"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
Articles and reports on financial issues within football – soccer – from The Political Economy of Football.
Fifty years ago there was a quiz show in which contestants had the choice of taking a sum of money or opening the box. The box might contain a bigger prize than the money being offered or it could be something trivial and worthless. The audience always used to shout ‘Open the box!’ stating a clear preference for risk takers.
In the last year or two many people have seen their wages frozen or had very small increases. Others have actually seen their pay cut. But it’s a different story in the world of football. There has been double digit growth in Premier League wages for the last three years according to the latest Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance.
Alisher Usmanov has shown that he’s still very much in the running in the battle to acquire Arsenal. He is thought to have spent around £300,000 on shares in the last week which shows that there are still small pockets of shares out there to buy, although they are getting scarcer and more expensive. His latest purchases bring his stake closer to 27 per cent rather than 26 per cent, but Stan Kroenke remains the biggest shareholder.
Like many old jokes, it contains a kernel of truth. How do you get a small fortune? Start with a large one and get involved in running a football club. But there may be human costs as well. The chairman of St.
As we have reported over the last few months, Revenue and Customs has been getting increasingly exasperated with the view of many football clubs that meeting their PAYE and other tax obligations is an optional extra. When clubs go bust, they have been particularly annoyed by the ‘football first’ rule which means that failing football clubs settle ‘football debts’ ahead of all others.
Bromsgrove Rovers were at one time in the Conference, but they hit financial problems and have fallen back to the third tier of the non-league. The Worcestershire town is within commuting distance of Birmingham. Now the local council has to decide whether to award the lease of the ground to Rovers or to a new fans’ club.
The way in which football is organised and played in a particular country is influenced by a number of factors including: history; how strong the economy is and how it is organised; levels of tolerance of corruption; the competitive strength of other sports; and cultural considerations.
Gerald Krasner, a partner at insolvency specialists Begbies Traynor has warned that they have eight Premiership and Championship clubs on their critical list and some of them could well go under over the summer. Kranser served as chairman of Leeds United and also as administrator at Bournemouth so he has direct experience of clubs in financial trouble and what he says should be listened to. Fortunately, Crystal Palace escaped from the brink, but the next club may not.
Dutch football clubs are mired in a financial crisis. They made a combined loss of €90m in the season just ended. Only six out of 37 professional clubs are financially healthy and 14 face financial difficulties. Two clubs have been bailed out by their local council which certainly wouldn’t happen in England, indeed it is questionable whether it would be lawful to do so.
As we predicted earlier today, Crystal Palace have been saved from extinction. A last-minute agreement was reached for CPFC 2010 to buy the club and the stadium.
Most negotiations over football clubs in administration are resolved before the brink is reached, but the situation at Palace was particularly complicated. The sequence of events does demonstrate that in today’s financial climate, nothing can be taken for granted.