One of the paradoxes of some socialists is they like football. You would have thought they would dislike most features of the way it is run in the UK . It has more of what they call the âexcessesâ of capitalism than most sectors and companies. It revels in large inequalities of income and wealth, sacks people frequently and divides people and teams into extremes of success and failure.
Socialists dislike large income inequalities. Players and managers of top clubs are paid unbelievable seven figure packages whilst caterers, security staff and admin are on modest wages.
Socialists dislike favoured treatment for talent. Football treats stars so much better than others, and is hard on those with less skill or luck in games.
Socialists dislike employers exercising disproportionate power. Clubs literally buy and sell players as if they were just assets and liabilities.
Socialists dislike billionaires who keep money offshore. Football clubs are keen to attract such backing.
Socialists (and non socialists) dislike exploitation of monopoly power over prices. Famous clubs can charge a lot for tickets and merchandise.
Socialists dislike people being sacked. Football managers who have worked hard and met their contract terms can often be sacked for losing too many games.
Socialists dislike people and institutions being divided into successes and failures. That is the main purpose of every game.
It is going to take regulation to change all that. If the new Regulator does seek to alter some parts of the current formula the UK could lose talent and money to overseas. Who is for a league with equal money for each club topped up by tax revenues? Who wants to subsidise losing teams? Who favours an end to âcruel â knock out competitions? Who wants more protection for managers, and an end to bidding rounds for players? Regulation could easily drive money and talent away.An extreme culture based around individual and team performance is what fans like and is what makes the UK league such a success with world audiences.
February 7, 2025
Maybe they will enforce DEI into football, in which case 75% of top players will have to be white.
February 7, 2025
If football teams had to represent the community it served (ie the people that pay to go), then there would hardly be any ethnic minorities at all. This what makes me angry about DEI (or DIE as I call it). The rules are not universally or equally applied. Only when it is to the disadvantage to white people. A perfect example of *Real Racism.
*And if you know your football (clubs) then you will know what I did just there đ
February 7, 2025
It’s not meant to be fair or equal it was never the intent.
DEI/Race Relations/Human Rights, none have ever been about anything other than enforcing something on a majority.
February 7, 2025
Not so. In South Africa is about forcing it on the minority.
February 7, 2025
And 52% of the premier teams female too with equal pay for work of course as determined by tribunals and judges. Cleary this is needed for actors too we really cannot have certain actors paid thousands of times more than other actors for a days work can we. How is Birminghamâs bankruptcy caused by incompetence but mainly the equality act going?
February 7, 2025
Under the Equality Act 2010, there are 9 protected characteristics which are; age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.
Needless to say it created loads of parasitic work for lawyers, destroyed productive jobs, damaged the economy. The Con-Socialists under Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak did nothing to kill this insanity.
Surely there are often very good reasons indeed not to employ these people in certain jobs? Do you want a surgeon who does not believe in blood transfusions, or a grid electrical engineer who has be conned by the net zero religion and loves the âunreliablesâ?
February 7, 2025
Interesting too that they are very happy to have separate schools for people with sporting or football ability but not for academic ability where all seem to have to have the bog standard, level down agenda even any streaming is frowned upon. If you want a private school here you have to pay three times over four now with VAT on top now too.
February 7, 2025
They’re also applying it to Next and Asda between shop workers and warehouse workers. Those indoor shop workers wouldn’t want the cold warehouse jobs with manual handling and targets but they want the same pay.
February 7, 2025
Football is a good example of how the UK, or more specifically England, operates.
The largest and most lucrative clubs are owned by wealthy foreigners whose first interest is their own profit. Ownership by unsuitable, corrupt individuals has also been a problem that had to be addressed.
Some fans are now priced out by expensive ticket prices. Owners are happy to replace them with wealthy tourists.
Some bigger clubs would be eager to end relegation and promotion so that the long term value of their asset is ring fenced.
Traditional, cherished competitions like the FA Cup are now downgraded as owners see bigger profits by concentrating on other games.
