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Articles and reports on financial issues within football – soccer – from The Political Economy of Football.
After yet another deadline was missed, Kettering Town FC have been given a further stay of execution by the Southern Premier League. This weekend’s game against Barwell has been called off, but the club has had its transfer embargo lifted so that it can recruit players and field a side.
Anyone who has read the excellent diaries penned by the independently minded former MP Chris Mullin would be aware that Sunderland has faced economic challenges. Curiously, Mullin only rarely refers to the football club, but he doesn’t seem to be a fan of football in general.
Supplied with a series of blank cheques by the Qatar Investment Authority, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) continue to splash the cash. According to Gazetto dello Sport, they are ready to spend about €100m to bring Cristiano Ronaldo from Real Madrid. José Mourinho would be brought in as head coach at the same time.
The auditors of Birmingham City’s parent company, BDO, have resigned with immediate effect as they have been unable to obtain consistent, reliable and complete information on which to base their audit of the accounts.
Leading football economics guru Stefan Szymanski, now working in the US, reckons that the vastly increased sum paid for Premier League television rights on the other side of the pond signals that soccer is about to take off big time there. As he points out, the word ‘soccer’ was a word of English origin that was commonly used in the UK until the 1970s, in part to distinguish ‘association’ from ‘rugby’ football with just one word.
The Premier League has confirmed its increasing value in global television markets by more than trebling its income from the United States following a $250 million deal (£156m) for English and Spanish lanuage rights with NBC Universal. The Spanish language rights are particularly significant given that the growing Hispanic population is particularly keen on football for heritage reasons.
To the fans of many lesser clubs this would seem to be the wrong question. They would happily settle for a superb stadium, an outstanding coach, 4th place in the Premiership and the knockout stage of the Champions League. Indeed, Arsene Wenger admitted last week that Champions League qualification was more important than winning trophies.
Andre Agnelli, the president of Juventus, has delivered a stark warning about the state of Italian football. Of course, it has been recognised for some time that Serie A has lost the status it once enjoyed alongside La Liga and the Premiership. A series of corruption and match fixing scandals, the extent to which clubs are beholden to their ‘ultras’ and poor performances have all contributed to a sense of decline.
The annual meeting of Arsenal got quite heated after a vigorous exchange of views between majority shareholder Stan Kroenke and the Arsenal Supporters’ Trust which represents small shareholders. Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis was forced to intervene to calm things down.
Kroenke, who owns about 67 per cent of the club, refused to give a long-term commitment that he would not take money out of the club through dividend payments. He failed to give a direct answer, stating ‘This club is run through the board,. I have always been respectful of that.’
As Arsenal hold their annual meeting with calls for the club to spend some of their cash reserves on players, their chief executive, Ivan Gazidis, insists that good times are just around the corner.
Well, maybe, but it’s a bit like chasing the elusive end of the rainbow. Their strategy is built around the idea that their virtuous prudence will be rewarded when financial fair play kicks in and big spending clubs pay the penalty.