The Political Economy of Football V2

Majority control at Norwich City passed to Attanasio’s Norfolk Holdings group from Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones after 28 years. Attanasio, the owner of American baseball team Milwaukee Brewers, first purchased a minority 22% stake from former director Michael Foulger in September 2022, before increasing his shareholder to 40.4% in April 2024.   In March 2025 Attanasio converted his loans into equity, giving him 85% of the football club. Smith and her husband have retained 10%, while the remaining 5% is owned by independent shareholders, including the supporters’ group, Under the former owners, the club had been promoted to the top flight on no fewer than five occasions, but they had become the classic “yo-yo” club, most notably in the four seasons between 2018/19 and 2021/22, when they were twice finished top of the Championship, only to twice come last in the Premier League. Norwich City’s pre-tax loss in 2024/25 widened from £14.4m to £20.7m, mainly due to a steep red...

An extraordinary general meeting agreed this month that majority control  of Norwich City will pass to Michael Attanasio’s Norfolk Holdings group from Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones after their 28 years at the helm. Attanasio, the owner of American baseball team Milwaukee Brewers, first purchased a minority 22% stake from former director Michael Foulger in September 2022, before increasing his shareholder to 40% in April 2024. From March 2025 Attanasio will convert his loans into equity, giving him 85% of the football club. Smith and her husband will retain 10%, while the remaining 5% will be owned by independent shareholders, including the supporters’ group, The Canaries Trust. The board emphasised that this transaction “involved no payment to Delia and Michael”, thus “securing the long-term financial security of the club and an effective and positive transition”. Clearly, Norwich City owe a huge debt of gratitude to the former owners, so it feels only right that they ha...

After many years under the guidance of Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones, the Norwich City are increasingly influenced by Michael Attanasio, the owner of American baseball team Milwaukee Brewers. He first purchased a minority stake from former director Michael Foulger last year, but the club has recently ratified the acquisition of many more shares, bringing his shareholding to the same 40% level as Smith and her husband. However, it’s clear that the fans are very unhappy, as epitomised by a very blunt statement from the Canaries Trust. “The completion of the legal process with Mark Attanasio seems to finally be approaching a conclusion, but, from an outside perspective there’s no overall sense of leadership, or direction, and supporters are desperate for some sense of a vision that we can all buy into and move forward together. Norwich City’s pre-tax loss widened from £24m to £27m, as revenue dropped £58m (43%) from the club record £134m to £76m following relegation to the Ch...

In last weekend's Financial Times  Delia Smith did one of the Pink Un's long interviews over a meal at Carrow Road.  I can't say it revealed very much, but her tone seemed valedictory which is not surprising at the age of 82.   No 'let's be 'aving you'. I'm not a Norwich supporter, but it is one of the clubs I like.   Norwich have a sustainable business model, which is admirable in many respects but has made it hard for them to compete in the Premier League. They have been a “yo-yo club” for a long time, but this status is under threat after the club missed out on the Championship play-offs last season. The club maintains a family ethos and feels firmly rooted in Norfolk. One Norwich owner is a genuine UK household name and stands out as being a rare female in the boardroom. Delia Smith, 80, is a TV chef who has released a range of bestselling cookbooks and has been a majority shareholder with her husband Michael Wynn-Jones, a writer and publisher, s...

Fair Game have produced a sustainability index for Premier League and Championship clubs.  Liverpool and Norwich City come out on top.  Nottingham Forest are bottom and Bournemouth are secnd bottom:  https://fcbusiness.co.uk/news/liverpool-norwich-city-top-sustainability-index-tables/ Whilst such rankings appear to be objective, they necessarily involve subjective judgments about what is included and how it is weighted.