February 7, 2025
The mighty Celtic up in Glasgow and to a lesser extent Liverpool do not like the monarchy.
That is surely socialist.
February 7, 2025
Not on a worldwide basis, the Caucasian race is the smallest.
I think they will claim to be a âglobalistâ enterprise.
February 8, 2025
A global minority, soon to be a minority in its own homeland. One that will probably never be allowed to be over-represented. Its like a war was began and no one polite was allowed to notice.
February 7, 2025
It is clearly not fair that no goal keepers are under 5ft hugely heightist. PLUS 20 Stone players rather few on the ground too.
February 7, 2025
‘One of the paradoxes of some socialists is they like football. You would have thought they would dislike most features of the way it is run in the UK .’
Maybe they should follow St. Pauli of Hamburg. That is definitely a socialist club. German football has generally avoided the rich foreign ownership model.
St Pauli is looking for fans to hold shares in the club on a sort of coop basis. It’s not a bad little club their pub is a pretty enjoyable place. The stadium is not a soulless place like their city rivals Hamburg football club.
February 7, 2025
Cricket is becoming capitalist too. The county game is dying and there is no money it. Middlesex will be forced out of Lords to make way for T20 and The Hundred.
Indians will own most of the new teams and effectively call the shots.
Test matches are already extremely expensive.
Money changed rugby union too. Lots of clubs went bankrupt.
February 7, 2025
Good morning.
I am not a Socialist, but I do not like the ‘Beautiful Game’ treated like a political football – pun intended.
I find this an odd statement. I do not go to football and think whether or not the people around me are of the Left or Right in politics. They are fellow supporters – end of ! Although I will confess that a former Chairman of my club is a staunch Communist. Not that this is in anyway relevant.
Football is, or at least was, a working man’s game. Football fan’s such as myself tend to be traditionalists’. We do not like change, even in the off-side rule let alone anything else. But as the Beautiful Game has become more popular and encompasses the wider community it has attracted all sorts into the game and of course more money. And where there is money there is the desire for more power. This came to a head with the creation of the Premier League in England which sought to break away from the Football League and concentrate the greater revenue that TV money would bring in amoungst themselves. To that end it has been very successful.
The problem as I see it is Globalism. Football is increasingly being seen as a global sport and not just for internationals but for league clubs as well. Here in the UK an unusually high number of top flight English clubs are being bought up by USA businessmen and investment funds. They clearly are not doing so out of the love of the game and see it as a vehicle to increase their portfolio.
The question on future governance of the game does not lay with installation of a political apparatchik. Why ? Because like all such things it will only want to seek more power and control for itself with an end result much elsewhere we see – a mess !
Leave things alone. We who do care and pay with both our time and money know what is best.
For the record my (local) club, which I have been supporting for over 25 years now is in one of the lower divisions having climbed out of Non-League. We did it without government help or any help from the Football Authorities. We did not need them then and we do not need them now.
February 7, 2025
@ Mark B – I am gratified to learn not only that ” We who do care and pay with both our time and money know what is best” but also that the owners, including the “…USA businessmen and investment funds [who] clearly are not doing so out of the love of the game and see it as a vehicle to increase their portfolio”, are attentive to the wishes of such fans.
February 8, 2025
You obviously do not know anything about football or football fans.
February 7, 2025
I think you miss the point.
For football to remain popular it has to be in the form of raw capitalism.
February 8, 2025
No ! Football is about entertainment. The more entertaining and successful a team is, the greater the crowds. Very few other business are like this. They also rely on a very partisan customer base – ie supporters.
February 8, 2025
Not to forget the media and merchandising income.
February 7, 2025
Football is as you say a largely unregulated business. Socialist like to regulate everything to ensure equality of outcome ie the lowest denominator.
Like everything they touch they will destroy it by taking the unpredictability and sheer drama out of the game.
I’m surprised they don’t ban the plebs from attending on security grounds. The again bread and circuses comes to mind.
