The Political Economy of Football V2

The authoritative Swiss Ramble provides an overview of Premier League finances.  Much more Information and analysis is available on his Substack page. The Premier League has now lost money seven years in a row. Obviously, this was adversely impacted by the pandemic, which led to the huge losses reported during the COVID seasons with £992m in 2019/20 and £689m in 2020/2.   However, it has not been much better since then, losing a hefty £2.3 bln in the last four seasons, leading to an annual average loss of £564m.   That represents a dramatic worsening compared to the performance before the pandemic, e.g. it generated £786m profit in the four seasons up to 2018/19. ‘ Creative accounting; The Premier League’s losses in recent years would have been even higher without the inclusion of exceptional gains from selling assets to other group companies.   This amounted to a record £293m in 2024/25, including Newcastle United £133m, largely from the sale of St James’ Park...

Although the team I support Is not in the top flight, I enjoy the quality of the Premier League.  My wife takes a probably common position when she insists that football is limited to the Premier League, La Liga and the Champions League. Yet this successful global product is in danger of devouring itself by becoming less competitive. In 18 of the 33 Premier League seasons to the end of 2024-25, the club with the largest wage bill won the division (including six years out of the last eight); the second-highest payer has won it nine times, the third-highest four times and the fourth-highest on one occasion. Only once, with Leicester City’s title in 2016, has a club outside of the top four payers won England’s top tier since 1992. At their core, the different (financial) SCR rules (Premier League and Uefa) do have one through-line: they limit club spending on the above costs to a set percentage of relevant income, which in the Premier League’s case amounts to annual turnover plu...

Bruno Guimaraes’ £75million move from Newcastle United to Arsenal gives more supporting evidence to several recent themes. At 28 years old, the sizeable outlay on the Brazilian midfielder continues Arsenal’s ploy of spending big money on players who can immediately improve their first team. A year ago, their roughly £185million in fees on players aged over 24 was the most ever spent on that cohort by an English club in a single season. A first Premier League title in 22 years comprised proof of concept. In the 12 years to the end of June 2025, Newcastle generated £352million from player sales. A reasonable estimate, even after sell-on clauses and solidarity payments to former clubs, has them matching that figure inside the past 12 months. Such statistics say lots about where Arsenal and Newcastle are as clubs, but the Guimaraes deal also underscores what is fast becoming a Premier League motif: the richest teams are ever more frequently plucking the best players from the rest of ...

It would seem that Arsenal are not particularly popular champions this season because of their style of play.  To me it seems that if set plays win you matches, that's fair enough.  In any event the Gooners are laughing all the way to the bank. Arsenal’s first Premier League title for over two decades is expected to generate almost £200million ($269m) in domestic prize money as payouts to England’s top clubs hit new heights this season.   That is before we talk about the Champions League. Arsenal are expected to earn £198.7 million in broadcast revenues from the Premier League this season, a £27.2m increase on 2024-25 and £23.8m more than Liverpool received for winning the competition a year ago.  Arsenal’s takings are expected to be over £20 million higher than the previous single-season record: Manchester City’s £176.2m in 2022-23. The New York Times estimates that five clubs — Arsenal, City, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Liverpool — have all cleared ...

It is the prospect of Spurs, one of English football’s so-called Big Six clubs, exiting the league that is capturing media attention as the Premier League season approaches its end. “There’s not much hope. There is anger, just disbelief really that we’re in this situation,” Flav Bateman, host of The Fighting Cock, a Spurs fan podcast told the Financial Times . “I think a lot of Spurs fans feel the same. We’re not even talking about it anymore.” The club’s place in the Big Six has not chimed with performances on the pitch. Spurs have not won the league since 1961, while their last FA Cup trophy was 35 years ago.   Fans complain that the emphasis on the business side has led to years of under-investment in players. Spurs have spent about £1.3bn on transfer fees for players in the past decade, the sixth highest in English football and similar to Liverpool and Arsenal, according to estimates from Transfermarkt. However, Spurs spent just 43 per cent of revenue on player wages...

