"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
The number of viewers watching Premier League matches on Sky during the first half of the season is 12 per cent down on the previous year. Sky’s latest six month results showed that profits had been affected by a £314m increase it had to pay to the Premier League in that period.
Using a KMPG database, the Financial Times has analysed the accounts of 69 clubs over four seasons. The results reveal that big spending does not always guarantee success.
Arsenal’s decision to increase 8,000 of their Platinum ticket prices at the Emirates by 3 per cent (above the rate of inflation) from next season has angered fans. Club level seats range from £2,910 in the corner to £5,755 on the halfway line.
Coventry City’s owners, Sisu, have brought a new legal action against Coventry City Council over the sale of the Ricoh Arena. On this occasion they are objecting to the sale of the Council’s 50 per cent share in the Ricoh’s operating company, ACL, to Wasps Rugby Club.
Premier League clubs made a net profit of £4m in the transfer window compared with a loss of £109m last year, according to figures from the Premier League. This January’s transfer window saw the biggest spend ever of £237m, compared with £178m last year. Sales amounted to £241m.
According to figures from Deloitte Sports Business, the gross spend by Premier League clubs in the 2016/17 season totals £1.4 billion, surpassing the previous record of £1 billion by more than a third.
Watford’s Nigerian striker Odion Ighalo was the last player to move to the Chinese Super League in the transfer window. He went to Changchun Yatai in the north of China for £20m. Full details of the players who have made a lucrative move can be found here.
Alan Shearer has suggested that fans are being cheated by clubs putting out weakened sides in the FA Cup. According to Radio 5, Premier League clubs made an average of seven changes in their matches over the weekend.
Winning the FA Cup is never going to produce large sums of money and foreign owners may be used to the situation elsewhere in Europe where cups are very much secondary competitions, hence the abolition of the Cup Winners’ Cup.
According to Fifa’s Transfer Matching System (TMS), the total spend on transfer fees worldwide was $4.8bn in 2016, a 14.3 per cent increase compared with the previous year and well above inflation.
Since 2010, all clubs are required to record transfer deals through the TMS. 14,951 deals were concluded in 2016, the highest number ever, and about a thousand more than the previous year.
The top Beijing team, Beijing Guoan, has been sold to a local property developer at a $800m valuation, suggesting that it is worth more than European giants such as AC Milan and Atlético Madrid.
Sinobo Land is buying 64 per cent of the club from Citic, a state-owned investment group for Rmb3.6bn valuing it at Rmb5.6bn ($807m). This would rank Beijing Guoan alongside the 15 most valuable clubs in Europe, according to KPMG estimates.
Top Premier League clubs have had a varied record in making profits in the transfer market over the past decade. Tottenham Hotspur made a profit on player sales of £287m, but £104m of that came in the 2013-14 season when they sold Gareth Bale to Real Madrid for £85m.
Chelsea are just behind them on £275.7m and in many ways they have been the smartest operators in the market. They have been able to comply with Uefa’s financial fair play rules and their policy of sending dozens of players out on loan has paid off.