February 7, 2025
Indeed. Well the state decided fans should be penned in then let too many at the pot in killing 97 people injuring many more then they tried to cover Hillsborough up for 35 years! How long for Lucy Letby, the lockdowns and Covid vaccine scandalsâŠ
Kevin Hollinrake on GB news asked about the fact that circa 1/3 of Tory voters have moved to reform.
He says we failed to deliver on immigration. No Kevin you failed for 14 years to even âtry to deliverâ.
He says Tory policies are basically the same as Reforms. No Kemi is for net zero, for the ECHR, for renewable subsidies, for big government, for not taking full advantage of BrexitâŠ
They he says he does not want to have a reform pact. Well nor do reform mate!
February 7, 2025
One of the main reasons we have such pay differentials in football (and other sports) is you can only have 11 plus reserves on the team for you want only the very best 100% people. In business you can employ 3x 95% people who may well cost far less and do a better job. Not in football, tennis or acting really. So the 100% best players can be worth 1000 times that of the 98% ones.
February 7, 2025
Lifelogic,
I thought you might see a bright side. Probably more engineers than PPE graduates.
Maybe more who passed the 11 plus too, since you mention it.
February 8, 2025
Ian
It is very regulated. Just not by the State. And FIFA, despite all their faults, like it that way.
February 7, 2025
The only good thing to come out of it, is they’ll lose more votes. Their obsession to run everything will ruin them.
Unfortunately it’s not just politicians, it’s a whole public sector managerial class who think they know better than anyone else and should be in charge. For that we can blame in large part the changes Blair made to education, eagerly supported by the sector, to force 50% and more young people to get degrees. Employers (especially public sector ones) lazily went along with it and in so doing cemented the idea that a degree (even one of the new, debased ones) meant you were entitled and specially able to run things. Experience and natural aptitude were disparaged. It’s a delusion that has come back to bite us.
February 7, 2025
How fun it is to mock the Socialist mentality. I really enjoyed that irony! It is concerning though they don’t have the same love for their country as they do for their club. Imagine where Britain would be today if it had never been burdened with Socialism. That outcome exists just across the Atlantic.
February 7, 2025
I see it as a tribal game derived to a great extent from the gladitorial displays of Roman times. As such it suits the masses admirably and goes a long way to confirm that the game of the populus arouses the unacceptable face of capitalism in all of them. It also serves as a distraction from the narrow lives many lead.
The reason socialism leaves it untouched is that it is an extension of the tribalism that runs through their veins and touches every decision they make. Because labour are not premiership and are giving no pleasure to what they consider to be their tribe, they are heading for relegation from whatever local league they belong.
My pleasures were the business I once ran, balanced when possible with shooting, climbing, rallying, sailing and flying. My only regret is that there are few left with whom I shared these activities. We all prefered doing to spectating. Never falling for the Duke of Edinburgh’s identified disease of “Spectatoris”.Football never featured.
February 7, 2025
If foofball is one of the worst existing examples of capitalism, don’t condemn capitalism, because long ago the Quakers created much more acceptable forms of it. Perhaps we should look at what they achieved and evolve the principal to modern challenges. Therebye creating a more universal affection for capitalism. Example, today both parents have careers, infants need care , create it in the workplace with tax incentives for employers to create professiional facilities. Do the same with healthcare etc, etc. Call it capitalism with a conscience.
February 7, 2025
Derived more,I would say,from the chariot racing teams of the later Roman empire when the capital had moved to Constantinople and the adoption of Christianity made gladiatorial contests problematic.The teams,particularly the Blues and the Greens,had their own large supporter factions which spawned political militias which in turn led to riots,notably in 532AD when a significant part of the city was burned down(including the original version of the Hagia Sophia.
February 7, 2025
Football is dull in the extreme. Many of us are happier knowing nothing about it. Games like chess, pass the parcel and tiddlywinks are more exciting. What socialists like and do is a matter for them. Even so, some are sensible, pursuing good intent and avoiding angry conflicts.
