Football Finance and Governance

Introduction

Sound financial management and governance are essential for preserving the integrity and sustainability of football. Balancing financial discipline with the aspiration of growth is a complex challenge. As the landscape evolves, continuous assessment and adaptation of finance and governance structures are vital to ensure the sport remains fair, competitive, and deeply connected to its communities.

Although the Premier League is the highest financially grossing league in the world, the landscape of English football is far from sound. Most Premier League teams make annual losses and the UK Government’s Fan Led Review of Football Governance and academic literature show that most clubs struggle to manage, or willingly oppose, sound financial management and governance. The competition for clubs’ on-pitch success leads to an arms-race of player talent acquisition. This causes many clubs to have wage-to-revenues over 100%, spending more than their natural income levels just paying player wages. This creates an unsustainable ecosystem, subsidised by club owners. When owners become unwilling or unable to continue their commitments, clubs fall into financial distress. Examples include Reading FC, Derby County FC, and Bury FC who were excluded from the league in 2019 after a century old history. Other clubs are owned with capitalist intentions, despite the social importance of football, such as Manchester United FC, and others still have been mis-managed, or asset-stripped, such as Blackpool FC and Southend FC.

This special issue will analyse areas at the heart of these issues and the debate around regulation, including financial management of clubs, governance structures and wider challenges and considerations for the industry in the future.

We have seen the introduction of financial control mechanisms such as UEFA Financial Fair Play (FFP) Regulations, aimed to prevent clubs from spending beyond their limits, thereby avoiding financial distress. However, the effectiveness of FFP has been a subject of debate. Critics argue that while the regulations aim to level the playing field, they may inadvertently entrench the dominance of already wealthy clubs, making it challenging for smaller clubs to compete. Concerns have been raised about the potential for clubs to engage in questionable sponsorship deals, artificially booting revenues.

These issues have led to a growing call for enhanced governance to address financial disparities and protect club heritage. The Fan-Led Review of Football Governance recommended the establishment of an independent regulator to oversee financial sustainability and prevent issues such as the controversial European Super League proposal. This initiative aims to ensure that clubs remain anchored in their communities and operate responsibly and an Independent Regulator for the game is likely to be in place in the next three years. This has also sparked debate in the industry already. Proponents argue that regulation is necessary to protect the sport's future, while opponents caution that excessive regulation could deter investment and harm the Premier League's global standing. This area will provide additional ground for future research in this area and we would look to explore this area further as part of the Special Issue.

Topics of Interest

• Financial analysis of English football clubs
• Ownership structures in English football
• Football governance
• The Independent Regulator for English football
• Accounting responsibility in English football
• Transparency of English football clubs
• Football clubs and their communities.

Submission Information

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Author guidelines 

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to “Please select the issue you are submitting to”.

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

Key Deadlines 

Opening date for manuscript submissions: 21 March 2025

Closing date for manuscript submissions: 21 September 2025