They may have won 11 straight Bundesliga titles but all has not been well in Bavaria where the scrutiny is always intenseAll of a sudden none of it matters. Not a frustrating summer in the transfer market, with the lack of a sporting director often apparent. Not missing out on Declan Rice. Not even the uncertainty over the goalkeeping position. Harry Kane’s impending arrival at the Allianz Arena is a moment of triumph for Bayern Munich, and they are right to celebrate it.How badly Bayern have needed this, on so many levels. Not necessarily on a statistical one – the team scored 92 Bundesliga goals last season, compared with 97 in 2021-22, a negligible difference in light of the exit...
Huge spree on Fernández, Mudryk, Nkunku and Madueke raises more questions about the coherence of Boehly’s plansAmortisation over a long-term deal. Heavily incentivised contracts. A couple of relatively quiet windows before Roman Abramovich was forced to sell the club. There’s been a lot written over the past few months about how Chelsea can afford a spree that will hit £620m when the Christopher Nkunku deal happens next June. But perhaps the bigger question is why? What on earth are they doing?Structure the deals as cleverly as you like, that money still has to be paid at some point. Chelsea’s spending has been of the sort you would expect from a megalomaniac billionaire taking over a club, when the point is...
Without some cap on spending, the rest can only look on in awe as England’s super-clubs disappear into the distanceRemember the pandemic? Remember when we thought nothing would be the same again? Remember when we thought the damage done to football’s finances was so severe that transfer fees might never recover? We were part right. This summer, Premier League clubs have spent €2.25bn (£1.94bn), more than La Liga, Serie A, the Bundesliga and Ligue 1 combined.The net spend is even more remarkable: €1.35bn for Premier League clubs, with La Liga a distant second on €52.44m (and then only because of Barcelona’s lever-driven splurge). Continue reading...
Inflated transfer fees are an everyday occurrence. But the thing about the Everton youngster’s one is its layersThere are generally five stages to a failed high-profile football transfer, those signings that are so grandly dysfunctional they become a kind of theatre in themselves, disaster-content, almost perversely, a success.Finding the most rewarding ways to describe Romelu Lukaku’s return to Chelsea, essentiality a Belgian man walking around looking bemused while other people play football nearby, has provided more heat, light and work hours than a bog-standard success story. To the extent Lukaku himself seems somehow elevated by it, imbued with another layer of celebrity grace. Continue reading...
England’s Euro 2022 triumph opened up an image of what is possible when excellence and team cohesion are the driversIf there is one phrase that we keep hearing when talking to other people in the game, it is that “football is different to other businesses”. Granted, you never see employees kissing the logo of their company shirts, but it seems to be used as an excuse for unsustainable business models, concentrating power in a small group of individuals, ignoring broader stakeholders and propping up outdated, often sexist cultures. Throughout my career, I’ve witnessed signals that indicate an opportunity for disruption in other industries; travel in the late 1990s, dating and financial services in the last 15 years. I think those...