February 7, 2025
I have no idea why Sunak’s government and now Starmer’s wish to regulate Association Football. It has its own national and international bodies and plenty of people who wish to invest. English football seems to be a worldwide success and popular. If soccer, why not rugger, crocket and golf? As with a lot of politics, this is a distraction activity.
February 7, 2025
The Premier League is one of our more successful exports, I am sure politicians will be able to stifle it fairly quickly.
It is true to say football at the top level has changed. A working man can no longer afford to take say his two sons to watch top flight football on a Saturday afternoon.
I don’t think the top clubs, with one or two exceptions, want individuals to come and watch. The clubs seem to be more interested in attracting corporate customers who will buy a hospitality package offering a warm comfortable box for twenty people with drinks and meals provided.
It is true to say that top players are paid crazy salaries but, good luck to them, not everyone has that skill nor level of dedication to handle such a role.
We used to have a player’s pay cap but I would hate to see the return of such a rule.
February 7, 2025
If you want to experience what football was once like back in the day (pre-1990’s), minus the violence, you can always seek out a nice non-league club. Terraces in on which you can stand anywhere with your friends and family whilst holding a pint.
They are not the greatest footballers but you do not have to wait for VAR to tell you if it a goal or not.
February 8, 2025
In 1961 my local team won the League Championship and the F.A.Cup. Several first team players lived not far from me in houses similar to our modest semi. One day, while out on my bike, I saw the goalkeeper, a Scottish International, cutting his garden hedge. I asked him if I could help and he said “Sure, sonny, you sweep up the cuttings and put them in the barrow.” We chatted and I was in heaven! The Centre Half (England International) lived a couple of miles away and (the cheek of it!) I knocked on his front door to ask for an autograph. He answered my knock himself, was most courteous and signed my book.
This is a world away from what football has become. I feel no affinity to it and don’t care who wins what in the top league competitions. As already said, non-League is a different matter and I delight in seeing lowly teams causing problems for the elite in Cup competitions.
February 7, 2025
The sweet FA has too often failed when left to regulate itself though.
Witness the grotesque ineptitude over operation of VAR that saw one match spoiled when a VAR decision about the validity of a goal was wrongly communicated to the on-pitch referee. Fail safe communication protocols (of the type tried and tested in the aviation business) were not a feature.
Consider also that standard statistical techniques applied to referees’ actions show some making decisions against some teams with a frequency that materially exceed the probabilities expected. This information came to light only as a result of a numerate fan presenting his analysis whereas to my mind it should have been revealed by routine monitoring by the FA.
Of course, a government regulator may well do no better but at least we will have a Minister to chastise.
February 7, 2025
It is all about money and power, not the game itself. It is also about wealth redistribution, something this government would be keen on for both ideological reasons and well as political / popularity. Labour and Starmer need a win to avoid relegation in 4 years time.
There are various bodies representing all parts of the game. The FA and the Football League (Clubs), the managers and players unions, along with those organisations representing fans and officials. All needs is for them all to come together.
February 7, 2025
Socialists also like free tickets to Arsenal.
Not sure why you keep mentioning “Socialists” though, the football regulator was entirely a Conservative policy which Labour are simply continuing. Or are you saying the last Conservative government was Socialist ?
February 7, 2025
A certain socialist has been an ordinary season ticket holder for years….moved over a perceived risk to the VIP area. Free? No.
That risk is likely a real one!
February 7, 2025
I suggest they want to regulate football because, having virtually driven working men’s clubs and pubs to extinction, it is the last bastion of traditional (white) working class “pleasure” and interaction which they currently can’t monitor and control.
We’ve had experience over the last few years of the FA and Premier League going down the Woke virtue-signalling route and getting push-back from large elements of the crowd and sometimes individual supporters, who refuse to accept the trans nonsense.
In the Authoritarian Mind which infests our governing class (not just the Student Union Marxists, the Not-a-Conservative-Party is just as bad), that cannot be allowed to continue.
