"If you want some accessible but informative insight into football then I suggest you couldn't do better than the Political Economy of Football website, which is not only intelligible but comes with the added bonus of being written by Addicks fan Wyn Grant." Ben Hayes - Charlton Athletic programme
JSB Spurs hold the record for the largest ever attendance recorded, bringing in over 85,000 spectators for a UEFA Champions League match held at Wembley in November 2016. The largest attendance for a domestic league match was recorded by Chelsea at their Stamford Bridge ground. In October 1935 they packed in 82,905 spectators for a game against Arsenal.
Brand Finance, a brand valuation and strategy consultancy has released a report called Brand Finance Football 50 which calculates that Manchester United is now valued at over $1.2bn.
This puts the club ahead of Bayern Munich ($933m) and Real Madrid ($873). PSG were in 9th position ($541m) and the top Italian club in the list was Juventus – 11th with a valuation of $350m.
A group of international female football stars has retained two top law firms, Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP in the USA and Osler Hoskin & Harcourt in Canada, and are threatening legal action over the decision to play the next Women’s World Cup on what they call a “second-class surface” that they say causes more injuries and “degrades the women’s game.”
Players and footballing staff at Spanish football club Racing Santander (Real Racing Club de Santander, S.A.D.) had declined to compete against Real Sociedad in the second leg of the quarter-final of the Copa Del Rey (King’s Cup) in protest at not having being paid for several months.
The Growth Company Investor website is reporting that an AIM-quoted company called Sports Stars Media is developing an animation series aimed at children entitled Mourinho and the Special Ones.
Chief executive officer of the company, Ruben Dias, said that they also planned to develop a card-trading game based on the television series.
We have just read an interesting article by Michael Jackson, who is chairman of venture capital firm Elderstreet Investments, drawing parallels between football management and business management, and we thought we’d pass it on.
We often get letters (well, emails) asking about the level of Merit Payments and TV Facility Fees for Premier League football clubs. Whilst we have published some data in the past, it’s not always easy to get a proper picture of how the system works.
The website Growth Business UK has published an interview with the commercial director of five-a-side football promotion company Powerleague.
Nigel Hargreaves joined Powerleague in March 2011 from the Small Sided Football Federation, which he founded in September 2009. Prior to that, he spent eight years at the Football Association as head of strategic development.
Watch the video here. Save the Gunners: Join the cause.