The authoritative Swiss Ramble reviews the latest accounts of Norwich City.  They swung from £21m pre-tax profit to £24m loss (£18m after tax), despite revenue surging from £57m to club record £134m following promotion to the Premier League, as profit on player sales fell £60m to zero and operating expenses rose £66m (69%) in the top flight.    Only two English clubs have to date published accounts for 2021/22, but rge £24m pre-tax loss is pretty much the norm for the Premier League. Given the impact of COVID, the Canaries have done very well to break-even over the last 3 years (2020 £2m profit, 2021 £21m profit & 2022 £24m loss). As a rule, this “yo-yo” club tends to be profitable in the Premier League, but loses money in the Championship. The club’s business model is fairly dependent on player sales, where they have made an impressive £158m profit in the last 8 years, including £60m in 2021 and £48m in 2018, mainly due to the big money sales of Maddison to ...

The Premier League has published details of the TV payments to clubs for the 2021/22 season, reports the authoritative Swiss Ramble from Zurich. These amounted to £2.5 bln, ranging from £153m for champions Manchester City to £101m for 20th placed Norwich City (the first time the bottom club got more than £100m). The TV money distribution method in the Premier League remains the most equitable of Europe’s major football leagues with the ratio from top to bottom earning club being only 1.5. This is much better than other leagues: Serie A 2.7, Bundesliga 3.1, Ligue 1 3.1 and La Liga 3.5. Each of the 20 Premier League clubs received £87.5m as an equal share, coming from domestic rights £31.8m, overseas rights £48.9m and commercial revenue £6.8m. The largest increases compared to the previous season came at Brighton, up £16m, and Arsenal, up £11m. In contrast, three clubs received over £10m less than 2020/21: Leeds £17m, Everton £13m and Leicester City £11m. A club that is frequentl...

In football money often talks, i.e. success on the pitch is almost invariably reserved for clubs that have spent the most on wages and transfer fees. However, the authoritative Swiss Ramble considers might be interesting to see which clubs have performed the best (and indeed worst) relative to their budget. Looking at wages per point, the clubs with best value for money were Brighton £2.1m, West Ham £2.3m, Newcastle United £2.4m and Burnley £2.5m. Brentford are also likely to be one of the best even after their wages increased in the PL. In contrast,   Man United £5.6m, Everton £4.7m and Chelsea £4.5m by far the worst. Another way of ranking clubs’ performance is wages per league position.     On this basis, the same clubs do best: Brentford, Brighton, West Ham and Newcastle, though worth noting Tottenham Hostpur’s impressive performance in 5th place. The three relegated clubs look bad on this metric, but this also highlights underperformance by Leeds and particu...

The Premier League season is over, so who have been the winners in terms of prize money asks football finance guru Kieran Maguire. For domestic broadcast deal 50% of the sum is split evenly, 25% based on 'facility' (number of times chosen by TV) & 25% on final league position, with bottom side getting 1 share and top 20 shares. For every one match over 10 each side chosen by the broadcasters it works out as about £950k extra per match. For every additional place higher in the PL it works out as £2.41 million (based on his assumptions, could be a wee bit higher or lower when final figures published). Putting it all together, Manchester City earned £161.3m and Norwich £100.3m. Some clubs (Newcastle, Spurs, Villa, Everton, Leeds) finished higher in the prize money table than the league table due to popularity with broadcasters. Such is the nature of reward in the Premier League, that Brighton v West Ham, which on the face of things was a dead rubber for the home team, ea...

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire discusses why yo-yo clubs between the Premier League and the Championship are stuck in a kind of purgatory.   Maguire argues that we have a Premier League 1.0 and a 1.5:  https://inews.co.uk/sport/football/norwich-fulham-football-purgatory-premier-league-finances-1615476 One way to change things would be to phase out parachute payments or at least substantially reduce them.  One could make low interest loans available for clubs in genuine financial difficulty after relegation.

