Search Results
Why I shall be especially grumpy this Saturday afternoon
Posted on April 3, 2012
“Football clubs ‘in poor financial health’” a headline on the BBC News website has just screamed (1). Apparently “many clubs are continuing to spend too much, principally on players’ wages, as they always have done”. What? Surely not? Well, OK, the said headline was in the Business section of the BBC website rather than their […]
Posted in Benefactors, Community, Debts, Financial doping, Governance, Insolvency, Ownership, Wages | 5 Comments »
No. of Clubs
Posted on February 13, 2012
I’m sometimes asked for a magic number – the number of top clubs which have gone into Administration. It’s difficult give a simple answer because: Administration is a misleading basis for counting. Clubs can be wound up without ever going into Administration. A better measure is ‘insolvency event’, a term which can however be defined […]
Posted in | 1 Comment »
The Magic of Football – still there in the Cups?
Posted on January 27, 2012
It’s increasingly difficult to see any magic in the beautiful game other than black magic, especially when you look at it from a financial perspective. You only need to think of the narrow escapes at Plymouth and Wrexham recently, and both Portsmouth and Darlington are standing on the edge of the precipice. The Cups may […]
Posted in Community, Fans | Leave a Comment »
The ins and outs of the transfer window
Posted on September 3, 2011
So, the transfer window finally slammed shut, to use the mandatory cliché, amid the predictable hype. In one respect this was hardly surprising – of the 289 August deals reported by the BBC (1), no fewer than 93, or 32%, had taken place on the final day. In total 141 (49%) had taken place in […]
Posted in Costs, Globetrotterisation, Premier League, Transfers, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
The Big 1, 2, 3 or is it still 4? Or more?
Posted on June 9, 2011
Currently I’m working on a joint research project on various European football leagues with colleagues in Austria. One set of data which we have produced so far casts some light on this perenial debate. The latest version of the date centres of course on whether Liverpool ‘have fallen out of the Top 4′, and/or whether […]
Posted in Governance, History, Premier League, Pyramid movement | 3 Comments »
Some stadium snippets
Posted on April 22, 2011
Mainly, but not exclusively, bad news from various clubs at various levels in the pyramid: Bradford City (L2; population 294,000; nearest higher Level club Leeds United 10 miles [city centre to city centre, not stadium to stadium]) Younger readers may be forgiven for not knowing that Bradford City was home to Premier League football, albeit […]
Posted in Stadium | 4 Comments »
‘Club’, ‘club’ or ‘club’??? A 3Cs model
Posted on February 9, 2011
The evidence submitted by the Premier League to the House of Commons Select Committee prompts me to write again on the inherent ambiguity of the word ‘club’. The evidence contains the following statement: English football clubs are very resilient with 95% of the clubs in the Football League in 1923 still in existence today and […]
Posted in Fans, Governance, Identity, Ownership, Players' careers | 8 Comments »
Manchester City following in Pompey’s footsteps
Posted on October 2, 2010
Manchester City’s financial results, published earlier this week (1), were generally reported uncritically earlier this week, notwithstanding the key loss of £121m, with the exception at least of The Sun (2), where there was some attempt to look beyond the positive headlining provided by the club. According to the club, the financial highlights could be […]
Posted in Benefactors, Costs, Debts, Ownership | 10 Comments »
Transfer torpor
Posted on September 7, 2010
The transfer window just isn’t what it used to be. I found myself habitually clicking to find the latest news from the BBC website and checking Twitter, but there just wasn’t much happening. Even on the final day, there wasn’t much action to follow, unless you are a Stoke City, Spurs or Sunderland fan. As […]
Posted in Transfers | Leave a Comment »
The trouble with new stadiums 4 (and final)
Posted on August 10, 2010
[See also The trouble with new stadiums 1, which looked at the argument that "We’re a club with ambition and we need more seats to reflect that ambition", The trouble with new stadiums 2, which looked at the argument that "We’ve got the wrong sort of stadium. We need one better suited to maximising our […]
Posted in Assets, Costs, Debts, Stadium | 13 Comments »
The trouble with new stadiums 1
Posted on June 27, 2010
You may have noticed – I am not a fan of the new stadium. At the Supporters Direct Conference I spoke briefly about ‘the myth of the new stadium’, and over a couple of postings I’ll elaborate on why I don’t, in general, rate them. Broadly, there are three lines of argument that are trotted […]
Posted in Stadium | 7 Comments »
Whelan and Wigan
Posted on May 4, 2010
With reform of football being part of the current zeitgeist, and political parties showing some interest in the topic at least until Thursday evening (see The Times They Are A-Changin’ 3, it does not come as a complete surprise that the Premier League, in the form of certain of its club Chairmen, should begin to […]
Posted in Benefactors, Debts, Governance, Premier League, UEFA, Wages | Leave a Comment »
The Portsmouth Horror Show
Posted on April 24, 2010
It is to the credit of Andrew Andronikou, the Administrator, that with an unexpected transparency that he has published the report (1) to be presented to the creditors at the meeting on 6th May. That said, there is little more that can be said to deserve the term ‘credit’ in this latest episode of the […]
Posted in Benefactors, Ethics, Governance, Insolvency, Ownership, Premier League, Public relations | 8 Comments »
An Austrian digression…
Posted on January 3, 2010
… which I would justify in a blog on English football management on two grounds. First it makes an interesting contrast with my recent posting on what the future might hold for Portsmouth (see How much more benefaction can Pompey take? and its comments), and secondly it provides supporting evidence for my mantric moan about points […]
Posted in Insolvency, Points deduction, Sanctions | Leave a Comment »
Spotlight on Macclesfield
Posted on December 11, 2009
Since the inception of regular movement of teams between the Football League and the Conference, we have seen many clubs yo-yo, in particular the step up proving problematic in the absence of rocket payments (qv). There are clubs which have come up and now seem to be almost part of the furniture however. Such a […]
Posted in Benefactors, Ownership | Leave a Comment »