February 8, 2025
I booed when our players took the knee during the BLM matter. I go to football to watch footballers display their talents, not their political views.
February 8, 2025
So it’s your fault đ
February 7, 2025
Socialism is about hatred of rich.
WOKE is about excessive female energy in our culture.
The vulnerable need protecting from psychopaths and narcissists but most rich people aren’t psychopaths or narcissists.
We need a certain amount of female energy in our culture but it has to be balanced with masculine energy too. Some men are tyrants. And women (and society) need protection from such men. But most men are not. In fact, our society has gone the other way where too many men today are ‘nice guys’ (wimps) because of WOKE.
All of this dramatically impacts on our economy and the happiness of people in general including on things like marriage.
February 7, 2025
Some time ago Mrs Gold and I took a three week trip to Botswana, where English is widely spoken and they drive on our side of the road. We hired an air-conditioned 4×4 Kia Sportage, loaded it up with about half a ton of water and connected a portable satnav that we obtained at the hire car place.
Botswana exports diamonds and electricity. It is a well developed democracy, a member of the Commonwealth with free primary schooling, health care, a mobile phone network and good roads. Sir Robert McAlpine plc built their coal-fired power station directly over a coal mine. But, as you travel into the Okavango delta, the mobile signal drops out, there is no internet and we were relieved to find our lodge late in the afternoon.
Having checked in, we walked round to the bar, which had a Sky satellite dish on the roof. The locals, wearing red shirts, were gathered round a flat-screen TV, watching Manchester United play Chelsea in the Premier League!
We were pleased that Botswana has got it’s priorities right, watching one of Britain’s exports. Premier league football, it seems, is a global activity
February 7, 2025
Botswana is a great beacon of hope for the rest of Africa – to develop their democracies and economies. Africans don’t want to depend on Western charity / aid. They want to be like Botswana and move up from there.
February 7, 2025
Working class man, when the above dawns upon him: “I love football. It sounds as if those in charge of the party that I have unthinkingly voted for all my life hates it. That was never the case in Harold Wilson’s days. Why should I continue to vote Labour?” We can but hope…
February 7, 2025
An excellent article Sir John.
The other blindness of socialists is their happy acceptance for the huge wealth of sports stars and film stars versus their open dislike of the wealth of entrepreneurs.
I find it very strange.
February 7, 2025
Socialists also like the capitalism that accumulates wealth they can borrow, when their economic plan doesn’t work. Wealth beyond the reach of their taxation system. They also like the capitalism that invests in their country, providing them with tax incentives and leaving tax loopholes they exploit unfilled.
Global capitalism is something to be courted, whereas local capitalism is an evil that must be extinguished.
February 7, 2025
Football & captialism is a dichotomy; like labour voters supporting brexit
February 7, 2025
Did I miss the section about money laundering in football Sir John?
February 7, 2025
Money laundering is now in plain sight on ever high street …..nail saloons, mini-marts, takeaways & barbers
February 7, 2025
Sir John
So true, but Socialist particularly those that graduate to Marxism are hypocrites, they want to mould society to fit in with their very personal views. Your agree with me or you are a right-wing fascist when in practice it is they that are the fascist. Yet who in this Government has had their wealth protected by Law by ensure his wealth became got a special “tax unregistered” pension – that is this Marxists version of his personal flavour of Socialism
They donât believe in a society of individuals, capable of individual achievements, the donât believe the ‘minions’ should acquire wealth, so tax everything that suggests someone is trying to become resilient and self-reliant – in fact they donât believe in any freedoms.
February 7, 2025
I used to really like football (now Iâm old I am losing interest in everything). And, as I refuse the BBC extortion fee, I cannot watch Match of the Day (also the pundits annoy me) – so I have lost touch. I recent years, whilst watching the professional game, did I think about the money? No, Iâve loved the game since the day I first kicked a ball. Am I a socialist?