Norwich City now face the challenge of getting back to the Premier League and surviving once they are there.  Is it too difficult for a club not in a big city without a benefactor owner?  Burnley have found it an increasing struggle. Wages will now reduce significantly. Some players will leave, others will need to be sold if there is to be a significant budget available for a squad rebuild. Smith’s influence on both that and Norwich’s development from here is set to grow in light of this season’s failings and Webber’s mountaineering ambitions. By earning promotion via the play-offs last summer, Brentford set Norwich a challenge. Norwich have failed to match the Londoners’ level, despite having so much more experience to draw on. Everyone at the club would do well to come up with the answers to that failure. There are surviving foundations too. Season-ticket sales remain healthy despite a seven per cent price rise and the likes of Idah, Omobamidele and 19-year-old forward...

Delia Smith talks about the 'pain' of Norwich City constantly being in debt and the emotional chaos of running a Premier League club:  https://www.pinkun.com/sport/norwich-city/ncfc-canaries-delia-smith-new-statesman-interview-8893580 She refers to her 'sustainable' approach to running the club, but how sustainable is it being a yo-yo club, too good for the Championship and not good enough for the Premier League? I have a couple of friends who are Norwich supporters, and I have always enjoyed holidays there, so I would like to see them succeed.   Their strength is that they are a 'stand alone' club with no rivals in the county, but their weakness is that it is not densely populated and some parts of it are relatively poor. Smith says that she would put any credible bid for the club to a vote of supporters which is to be commended.   Let's be having you.

The authoritative Swiss Ramble reviews Norwich’s financial results for 2020/21, when they increased pre-tax profit from £2.1m to £21.5m, despite the impact of relegation to the Championship and COVID reducing revenue by £62m to £57m, thanks to £60m profit from player sakes. it was a notable achievement for to post a £21.5m pre-tax profit. In fact, this was better than any other club in the Championship in 2019/20, when just three clubs were profitable (all of which were only around £3m).    It used to be the case that they were profitable in the Premier League, but lost money following relegation, but they were also profitable twice in last 4 years they were in the Championship. Main driver of the revenue decrease was broadcasting, down £41m (46%) from £90m to £49m, as TV deal much more lucrative in Premier League, while gate receipts dropped from £7.6m to just £0.1m as games played behind closed doors and commercial fell £13m (62%) from £21m to £8m.    Despite t...

Norwich City made a £15 million profit after tax in their latest set of annual accounts, released on Wednesday morning. They cover the 2020-21 season in which Norwich recovered from Premier League relegation to take the EFL Championship title with a club-record tally of 97 points, a campaign that was played almost entirely behind closed doors. The club now believe COVID-19 has cost them about £30 million in total, while their posted profit relied on record player sales including Emi Buendia’s £38 million move to Aston Villa. Without income from player sales last season, which also included instalments from Everton and Newcastle from the departures of Ben Godfrey and Jamal Lewis, Norwich would have posted a £26.6 million operating loss. As for Norwich’s subsequent investment in the squad following promotion, only Milot Rashica’s £9.4 million transfer from Werder Bremen is included in the latest set of accounts. Another £52.7 million has been committed to further arrivals, includin...

Queens Park Rangers have launched a bond in an attempt to partially crowdfund their plans for a new £20 million training ground. QPR this week received planning permission for a new training base at Heston Sports Ground in Hounslow. It is hoped that the state-of-the-art complex will open during the 2022/23 season. A QPR bond will finance part of the project with Tifosy Capital and Advisory. The financing model is similar to that used by Norwich City when they revamped their academy in 2018. The bond will pay five per cent gross interest annually, with an additional three per cent gross in club credit. Investors will meanwhile be paid a one-off 25 per cent bonus if Mark Warburton’s side win promotion to the Premier League during the lifetime of the five-year bond.  There is a minimum subscription of £500 and no upper limit. In a statement, QPR chairman Amit Bhatia said: “As a board, we have a clear vision for QPR: to deliver competitive and entertaining football while ensuri...

