"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
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.
A deadline of 3 p.m. BST has been set for the sale of Crystal Palace to be completed, otherwise the club may be starting down the slippery slope towards liquidation. Administrator Brendan Guilfoyle sounded a worried man when he was interviewed on Radio 5 this morning and said that he was ‘genuinely concerned’. That is administrator speak for ‘things look grim’.
Over the last sixty years I have seen rapid technological changes transforming the way in which people live their lives. The internet and mobile technology has probably brought about the biggest changes. In contrast, the technology of football has not changed that much at all, and there are certainly many people who like it that way.
The World Cup could turn out to be the biggest-ever sports betting event. Rapid changes in betting technology will allow more opportunities to place a wider range of bets. For example, at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, there was no such thing as betting on a iPhone app. Google still banned gambling advertising in the UK.
Wolves have decided to embark on a phased re-build of their Molineux stadium. They did consider leaving the ground that has been their home for 121 years, but a search revealed no alternative sites. The area is highly developed and the present site is conveniently located close to Wolverhampton city centre.
Uefa’s financial fair play rules are designed to create more of a level playing field between giant clubs and their competitors. But Sunderland chief executive Steve Walton fears that they may actually make life more difficult for clubs like his. Sunderland are trying to make the step change from being a yo-yo club to qualifying for the Europa League and that involves spending some money. As it spent to