February 8, 2025
Mike
People seem to think that Socialists dislike money. If anything, judging by how many prominent socialists are millionaires or, have very close ties to millionaires and billionaire, not to forget their own wealth, once can only conclude they do not.
As I keep saying. Show me a socialist and I will show you a hypocrite.
February 7, 2025
Competitivity doesn’t fit in well with the socialist mind whatever the game — They’d prefer there was no game rather than one that insulted their feelings. But this is just one aberration shared by the socialist mind.
Competition inspires and promotes the best, whether in business, the police force or sports. Socialists would rather fill our society and leaders with the mediocre, irrational or simply the stupid. This is no way to win in a very competitive world, where winning means better survival outcomes.
We can survive dull and boring leaders, but we cannot survive a regime that shuts down the ability to improve one’s lot by working hard and becoming better.
Making changes to the way the football industry operates won’t just indicate an end to competitiveness in all manner of ways, it will tell us that socialism has triumphed beyond the wildest dreams of so many armchair socialists who cheer at the obscenities imposed on everyone with any talent.
It should be recognized how little survival potential socialism offers. In its most pure state it offers only decline and loss of freedoms to an increasingly irrational undemocratic and uninspired regime.
February 8, 2025
Correct. Socialism is all about keeping the ‘Little People’ down and telling them it is someone else’s fault that they cannot heat their home etc.
February 7, 2025
Well I would like all sport including football, returned to amateur status.
I can see the point of going down on a wet and windy day to support your son and his local friends, and even getting excited when they beat the neighbouring town. Bishop Auckland won the very first Football World Cup – you met the whole team in the pub afterwards, they were your friends and neighbours.
I just donât understand why Rodney beats his chest and wails whenever Toon is beaten – which is often in spite of much treasure thrown at it, and Iâm infuriated when the roofer informs me he will be away 3 days because Toon is playing away! My roof must leak while he follows and he has the money to follow because too much wealth has pooled on the floor and his necessities are paid for by the taxpayer (me!). On top of that England has not had a team capable of winning since 1966!
Sports drain all the capital out of society which is required to create wealth, then people like Linacre stand on a stage and berate us for not paying more, we canât invest and create more wealth because he has the money and we are NOT allowed to sack the non-performers.
February 7, 2025
The need for regulation by Government only exists in Government minds (sadly tory and labour).
A successful industry that must be brought to its knees like everything else Governments touch – as BB used to say “there is nothing in the world that cannot be made worse by Government interference”.
February 8, 2025
+1
February 7, 2025
I can think of a number of reasons why Parliament, which is composed almost entirely of soocialists, want to regulate football. Not in any particular order:
Regulation enables further taxation.
Further jobs for Civil Servants , regulators, quangos, NGOs etc.
More work for lawyers and the judiciary.
Another, popular, HoC Select Committee and staff
Another, popular, HoL Select Committee and staff
Free tickets and upgrades for politicians
Free trips and tickets to go abroad âto see how other countries regulate/operate their national leaguesâ
Free trips and tickets to international competitions âto check how these affect our national leagueâ and to represent our national league.
Begin work on an EU league and an EU football team
Control money coming into and out of football, who can play and when and the process of relegation and promotion of clubs to ensure âfairness to allâ.
Control of who can attend games as net Zero will require reduced travel.
Just to control because itâs there.
Simply to destroy a popular, prosperous, well functioning, private enterprise.
February 8, 2025
+1
February 7, 2025
What I don’t like are all the foreign players in the game. It would be nice to go back to English players (in England) who you could identify with. All these people paid for and brought in is so confusing and you do not feel it is our game anymore. You see I am of the older lot who remember going as a child to the underage ones coming up from around where I lived. Never see that today which is a shame as it excludes the young from identifying with their roots.
February 8, 2025
There are a lot of English players in the lower leagues. Foreign players get to play in the higher leagues because that is where the money is.
February 7, 2025
We are now governed by Marxists. They will do everything to tighten their grip such as cancelling elections and giving elderly Imams a veto over what we – the millions – can say in public.
