The Political Economy of Football V2

For a brief moment in the summer, fans of the Rome’s Lazio football club were united in declaring that in order for the club to survive, its owner, Claudio Lotito, must go. Lotito’s sin, according to supporters, was not using enough cash from his office-cleaning business to buy star players. So far, so normal, for top-flight football. But it was a new low for Lazio, which has never had the same support as its Rome rival AS Roma but enjoyed a glorious era in the 1990s. It began with the arrival of Paul Gascoigne before the club won the Italian league title in 2000 under manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, the Swede who would go on to manage the England team. The July protest offered a snapshot of how politics, show business, football, economics and sometimes criminals are linked in a city where it often feels like everyone knows everyone. As a result of the club’s malaise, and its owner’s alleged failure to spend cash, supporters have boycotted home games this year, giving the Olympic stad...

Serie A is trying to close the financial gap on the Premier League.   It may be possible to narrow it, but a range of structural forces underpin the dominance of the EPL, Italian commentators admit:  https://football-italia.net/how-serie-a-close-1-billion-gap-premier-league/  

Does Milan’s San Siro need to be demolished?   Edwin Heathcote reviews the evidence from an architectural perspective in the Financial Times. Milan’s San Siro stadium is one of football’s great spectacles. Part of it is the atmosphere during a game, especially one of the Madonnina matches, the fierce derbies between the two teams that call the stadium home, AC Milan and Inter. But it is also the incredible sight of the architecture after a match, when the fans descending the huge concrete circulation cylinders create the dizzying impression of a building swirling around them, as if the whole structure is spinning in response.  The Madonnina is named after the gilded statue of the Virgin that stands atop Milan’s Duomo. The San Siro is far bigger than even that huge gothic cathedral and, together with La Scala opera house, the three constitute a kind of trinity of revered Milanese monuments. Unlike the other two, however, the San Siro looks likely to be demolished....

After multiple bankruptcies and a 21-year absence from Italy’s uppermost football league, Serie A, Como 1907 now finds itself near the top of the ranks as the season closes. Just two years after it rejoined the league, a lucrative Champions League place lies within reach. Yet for some, the most striking part of Como’s recent turnaround lies beyond goals on the pitch. Club executives have been positioning it less as a conventional football team dependent on match-day successes and more as a global lifestyle brand that has Lake Como — and fashion — at its heart.   Under the club’s chief brand officer Rhuigi Villaseñor, a seasoned fashion industry creative director and club shareholder appointed in 2024, Como works with four high-profile brands on lines for fans, including Brioni for formalwear, Rhude on casual and streetwear, Hublot on luxury timepieces and Adidas on its technical kits, including a sailing collection called Lago di Como. The team also offers luxury lake experienc...

John Foot is a distinguished historian of modern Italy.  He has written an acclaimed standard history of Italian football.   In this week's Sunday Times he laments the state of Italian football after the country's failure to qualify for the World Cup group games. It seems to me that a flaw in his argument is a failure to take account of the success of Italian clubs in European competitions.  Italy ranks after England in terms of its Uefa coefficient. He states: 'A few weeks ago I saw a game in San Siro in Milan. The stadium still looks magnificent from the outside, especially at night. But appearances can deceive. In reality this historic stadium is falling apart, like so many others in Italy. And the experience of watching a game there is not a good one. There is excessive security outside — a series of queues, gates, fences, and three requests to show your tickets, as well as a body search and an ID check. Inside, the stairs are filthy, the stairwells are covered...

Italian financial police raided Milan city council’s offices on Tuesday as part of an investigation into the sale of the San Siro stadium to private equity-backed Serie A clubs AC Milan and Inter Milan. Computers and mobile phones were seized during the raids and more than 10 people have been placed under investigation on suspicion of bid-rigging, according to people with knowledge of the details of the case.  A press conference scheduled for Tuesday morning at Palazzo Marino, the council’s headquarters, to unveil the venue’s renovation was cancelled at the last minute.  The football clubs are not under investigation. Milan’s city council agreed to sell the 100-year-old arena to AC Milan and Inter Milan, which share the venue, for close to €200 mn last year. RedBird acquired AC Milan in a €1.2bn deal in 2022, while Oaktree Capital took control of Inter Milan two years later after the club’s Chinese owners failed to repay a €400 mn loan in time. After a years-long tussle ...

The founder of RedBird Capital Partners, Gerry Cadinale, bought AC Milan in 2022. A year ago, when the team was trailing in the Italian league and ultimately failed to qualify for European competitions, many of the 75,000 fans at San Siro regularly chanted “Cardinale devi vendere” — Cardinale must sell. Off the pitch, plans for a new stadium kept being stalled by Italy’s notorious bureaucracy. In the media, reporters speculated that Elliott Investment Management was the real power behind the throne at the club since the US hedge fund sold AC Milan to RedBird while also lending Cardinale’s firm money to finance the purchase. He quickly notes in a lunch interview with the Financial Times that he’s already made progress. Since he took charge, AC Milan has posted three consecutive years of record profits after decades of losses — though, as in politics, fiscal responsibility rarely wins applause from fans. He thinks, everybody expects him to come in with a ton of money to buy top players...

