"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
With the appointment of Anthony Fry as the new chairman of the Barclays Premier League, English football is now headed by a trio of Manchester United supporters. Fry is described as a ‘keen spectator’ at Old Trafford, whatever that means (perhaps that is how fans were described at his alma mater of Magdalen College, Oxford).
In a surprising but welcome development, it appears that Venky’s, the owners of Blackburn Rovers, are willing to engage in dialogue with the Supporters’ Trust which is something they have been seeking for some time. A personal letter was sent to Blackburn supremo Anuradha Desai and she has replied asking for more information about the Trust’s intentions.
The Barclays Premier League has voted to implement new financial rules from next season. The vote was only secured after chief executive Richard Scudamore wrote to all clubs and Swansea defected from the ‘Gang of Six’, allowing the supporters of the move to secure the necessary two-thirds majority.
Rescuing Portsmouth FC has been a highly complex process involving persistence and a wide range of skills. These skills will become even more necessary once the Pompey Supporters’ Trust (PST) is in charge.
The legal experts who made up the Versiona Team were spurred on by their personal passion and dedication to Portsmouth FC. They voluntarily dedicated hundreds of hours at all times of day, night and at weekends.
Ken Bates has always been a controversial figure in English football. Although no verified figures are available, it is believed that he has shown that it is possible to make money out of football. But then he would argue that he effectively rescued Chelsea and then Leeds United when they were on the floor.
Sports lawyer Daniel Geey provides excellent in depth analysis of developments in football and his latest post looks at the efforts of the Premier League to move towards its own financial regulatory framework. He identifies a number of unanswered questions relating to their proposals.
We have consistently taken the view that Uefa’s financial fair play (FFP) rules are open to challenge in court. It is therefore interesting to see Belgian lawyer Jean-Louis Dupont, who was part of the team who won the Bosman case in 1995, arguing a similar case in the Wall Street Journal.
Football commentator and investigative journalist David Conn has raised a number of issues about governance and transparency at Birmingham City. These concern the role of Peter Pannu as acting chairman while leading shareholder Carson Yeung deals with allegations of money laundering in Hong Kong.
Charles Green has returned to his contention that Rangers (and probably Celtic as well) will be playing south of the border within five years. He claims that two English clubs have approached him and offered their shares in the Football League if Rangers were prepared to take on all their liabilities.
Watford have come in for a lot of criticism from other Championship clubs this season for their use of international loan players. They insist they have stayed within the rules, but their creative interpretation of them has led the Football League to propose rule changes that would bring international players within the five player limit.