At Aston Villa and Newcastle United, the internal restructuring of assets by club owners generated combined paper profits of £247million. At Everton, who still posted a loss, similar moves generated £49m. Strip those out and Premier League losses topped a billion pounds. In essence, the moving around of companies or assets within the wider group controlled by each club’s owners created accounting profits. Those profits improved the bottom lines of teams who would otherwise have each posted pre-tax deficits beyond £50million. On Tuesday, it was revealed Newcastle turned an otherwise record loss into a £34.7million profit by ‘selling’ their home stadium St James’ Park and adjacent land to a new company three days before the club’s accounting year-end date last June. The company was set up by Newcastle’s ownership group, headed by Saudi Arabia’s state Public Investment Fund (PIF). The latter point was seemingly enough to obscure, for some, what the actions of last June now mean: New...

Newcastle United face Aston Villa on Sunday as two teams who have come closest to breaking the dominance of the so-called ‘Big Six’. This term has been used to refer to Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur, who have regularly finished in those places in the Premier League and therefore received the benefits of European football that come with it. Though some of those clubs have fallen down the division regularly in recent years, the financial aspect of their advantage largely remains.  Undoubtedly the single-biggest impediment to Newcastle’s growth has been financial regulations. The idea that they would become the “richest club in the world” was also a fallacy — yet even if they wanted to call upon the full resources of their mega-wealthy owners, they would be unable to do so. While Chelsea and Manchester City could keep spending following their respective takeovers in 2003 and 2008, Newcastle were forced to sell players again...

The authoritative Swiss Ramble asks which clubs have benefitted most from European competition over the past decade.  Real Madrid have earned the most TV money from UEFA competitions in the last 10 years, being the only club to break through the billion Euros barrier with €1,021m. Four other clubs have received more than €800m in this period: Paris Saint-Germain €974m, Manchester City €935m, Bayern Munich €935m and Barcelona €836m. Half of the top six are from La Liga, as Atletico Madrid are in sixth place with €761m. The next highest English clubs are further back, namely Liverpool €725m, Chelsea €589m, Manchester United €537m, Arsenal €480m and Tottenham €429m. As might be expected, the so-called Big Six English clubs have received the lion’s share of UEFA TV money in the last 10 years, amounting to €3.7 bln or 90% of the English distribution.   Manchester City have been by far the most successful English club in Europe with their €935m being €110m more than the next hig...

The replacement of PSR by SCR by the Premier League from 2026/27 may seem to be a highly technical matter: indeed it is.   It needs someone with the forensic skills of the Swiss Ramble to unravel what it all means for the competition and individual clubs.   I recommend subscribing to his Substack page to get the full analysis by the Zurich-based football finance guru.  Even so, I had difficulty in getting my head round some of the complexities, but here are some highlights. First and foremost, PSR and SCR differ in what they measure. PSR evaluates a club’s overall profit by including all revenues and costs, while SCR focuses specifically on on-pitch spending. Under PSR, clubs were assessed based on their financial performance over a rolling 3-year period, whereas the SCR sets clear spending limits for each season Compliance is monitored in-season as well as at the end of the season, allowing for earlier intervention if a club is breaching the rules. This s...

  The authoritative Swiss Ramble looks at the gap between the ‘Big Six’ and other top flight clubs. They invariably have the financial muscle to ensure that results such as Unitrd and Spurs last season are the exception, rather than the rule, while other less fortunate clubs cannot afford a bad season or two, as shown by Leicester City’s decline since surprisingly winning the league. If we define success as qualifying for Europe, an achievement that has the added benefit of enhancing revenue streams, there is no debate around the success of the Big Six. In the last 15 years, there have been only two occasions when less than five members of the Big Six failed to qualify for European competitions. Indeed, in more than half of those seasons, all six clubs successfully negotiated this hurdle. Moreover, they almost always qualified for the lucrative Champions League. Out of the 63 slots available since 2010/11, all but four of them have gone to the Big Six, the only exceptions b...

