The Political Economy of Football V2

Once again, there are whispers that owner Dejphon Chansiri is preparing Sheffield Wednesday for a sale, though there have been similar noises on many previous occasions with no resulting transaction. In 2022/23 Wednesday’s pre-tax loss was virtually unchanged at £7.2m, even though revenue increased by £3.0m (18%) from £16.3m to £19.3m, as this was offset by operating expenses also rising £3.0m (13%) from £23.7m to £26.7m.   Wednesday’s £7.2m loss was one of the highest in League One in 2022/23, though a lot better than Derby County £30.4m and Ipswich Town £18.2m. Although it’s never great to lose money, Wednesday’s losses in the last two years have been pretty small compared to their recent past and the best by far in the Chansiri era.   Wednesday lost a hefty £132m in the five seasons up to 2020/21, averaging £26m a year. Wednesday’s revenue will obviously have increased last season following promotion to the Championship, mainly thanks to the higher TV distribution, bu...

Jiventus made losses of €200m to June this year, but are seeking to bring losses under control and have cut the wage bill:  https://football-italia.net/juventus-increase-losses-cut-wage-bill/

Leeds United have announced plans to modernise Elland Road and increase the capacity from just under 38,000 to 53,000 to make it the seventh largest ground in the country:  https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/sep/23/leeds-united-plan-to-redevelop-elland-road-into-53000-capacity-football-stadium The ground has been full for every home match played in the last six years.  There are also 26,000 supporters on the waiting list for season tickets. The plans would also see the ground modernised to meet UEFA Category 4 regulations for "elite" European stadia.

US businessman Dan Friedkin has agreed to buy English Premier League team Everton from current owner Farhad Moshiri, potentially ending years of uncertainty at one of football’s oldest clubs. The Friedkin Group, which also owns Italian football club AS Roma, and Everton said on Monday that it had reached an agreement to buy Moshiri’s majority stake in the Liverpool-based football club, subject to regulatory approval. “We are pleased to have reached an agreement to become custodians of this iconic football club,” said the group. “We look forward to providing stability to the club, and sharing our vision for its future.” Friedkin, who has a net worth of around $6bn according to Forbes, had been in negotiations to buy Everton earlier in the year, but those talks collapsed in July. The Friedkin Group, which made its fortune selling Toyota cars across the south of the US, instead became a lender to Everton’s new Bramley-Moore Dock stadium project. The financial details of the deal wer...

The Premier League is obviously the top of the tree, generating more than £6 bln in revenue, though the lion’s share is made by the Big Six, whose £3.5 bln accounts for 57% of the total.  The Premier League is the top dog (by far), but within this division, there is effectively a series of mini leagues with the following averages: big North West three £652m, rest of the Big Six £509m, aspirational clubs £227m, mid-table £177m and relegation area £147m. The gap to the Championship is substantial with the parachute clubs averaging £65m, but this is more than twice as much as their rivals. The big clubs in League One generated £20m, but most of them were £5m to £11m. The Championship had £747m revenue in 2022/23, which was just 12% of the Premier League’s £6.1 bln. This helps explain why so many clubs in this league push themselves to their financial limit in an attempt to secure promotion.    The five parachute clubs had £327m of revenue, while the other 19 clubs only g...

When the European Super League launched (briefly) in 2021, one of the main arguments for tearing down football’s status quo was that fans were being deprived of exciting matches between elite teams.  Evidence this week suggests that argument was built on sand. When Liverpool visited AC Milan in the opening game of this season’s Champions League, one of the main talking points was of empty seats inside the San Siro. While the Italian club had an average home attendance for league matches last season of just under 72,000, local estimates put Tuesday’s turnout at around 60,000. So what’s going on? Milan have started the season slowly — and lost the game against Liverpool 3-1. But more than 71,000 showed up a few days earlier to see the  Rossoneri  host Venezia in an Italian league match.  The main culprit for Tuesday night’s empty seats appears to be rising ticket prices — seats in the lower tier of the San Siro began at more than €120. The issue of rising costs f...

Donald Trump’s former lawyer Joe Tacopina is leading a consortium that wants to buy English League Two side Tranmere Rovers and replicate Wrexham’s climb up the leagues. The 58-year-old New Yorker has been in talks with Tranmere’s owners for at least six months and his proposed takeover is now only waiting for regulatory approval from the English Football League . Tacopina has become famous in the United States for defending a string of celebrity clients, including the late Michael Jackson, former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez and rapper A$AP Rocky, as well as being a regular commentator on legal matters on American television. But as well as his combative legal work in American courtrooms, Tacopina is well known in Italy for owning football teams. In 2011, he was part of the U.S. group that bought Roma, before selling up and moving on to Bologna in 2014. He sold them a year later and bought Venezia, where he took the side from the fourth to the second tier and was knighte...