The Global Game

Here’s the draft of a chapter opening from my forthcoming book ‘Where’s The Money Gone? One fan’s football finance odyssey’. I reflect on the rise of international ownership in English football and the role of the Premier League.

Chinese entrepreneurs weren’t the first overseas owners in the Premier League, nor were they the last.

Chelsea’s Roman Abramovich was the innovator in 2003, but there’ve been plenty of others since.  The latest trend is for US hedge funds and oil states to buy a stake.

This inward investment is generally attributed to the global appeal of the Premier League which, in its own terms, has been a roaring success since being created in 1992.

Stadiums are generally sold out, often with waiting lists for season tickets.  Fans queue up to watch some of the world’s greatest players.

The League is the most popular of any sport in the world with a TV audience of 3 billion worldwide.  Thanks to the sale of broadcasting rights, merchandise and sponsorship, it’s also the richest.  

Fourteen of the top 30 clubs in the 2024 Deloitte Football Money League were English.  

West Ham are richer than Italian giants Napoli; Brighton eclipse Sevilla; Aston Villa have more money than Benfica; Fulham, Leeds and Crystal Palace shade Olympique Lyonnais.

Can’t we just celebrate a great British success story for once?

Well, you can if you want, but for me the reality  is rather more nuanced than the Premier League’s breathless hype machine would have us believe.

For one thing, English football’s success did not begin in 1992.  We were actually quite good before that.

In the years before the Heysel Disaster in 1985, the old and apparently dysfunctional Football League had a virtual monopoly on the European Cup - forerunner of the Champions League.

Liverpool were the continent’s dominant force during this era,  picking up four titles between 1977 and 1984, but Nottingham Forest (twice) and Aston Villa also took home the trophy.

Overall, teams from the old First Division won the European Cup seven times in eight seasons.   It took the supposedly superior Premier League 30 years to equal that achievement.

Nor does the Premier League, even today, tell the full story of England’s obsession with football.

In the 2023-24 season, the EFL Championship attracted the largest number of spectators since the competition was created (as the Second Division) in 1892.

Its aggregate attendance surpassed the top divisions in Germany, Spain and Italy.

Even in League One, the third tier of the pyramid, Derby County’s average gates exceeded 27,000 - higher than half a dozen Premier League sides.

Gates in League Two were at the highest level since the mid 1960s.  Half  the teams in England’s unofficial 5th Division, the Vanarama National League averaged more than 2,000 spectators per game.

This widespread love of football isn’t always inspired by a love for the Premier League or a desperate desire to reach it, either.

I interviewed a random selection of West Brom supporters for a documentary called Keepy Uppy in 2021, in the summer after the Baggies were relegated.  

Far from being devastated at the loss of top flight status, most were looking forward to playing in the Championship again.

One supporter said “It’s nice to be involved in a competition you’ve got an outside chance of winning” 

Another offered: “In the Premier League, we all know who the top six teams are going to be, we all know who the middle teams are going to be, and we all know who’s going to be in the relegation fight.”

A third fan commented, “we don't want to be cannon fodder anymore, and that’s what I really dislike and despise about how the Premier League is set up.

A fourth said, “when you’re in the Premier League you try not to lose, but in the Championship you’ve got to try to win.”

If, as I suspect, these are widely held views, they would suggest that English football is booming in spite of the Premier League, not because of it.