"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
This article is an interesting and evocative piece by a fan about events at Portsmouth. A bit sepia tinged perhaps, but well worth reading nevertheless. At the end he suggests that someone should write a book about what has happened there and probably they will. If we were not an amateur site run by two people trying to find time in between doing their day jobs, it would be worth launching full-scale imvestigations into cases like Portsmo
They may have won promotion to the Premiership in emphatic fashion, but Newcastle United fans will have been disappointed to learn that the club is going to have to rely on loans and free transfers to strengthen the squad next season. Admittedly, there is a great spirit at the club, but this may not be enough to secure the level of success Toon fans were hoping for back where they feel they rightfully belong.
Soccer has never been an easy sell in the States, although the MSL has been making steady progress. But it’s still an also ran compared with baseball, American football, basketball, [ice] hockey and even golf.
Whether Cardiff City can win promotion to the Premiership through the play offs remains to be seen, but they have taken the first step down that road, albeit one that can have many twists and turns. For some months now we have been taking a relatively optimistic view about the Bluebirds. That may seem surprising given that Peter Ridsdale has been a controversial figure in football after his involvement in Leeds. There have certainly been some short-term problems at Cadiff and at times the club has been very near the brink.
We upset some of the Blue side of Merseyside recently by suggesting that their club would not be easy to sell. To redress the balance here are some comments by manager David Moyes. He admits that Liverpool may be the bigger brand but says that Everton are a steadier club and have much less debt than a lot of leading clubs.
There has been a growing gap in English football between the top four clubs qualifying for the Champions League and the rest. It is, of course, in large part a question of sporting prestige. It has been reported that Roman Abramovich intends to hold an inquest at Chelsea into their failure to achieve Champions League status even if they win the double. The race between Spurs and Manchester City for the fourth spot, only a qualifying one, was fierce. But the financial rewards are also considerable, far outweighing winning the FA Cup.
Sometimes when we report that a club has financial problems their fans react negatively, but there are times when one has to face unpalatable truths. I have tried to maintain a positive tone about Liverpool in recent postings. I am not a Liverpool supporter, but the club is one of the giants of football that has contributed a great deal to the game.
The Football Association, which has never fully recovered from the collapse of Setanta, has hit new sponsorship problems. Admittedly, National Express is a second tier sponsor and parts of the deal may yet be salvaged. However, they did not think that the deal represented good value for money, although there had been a change of personnel at the top of the firm since the original agreement was signed.
A leaked FA report suggests that more clubs could collapse because of unsustainable wage payments to players. It is interesting that the accompanying commentary notes a tension between financial prudence and an economic model that continues to draw investment into the game. Football economics may sometimes be crazy, but they are often crazy for a reason.
