In partnership with
Welcome to issue #092 of Contemporary Football, your inside look at how the game really works behind the scenes.
Monday to Friday, you’ll uncover a new perspective on football business, and sometimes a deeper story that sharpens your thinking and gives you an edge in the beautiful game.
If you need support on your football journey, just write me.
I came across an interesting idea in The New York Times.
It said that in the Premier League, clubs are no longer the place where value lives.
What does it mean?
Let’s think it through together.
The paradox: the richest system doesn’t make money
Start with the basics.
The Premier League is the global benchmark.
Record TV deals. Global commercial reach. Full stadiums.
Yet, look at this:
Only around 6 clubs out of 19 are profitable
total losses: £713m
real losses, without adjustments: over £1bn
This is the first thing to understand.
Wealth is not the same as sustainability.
The system generates cash.
But it burns even more.
The mechanism: profits without performance
Many clubs do report profits.
But how?
Through intragroup sales.
Examples:
Chelsea FC sells hotels and assets to a sister company
Aston Villa restructures assets internally
Everton FC does similar operations
The result:
Better financial statements, but same economic reality.
No new revenue.
No operational improvement.
Just assets moving within the same ownership structure.
A key lesson:
Financial accounts show outcomes.
They don’t always show substance.
The key shift: separating the club from its value
The most important case is Newcastle United.
They “sell” St James' Park to a company owned by the same group.
Immediate effect:
profit on paper
regulatory compliance
Real effect:
The club no longer owns its stadium.
This is not only accounting…
The new model: the club is no longer the center
Traditionally, a club was a single entity:
team
infrastructure
brand
operations
Now the model is shifting.
The club becomes an operating vehicle:
Assets sit elsewhere
Value is controlled at group level
This is standard in private equity.
It is now happening in football.
The club performs. The group owns.
The real logic: optimize the system, not the club
The official explanation is regulation.
Clubs need to comply with financial rules.
True.
But also incomplete.
This structure allows owners to:
protect key assets
maintain financial flexibility
invest without breaching constraints
In short:
They are not fixing the club.
They are optimizing the system around it.
Final Thoughts
If value is no longer inside the club, everything changes.
What are you actually buying when you acquire a club?
What do financial statements really represent?
Who controls the critical assets?
And ultimately:
Where does value really sit today?
English football is not becoming more sustainable.
It is becoming more sophisticated.
Closer to finance than sport.
That creates an opportunity for those who understand it.
And risk for those who don’t.
Next time you see a club reporting a profit, don’t ask how much they made.
Ask:
Where that profit actually comes from.
Keep winning,
Federico
Your prompts are leaving out 80% of what you're thinking.
When you type a prompt, you summarize. When you speak one, you explain. Wispr Flow captures your full reasoning — constraints, edge cases, examples, tone — and turns it into clean, structured text you paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or any AI tool. The difference shows up immediately. More context in, fewer follow-ups out.
89% of messages sent with zero edits. Used by teams at OpenAI, Vercel, and Clay. Try Wispr Flow free — works on Mac, Windows, and iPhone.