Norwich City has cancelled its controversial sponsorship deal with Asian gambling firm BK8 after an outcry from fans, admitting that it made an error of judgment:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/57424206 Norwich is generally one of the better run clubs in football and I was surprised by this decision.  Some of the underlying pressures are indicated in the club's statement: 'As a self-financed club there is always a fine balance between generating the revenue levels required to help maintain that model, whilst working within our vision and values.' A broader question is how much longer clubs will be allowed to accept betting sponsorships.   I devote a chapter of my new book Political Football to the relationship between football and gambling: https://www.agendapub.com/books/124/political-football  '

In my view Murad Ahmed is one of the best contemporary journalists writing about football and he has done an in depth analysis of Norwich City for the FT Weekend Magazine.   The basic question is whether the Canaries are doomed to be a yo-yo club.  They have experienced five promotions and five relegations between the divisions since the turn of the century. They realise that they cannot match the big spenders on players, although they have a squad at the moment that is clearly too good for the Championship.  In 2016 relegation from the Premier League after splashing out on players was a wake up call.  So they are playing a long game.  In part this depends on having a good development strategy for the Academy, although they are not the only club doing that.  Since 2017 the club has recouped £79.5m in sales of young players. They have also spent £8m on upgrading the training ground.  They are spending £750,000 on the SoccerBot 360.  Created in...

The authoritative Swiss Ramble reviews Norwich City's recently published accounts.  He states: ' £2m profit is not huge, but they have done well, given that Manchester United , the only other club to post 2019/20 accounts to date, lost £21m.' Very few Premier League clubs enjoyed operating profits in 2018/19, so Norwich’s small surplus is actually one of the best performances. The Canaries made money despite profit on player sales of only £1.6m, the lowest in the Premier League, as they decided to retain their talented young players. The club have been profitable in six of the last nine years: they made money in all five seasons in the Premier League, but reported losses in three of the four Championship seasons. The only exception was £18m in 2017/18, due to the significant £48m profit on player sales. Like most clubs, Norwich City's bottom line is very influenced by player sales. These averaged annual profit of £24m between 2015 and 2018, either leading to overall...

Despite the impact of Covid (listed at £12.7m) Norwich City generated revenue exceeding £100m for the first time in their history in 2019/20. The accounts cover a 13 month period rather than 12 the previous season. There was a £2.9m profit before tax compared to a loss before tax of £39.4m over the previous period. Commercial income at Norwich impressive compared to peer group. Benefitted from catering (£4.6m) and sponsorship up from £3.3m to £10.3m. Benefits of being in the Premier League highlighted as broadcast income for Norwich up from £9m to £92m. Would have been higher had rebates not kicked in to broadcasters for Covid. Huddersfield finished bottom in 2019 but earned £12m more from TV than Norwich last year. Norwich wages hit record £89m, up 74% on previous year They represented 75 per cent of turnover.. The average wage for a first teamer was £34,400, compared to £28,000 the last time the club was in the Premier League. Whilst Norwich wages higher than some other Premier...

Which of the three clubs relegated from the Premier League will take the hardest hit?  Writing from his Zurich fastness, the Swiss Ramble has some authoritative answers. Looking at the last reported numbers from 2018/19, it would appear that Bournemouth have most to fear, because they had by far the largest operating loss (£30m) and highest wage bill (£111m). Watford's operating loss was only £6m, while I estimate small profit for Norwich City (pre-COVID). In 2018/19 Watford had the highest revenue of the relegated clubs with £148m, ahead of £136m for Norwich City (estimated, as played in the Championship that season) and £131m for Bournemouth . Revenue will be lower in 2019/20, due to smaller TV money (lower league place) and COVID-19 impact. Looking at recently relegated clubs, r evenue decrease following relegation ranged from £54m (WBA) to £63m (Sunderland), averaging £61m (50%) in 2017/18 and £56m (45%) in 2018/19. Given the higher revenue in 2019/20 Premier League (pre-COV...