77k. A donation of £10k was received for a player transferred to a Championship club. A £18k contribution was received from the National League from Premier League distributions and their own sponsorships. Individual directors bought £25k of shares to cover a projected £18k end year loss.

There has been a change of ownership at North Ferriby United, the bottom club in the National League North known as 'The Villagers'. The club was first put on the market in March 2016. Up to 2015 Steve and Eman Forster injected quarter of a million pounds into the club, but then said it would have to pay its way given the lack of commercial revenue and the small fan base. The Forsters have transferred ownership of the club to Jamie Waltham, leaving the club debt free. Jamie Waltham, previously at Hull United and then East Yorkshire Carnegie, is a former player at the club. he is a local businessman working in areas such as property and gas fitting.