Some highlights of Premier League club finances in 2023/24 provided by the Swiss Ramble. In 2023/24 no fewer than four clubs made more than £100m from player sales, namely Chelsea £152m, Manchester City £139m, Brighton £110m and Nottingham Forest £101m, while West Ham weren’t too far behind with £96m. Four clubs generated more than £100m from match day income, namely Manchester United £137m, Arsenal £132m, Tottenham £106m and Liverpool £102m, while three clubs made less than £10m (Burnley £9m, Bournemouth £7m and Luton Town £6m). The Premier League’s other expenses, effectively a club’s running costs, have also massively grown in the past decade, rising from £670m to £1.5 bln. Costs dipped during the pandemic, but have shot up since then, first due to higher costs for staging matches with fans, then because of the impact of higher inflation, especially on services and utilities. Fans often overlook this cost category, but each of the Big Six now pay well over £100m, led by Manche...

 The term ‘Big Six’ came to prominence at the start of the 2010s, replacing the old ‘Big Four’ — germinating as City began to win league titles and Tottenham forced themselves into the Champions League. It is a reign that has lasted 15 years, but the ‘Big Six’ now lie scattered.  But be careful about a rush to judgment.    This is also about financial capacity and resilience as well as good management. The gloom hanging over United and Spurs means this season is an extreme example, but the waning on-pitch prowess of these clubs as a collective is not exactly new — Aston Villa manager Unai Emery declared it dead in April 2023. “Now it is not a top six but a top seven, top eight or top 10,” the Spaniard said soon after his arrival in the West Midlands. “There are a lot of teams capable of targeting those positions and I want to add Aston Villa into it, too.” He was right — Villa finished fourth a year later. The ‘Big Six’ have ended the season  a...

Should a majority of Premier League clubs vote through the proposed hard spending cap for the 2025-26 season, it would not only aid the competitive nature of what is the world’s strongest domestic league, but also enforce a subtle shift in the perceived power base of English football. The cap idea is based on the concept of “anchoring”, designed to limit the amount of money any club can invest in their squad by tying it to a multiple (probably five) of what the division’s lowest earners get from the league’s centralised broadcast and commercial deals. The Premier League’s broadcast revenue sharing has always been, by European football standards anyway, a relatively noble meritocratic arrangement. It is less that sharing ratio which clubs such as Everton, West Ham and Palace are worried about — and more the consistent advantage clubs such as City, Chelsea and Manchester United have accrued from decades of participation in European football. Not only do the ‘Bi...

The contrast in the business models of the ‘Big Six’ comes out in this comparison by the Swiss Ramble. Arsenal In the five years up to the 2021/22 season Arsenal had the lowest revenue of the Big Six. As a result, their wages and player purchases lagged behind, being only ahead of Tottenham. They still had to use £150m of the cash reserve that they had built up in better times. External loans were replaced by an owner loan. This will reduce annual interest payments going forward, though this transaction did incur a once-off £32m, refinancing fee. Chelsea This review covered the last five years of the Abramovich era, when Chelsea benefited the most in the Big Six from owner funding with £416m, which was made up of share capital £211m and loans £205m. As part of the sale of the club to Todd Boehly’s consortium, the debt owed to the owner has reportedly been written-off.   However, the Blues were hit by £132m adverse working capital movements. Chelsea generated the most ca...

The authoritative Swiss Ramble looks at where the money goes by analysing the last five years for the Big Six Premier League clubs. Manchester United generated most revenue in the last five years with £2.8 bln, ahead ofManchester City £2.6 bn, and around £900m more than Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. United led the way in both match day and commercial income, but were behind Man City and Liverpool in broadcasting revenue. Two of the Big Six received owner funding in the form of share capital injections: Manchester City £81m and Chelsea £50m. This is the best form of owner financing for the club, as it does not need to be repaid. Four of the Big Six spent between £1.4 bn and £1.5 bn on wages in the last five years. Manchester City led the way with £1,545m, just ahead of United £1,498m, followed by Liverpool £1,422m and Chelsea £1,366m. There is then a big gap to Arsenal £1,117m and particularly Spurs £839m. Three of the Big Six account for two-thirds of player purchases in last ...