An economically depressed and immiserated population is fine so long as they cannot vote their way out of the condition. They know full well that capitalism frees and pleases the people and that football has been bread and circuses to cover for the leftist takeover.
What use is a contented and prosperous population to a Marxist ?
Let’s hope that the football crowd wake up before it really is too late.
February 8, 2025
+1
February 7, 2025
Sir John
More of Starmers long term friends and pals are coming out of the woodwork and are confirming they are working to hand the Chagos Islands to hand them Mauritius at a big price to the UK Taxpayer .
( Allegation about named individual removed ed)
Then we get âThe Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that the “electromagnetic spectrum” at the base which “enables secure communications in the region” would not be able to continue to operate without an agreementâ Military operations and their communications only happen when their âfoesâ say it is OK? Pull the other one.
There is something inherently rotten and corrupt going on in this Government
February 7, 2025
It isn’t just socialists who seem to struggle with capitalism. It’s the Conservatives too.
Could someone please enlighten Ms Priti Patel as to what “… the brightest and the best.” actually means as regards immigration because that’s certainly not what we’ve been seeing imported into our area over the past three years.
We’ve seen an exodus of real talent and cleverness and the arrival of slovenly and low IQ people.
(Apropos her disastrous interview for The Sun.)
The rapid decline of Britain did not start in the last six months. Please tell Tories to get out of the way and let real capitalists in.
February 7, 2025
After 14 years of prevarication by the Tory governments, looks like Labour are actually going to kickstart the nuclear power program.
Reply Conservatives were trying to get full steam ahead on buying SMRs. The system created many stages and delays. I wish Labour well in sweeping aside those barriers.
February 7, 2025
I think most of us expect the government to run âthe systemâ – not the other way round. Labour show signs of getting things done. Fancy that!
February 7, 2025
“Football is a last bastion of capitalism”
Really? Have you looked at the finances of individual football clubs? Something like 18 out of 20 Premier League clubs lose money every single season.
The current Premier League PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules) limit clubs to losing ÂŁ105m aggregated over three seasons.
There are some football clubs who spend more on player wages than they receive in total income. What happens when they run out of other people’s money?
“Who is for a league with equal money for each club”
Have you studied the business and financial model of the NFL in America?
If you want a real insight into the (financial) state of football, I recommend “The Price of Football” podcast.
February 7, 2025
Ah! But I’d bet the socialists would say that “Football” was different and therefore not subject to their rules and expectations. I wonder what they’d say about ‘Cricket’ and other “Posh” games.
Why, they even stopped fox hunting because it was only for “The Toffs”. Typical socialist’s, dive in feet first chasing an ideal rather than first researching the subject, not knowing that many ordinary ‘working class’ country folks went along for the ride and the horsey chase employed around 20,000 workers. No matter Chicken and Turkey farmers relied upon those hunts to cull the predator’s populations to protect their birds and their livelihoods. It’s no different today. Until they turn their backs on antiquated socialist idealism they’ll never be a valid government here.
February 7, 2025
One hopes the government will take a hint from their track record and leave football alone. Everything they touch turns to dust. Football is a game for all to play and watch, but the latter is increasingly restricted by television viewing rights and doesnât need any further interference.
February 7, 2025
It is pure Life on Mars every day.
Ted Heath loses election because he has been useless – despite his success at getting a great deal with the EEC and reducing the working week to 3 days.
Then Wilson gives into every trade union (35% pay rise to miners) and we end up with rampant inflation, high unemployment and constant strikes. Stagflation. After a couple of years cap in hand to the IMF.
Socialists never really understand how competition works – they want everyone to be a winner and everyone to have above average income. They always run out of other people’s money.
February 7, 2025
Thank you. That cracked me up đ
February 7, 2025
Socialist politicians and all who wish to exert emotive influence have always used references to football to appeal to the sympathy of the masses, as the football terraces are where they hope to find their voters… In vain these days. Those who can afford the ticket prices don’t have much time for Labour, statism, or politicians in general.