Those of us who have been enjoying the Winter Olympics sense that they have generally well organized, leaving aside problems with disintegrating medals.   Italy can do things with style and panache, reflected n its world beating success in luxury goods sectors, but its football clubs are something of a basket case.   Serie A is no longer looked to as the epitome of football style. From his Zurich lair, the Swiss Ramble takes a forensic look at the 2024/25 accounts of AS Roma.  Here are some highlights. This was Roma’s fifth season under the ownership of The Friedkin Group, who purchased the club from fellow American James Pallotta in August 2020. In this period, there has been a fair degree of change at Roma, including no fewer than six head coaches.    Despite all this upheaval, Roma have been fairly consistent in in the league, finishing between 5th and 7th in each of the last seven seasons. That’s not too bad, but it does represent a decline in pe...

The Deloitte Money League for 2026 has been published.  The cumulative revenue of the Money League clubs grew by 11%, rising to €12.4 billion (2023/24: €11.2 billion). Matchday (€2.4 billion), broadcast (€4.7 billion) and commercial (€5.3 billion) revenues all grew to record levels, as the latter became the first revenue stream to exceed €5 billion. For the third consecutive year, commercial revenue represented the most significant proportion of total revenue for Money League clubs, generating an average of €265m (2025: €244m). The key drivers for this included improved retail performance, increasing sponsorship revenue, as well as the use of stadia and surrounds on non-matchdays. The latter represents a significant shift in the business models of certain clubs to focus on greater utilisation of stadia assets through a diversified entertainment offering. On-site breweries, restaurants, hotels, and other offerings are therefore becoming more common, demonstrating the importance ...

The Italian lakes are a favourite destination for English tourists and many wealthy Milan residents have second homes there.   One of my abiding memories is being hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation at their splendid centre in Bellagio. Normally the likes of Como FC would not attract the attention of the Swiss Ramble.   But his Zurich fastness is not far away and if he ever tears himself away from his spreadsheets, he might well spend a weekend there. Reading his analysis of Como FC they look a bit like Wrexham iin the EFL.    It also shows that emerging countries are likely to be an increasing source of funds for football. One of the big football stories in Italy has been the rise of Como as they returned to Serie A after a 21-year absence, finishing in a very creditable 10th place in their first season back in 2024/25. To date, this season has been even more promising, as they are currently in 6th place, very much involved in the race for European quali...

The death of globalisation as an economic principle has been widely proclaimed given the reintroduction of tariffs as a political and economic weapon.   However, it is alive and well in footall as is illustrated by the extensive involvement of US-based private equity firms in European football clubs.   Europe may be finished in some American eyes, but its ‘soccer ball’ clubs remain world class. The ultimate test of globalisation in football would be the staging of a regular league match in another country, but so far all attempts have failed in the face of exist ing rules.   Court challenges have been only partially successful. Plans to stage a Serie A game between Milan and Como in Perth, Australia have been abandoned, the league’s president and the government of Western Australia said in a joint statement on Monday.   Many fans will no doubt be pleased, but those pushing this concept are not going to give up - and they have plenty of money to spe...

Sports, crypto billionaires, industrial dynasties, special voting rights and Italian politics: Tether’s bid for Juventus football club stamps every number on the dysfunctional M&A bingo card, argues the Financial Times. . Tether, the biggest issuer of stable coins, has offered to buy the 36-time Italian champions for €1.1bn in cash. It already has an 11.5 per cent stake but picking up the rest requires it to win over the Agnelli family, known for its role in founding carmaker Fiat. The Agnellis have controlled Juventus for more than 100 years. Exor, their holding company, insists the team is not for sale. There are good reasons for family scion John Elkann, who runs Exor, to turn down Tether’s current offer. His company is already under fire from politicians for trying to sell its famous local newspapers; selling another national champion to an 11-year-old crypto company based in El Salvador could bring further political risks. More importantly, the bid is simply too low. Juv...

Milan’s 2024/25 accounts were the third set of accounts reported under the ownership of Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird Capital Partners, who purchased the club from Elliott Management in August 2022 in a €1.2bln deal, with Elliot reportedly providing a €560m loan to help RedBird complete the acquisition. Chief executive Giorgio Furlani told the Harvard Business School, “Our goal became to stop losses, to live within our means. As important as sporting success is, we realised we shouldn’t go into a success-at-all-costs mode: the extra costs incurred in pursuing success can kill you financially.” In the previous ten years, Milan had lost around €900m, with Giorgio Furlani admitting, “Milan was not sustainable the way it is today, the club was on the verge of bankruptcy.” Milan posted a pre-tax profit for the third year in a row, though this reduced slightly from €12m to €10, reports the authoritative Swiss Ramble. This was especially impressive, given the indifferent sporting results. ...