The authoritative Swiss Ramble reviews the latest accounts of West Ham United. The pre-tax loss reduced from £65m to £27m, as revenue rose £53m from £140m to £193m despite COVID impact on gate receipts, as £26m TV money deferred from 2019/20 accounts. Owners provided £30m share capital.    Player sales fell £7m to £18m. Although the £27m loss is not great, it’s one of the better financial results of the clubs that have reported so far in 2020/21, with only Manchester United having a lower loss of £24m. Two other London clubs have posted much higher losses: Chelsea £156m and Tottenham Hotspur £80m. West Ham   have now posted losses three years in a row, adding up to a combined £120m deficit over that period, though they did make profits in four of the previous five years. The £193m revenue is currently 7th highest in the Premier League. It has increased by £72m (60%) since 2015, which is pretty good, but the problem is that the Big Six has seen even more growth , e.g...

The Swiss Ramble runs the rule over the latest Chelsea accounts from his Zurich fastness. Chelsea’s pre-tax tax loss widened from £36m to £156m (£153m after tax), mainly due to profit on player sales falling £115m from £143m to £28m, though revenue rose £28m (7%) from £407m to £435m, while there was £13m other operating income. The £156m pre-tax loss is the largest reported to date in the 2020/21 Premier League, higher than Spurs £80m and Manchester United £24m. However, there were plenty of big losses already reported in 2019/20 and other clubs will be worse with a full year of the pandemic reflected. The £153m loss after tax is by no means the largest in Europe. In fact, it is “beaten” by Inter £215m, Juventus £184m, Roma £163m and especially Barcelona £422m. The huge loss was partly due to COVID, but was also driven by significant investment in the squad, mitigated by Champions League success. The strategy is very reliant on player trading, which did not deliver as much as n...

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire says that Tottenham Hotsour are 'clinging on by their fingertip' in terms of their big six status.  Much depends on a reported £250m naming rights deal to extract value from the new stadium:  https://www.footballinsider247.com/tottenham-clinging-by-fingernails-as-levy-seeks-250m-jackpot-maguire/

The effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have been felt in this year’s transfer window, although Brexit has also had an effect. Clubs in Europe's nine biggest leagues plus the Chinese Super League have this season spent almost €3.5 billion less on players than in 2019/20.   Premier League clubs spent just €300 million less meaning the league's transfer balance deteriorated while others such as LaLiga improved, report offthepitch.com Europe's nine biggest leagues plus the Chinese Super League this season spent just €4.1 billion on players compared to a figure of €7.6 billion in 2019/20. That is a 46 per cent decrease - in actual numbers €3.5 billion less – a big difference seen in relation to the way spending has continued to rise for many years. "It's pretty much due to the financial implications of Covid-19 and the considerable amount of time with little to no fans coming through the door," says Chris Winn, MSc Football Business programme leader at UCFB...

Kieran Maguire of the PriceofFootball has published some fascinating data on cumulative profits and losses by Premier League clubs since the competition's formation.  21 clubs have losses of more than £10m and 16 have profits of more than £10m. Taking £100m as a cut off point, there are eight clubs with bigger cumulative losses.  One of them is now in League Two, one is League One and one in the Championship.   Only two clubs come from the 'Big Six'.  In other words, there isn't much of a relationship between losing money and success.  The loss makers are: Chelsea £797m Manchester City £638m Aston Villa £335m Everton £326m Sunderland £211m Fulham £186m Middlesbrough £148m Bolton Wanderers £107m The top two profit makers are the North London rivals.  Rather cruelly, Maguire says that is the only table that Arsenal looks like topping for some time.  The top four places are occupied by 'Big Six' clubs. Tottenham Hotspur £482m Arsenal £487m Manchester...