February 7, 2025
Politicians seem to take a considerable interest in something thriving and making money; if it’s struggling and finding it challenging to raise funds or pay the wage bills, they turn a blind eye.
What’s in it for us to spend?
February 7, 2025
I got the impression in the 1960s, when forced to listen to it while working in a garage, that pop music was both debased and pushed by our ruler/keepers in order to debase in turn the population and in the last 30 t0 40 years they have moved on to football as well for this purpose. This meshes with the revelation since December that the main activity of government on both sides of the Atlantic is censorship and propaganda on an almost unimaginable scale.
February 7, 2025
A question, if I may, to those on here who are familiar with energy matters. At the moment I heat my home using gas fired central heating – gas fired boiler to water filled radiators – the standard set up. Let’s say I consume x kwh each year. If I changed to using electricity to heat my home – using (perhaps) some combination of storage heaters and convector radiators of some sort – I assume that, all other things being equal, I would consume the same amount of kwh.
Given that electricity is roughly 4 times the price of gas, I assume it would cost me 4 times more to heat my home using electricity instead of gas. True?
If the electricity I use was produced by a gas fired power station – what would be the comparitive production of CO2 that I would be responsible for?
So, burn gas in a power station to produce electricity – transport over the national grid – and use it to run radiators/storage heaters in my home … or …
Burn gas that has been piped to my home in a modern combi boiler to heat water and pump it around to radiators.
Which produces the most CO2?
February 7, 2025
Unfortunately a bit of a misunderstanding here. The financial situation is sometimes – as with our local club in Berkshire -more akin to the Thames Water debacle. As a fan of water, and my local club, I’m averse to my local company being bought by some far away entity with no interest in quality or delivery, which then does some financial engineering, sells off concrete assets, takes excessive dividends and leaves me watching poop.
Competition exists neither in the water pipes nor on the football pitch. Regulation hasn’t worked in either place. The answer to both situations would seem to be to restrict buyers to local entities and regulate their actions off the pitch and out of the water pipes.
February 7, 2025
Footy is goal oriented so meritocracy is prized until rules and regs or a poor ref spoils it.
Politicians sometimes like to be seen as having empathy and rubbing shoulders with their voting base especially if they have red or blue or green etc at national level.
Unlike cricket and rugby with more complicated rules and requirements etc the majority of children would play footy at school and at home informally and thus appeal to a wider basic audience.
In fact it appears like wearing means as classless.
February 7, 2025
Jeans – error again
February 7, 2025
I have to say I like socialists I have been up to Denmark and Sweden a few times and I like their style – if that’s what socialism is but don’t think it would go down too well here.
February 7, 2025
Norway refers to âSwedish conditionsâ in the same way as we refer to prison conditions.
February 7, 2025
I personally hate football.My mother obsessed about Manchester City and wasn’t at all interested in my sport and the part I played in it but I am surely in the minority and it generates wealth and connections between countries.
It causes hysteria and silly arguments between supporters, and I really loathe any cause where people sing out of the same hymn sheet in such mass.
February 7, 2025
Bread and circuses.
February 7, 2025
I wrote about football being enormously inegalitarian in my latest article (The Equality Mythology) on my website. I didn’t go into as much detail about the various aspects of football as John Redwood has done here but what I did emphasise and still emphasise is that practically every football fan (millions of them) thinks very unequal pay for top unequally talented players is the only sensible way to run a competitive and hopefully successful club at the top level. Practically every football supporter sees the necessity of an unequal capitalist system for success in football – so people should also all see that as necessary for the more important matter of an economically successful society and country.
February 7, 2025
Surely the only thing to say on this matter is that why is government getting involved at all? Who actually cares? It’s trivial fun, an entertainment industry. There’s actually nothing at stake that ought to concern the state at all.
February 8, 2025
It keeps Starmer and Co in the news as they cannot resist trying to pretend they are relevant and useful in every aspect of our lives.