2023/4 was Inter’s first full season under the control of Oaktree Capital Management, who became the new majority shareholder in May 2024, after the previous owners, the Chinese conglomerate Suning Group, had failed to repay a loan from Oaktree by the agreed deadline.    The Swiss Ramble reviews their progress. Even if they narrowly missed out in terms of silverware, Inter hit the bullseye off the pitch, as they swung from a €27m pre-tax loss to a €50m profit, a hefty year-on-year improvement of €77m.   This was driven by revenue, which shot up €144m (35%) from €407m to a huge new club record €551m, though profit from player sales fell from €65m to €14m. Growth in operating expenses was restricted to 4% (€18m), as these rose from €462m to €480m. All three main revenue streams set new club records, led by broadcasting, which surged €88m (50%) from €176m to €264m. Match day rose €29m (39%) from €75m to €104m, while commercial increased €28m (19%) from €147m to €1...

Italian side Juventus are the subject of an investigation from UEFA into possible financial breaches. The Turin-based club received notification from European football’s governing body last month that proceedings had been opened into the three-year period from the 2022-23 season through to the 2024-25 campaign, with an outcome expected in spring 2026. n July 2023, Juventus were banned for a season from European competitions by UEFA for breaches of club licensing and financial fair play (FFP). The club were also fined €20m (£17.1m, $22m), of which €10m was conditional and would only be enforced if there were irregularities in Juve’s annual financial statements for 2023, 2024 or 2025.

Milan City Council passed a vote approving the sale of San Siro to Inter and Milan on Tuesday, which clears the path for the construction of a new stadium on the site.  The sale is expected to be ratified once due diligence has been completed at the beginning of November. Plans for a new stadium would see San Siro, which the two rival clubs share as their home ground, mostly demolished, with only 10 per cent of the existing structure of the stadium expected to remain. There is currently no indication of where the two sides will play while the new site is being worked on. Milan have played at San Siro since 1926 and it has been shared with Inter since 1947. In 2019, both clubs announced plans to build a new 60,000-seat stadium, though the project stalled due to political opposition and Italy’s heritage regulations, which safeguard historic structures. In September 2023, Milan announced plans to construct a new 70,000-capacity stadium in the south-eastern area of the city in an...

Juventus’ 2024/25 accounts cover a season when they finished fourth in Serie A, thus qualifying for the Champions League, but only thanks to an away win against Venezia on the last day of the season. Coming fourth was not too bad, but Juventus have struggled by their own lofty standards in the last five years, given that they had won the league no fewer than nine seasons in a row before that. Juventus’ pre-tax loss significantly reduced from €196m to €50m, as revenue rose €68m (18%) from €372m to €440m and profit from player sales almost quadrupled from €23m to €90m. Although the substantial reduction in the pre-tax loss is obviously good news, the fact is that Juventus still lost €50m before tax, which is hardly small change.   Looking at the latest published results, which are a mixture of the 2023/24 and 2024/25 seasons, Juve’s loss was still one of the worst in Serie A, only smaller than Roma €76m, Parma €64m and Monza €54m. In the three years up to 2023/24, the “Old Lady” ...

Alexander Isak’s £125million move from Newcastle United to Liverpool was a fitting final act that helped add a juicy full stop to the most spectacular summer of trading that English football has known. Deadline day alone saw £375m change hands, nudging the totalizer up to a figure that already ensures this coming January is not needed to make this the most lavish season on record. Never before have the Premier League’s 20 clubs spent nearly as much on players, both in gross and net figures. The total spend, in fact, was a remarkable £1.1bn more than last summer once the final agreements were struck by 7pm, representing a 55 per cent year-on-year increase. The fact a record number of deal sheets were lodged ahead of the deadline, a figure that ran into double figures for the desperate, illustrated the frenetic nature of business from start to finish. No club has ever had a higher gross spend than Liverpool, either. The £420m they committed on the deals to land Isak, Florian Wirtz, H...

Milan fans staged a remarkable protest against the club’s ownership ahead of their Serie A match against Monza on Saturday. Protests were held ahead of the game outside the club’s Casa Milan headquarters, where around 5,000 ultras gathered before marching to the club’s San Siro stadium. There were nostalgic chants for the club’s iconic former captain Paolo Maldini, who made a record 902 appearances for Milan and who was sacked from his directorial role by the current ownership, and for the late Italian prime minister and media tycoon Silvio Berlusconi, the club’s most successful owner. Milan ultras lined-up ahead of Saturday’s match to spell out the message ‘Go Home’ in the Curva Sud, with chants demanding RedBird Capital’s Gerry Cardinale sell his stake in the club and leave.

I have long argued that while globalisation may be over in international trade it is alive and well in football (soccer).  One sign of continuing globalisation would be regular domestic league fixtures being played abroad. Relevent Sports, the events promoter and media rights company co-founded and owned by billionaire Miami Dolphins owner Stephen M.Ross, this month settled a legal fight with the U.S. Soccer Federation, which brought the question of domestic leagues playing regular-season matches outside of their home countries into sharp focus. The matter had reached the Supreme Court in April 2024, but a sudden breakthrough came when world governing body FIFA was dropped from the initial lawsuit. FIFA said it would review its policy about domestic games abroad — with the FIFA Council approving the formation of a working group on the matter — and Relevent, in a statement, said FIFA would consider “changes to its existing rules about whether games can be played o...