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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2023
In an ideal world this book would not need to be written as there would be no interest or demand for it. Football is the world's most universal sport, on both a domestic and international stage and all the discussion from fans and others should be about goals, saves, formations, VAR, red and yellow cards, managerial decisions and shouting obscenities at Mike Dean (other referees are also available).
But at what cost can we ignore the financial impact of the sport? For football fans, many of the top ten moments in their lives will be football related yet ask them what they dislike most about the game and you will most likely hear that “money has ruined it”. Transfer fees, footballers’ wages, clubs being bought and sold on a whim as rich men's toys, arguments over the objectives and application of financial fair play – all this and more has, in the eyes of many, turned a much loved, emotionally-fuelled sport into a cold, callous business.
The idea for this book arose by accident. I was on the BBC 1 Breakfast couch, having been asked to fill in the gaps between Carol Kirkwood's regular weather forecasts, and was talking about the latest television deal for the Premier League; the publisher of Agenda, Steven Gerrard (no, not that one) was eating his Weetabix watching the television at the time and thought that football finance would be a good idea for a book.
The central focus of this book is the influence of money and finance on the game. It seeks to discuss the big questions that spring to mind and simplify in layman's terms wherever possible some key finance related issues. Questions such as what are the sources of income, both internal and external, for a club? How do you show those sources in the accounts? How do you deal with benefactors, new stadia, players coming to and leaving the club? What happens in the accounts if that multi-million-pound centre forward, signed a year ago, turns out to be rubbish? (This may be of particular use to any fan who has had Andy Carroll play for their favourite team in the last few years).
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