Liverpool’s £123m Bradley Barcola signing takes Premier League spending to £3bn Sport Business Premier League clubs are on course to threaten last year’s record £3.1bn summer spending on deadline day after Liverpool completed the £123m signing of Bradley Barcola. Teams in England’s top division have already shelled out around £3bn in the current window, which is set to close across Europe tomorrow night at 11pm. That leaves them [...]
Big-spending Chelsea sign up crypto firm Circle as shirt sponsor Sport Business Chelsea have tapped the crypto industry in their search for a new main sponsor by agreeing a one-year front-of-shirt deal with Circle Internet Group. The New York-listed company is best known as the issuer of stablecoin USDC, which is pegged 1:1 to the US dollar and will also appear on the shirts of Chelsea’s men’s, [...]
Is £5bn now the entry ticket into Premier League football? Sport Business It may have taken 34 years but the Premier League has at last clawed its way into the financial big time. The reported £5.5bn valuation placed on Liverpool FC by a consortium of new investors that includes Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos – aka the world’s third richest man – has the whiff of an NFL [...]
Pre-season tours: Inside the economics of football’s summer money-spinners August 14, 2026 Football’s summer tours have turned into travelling commercial platforms bringing together big fees, sponsors, merchandise, media and global fan growth, explains Simon Dent. For most football supporters, pre-season used to mean low-key friendlies against a local non-league team, some heavy-legged players and a chance to see the new signing for 30 minutes. For clubs, it [...]
Chelsea fans stunned as ticket sharing equated with sexual misconduct August 12, 2026 Chelsea have stunned supporters by equating unauthorised ticket sharing with sexual misconduct in their sanctioning guidelines for the new season. Premier League clubs are cracking down on ticket misuse but long-standing season ticket holders, who have long shared log-ins and built networks to help each other buy tickets, feel unfairly targeted. Bots and touts remain [...]
Chelsea fined £10m, avoid points penalty and receive Mykhailo Mudryk boost July 31, 2026 Chelsea have been fined a further £10m by the Football Association but avoided a points deduction after admitting more than 70 charges of breaking financial rules. The breaches took place under the previous ownership of Roman Abramovich and related to secret payments to agents, including in the signings of Eden Hazard, Willian and Samuel Eto’o. [...]
Cristiano Ronaldo on Mars: Where will sport take us in the next five years? July 30, 2026 Tech disruption, athlete power and new formats: sport has changed dramatically since Ed Warner started writing weekly about the industry in 2021. This column – based on my weekly newsletter, Sport Inc. – has just reached its fifth anniversary. The book of the same name is three years older. In this short span of time, [...]
Why do six Premier League clubs still not have front of shirt sponsors? July 13, 2026 Not so long ago it was unthinkable that a Premier League club would go into a new season without a sponsor on the front of their shirt. In recent years Chelsea and Nottingham Forest have made headlines for starting a campaign with a vacancy in that prime spot, precisely because it was such an anomaly. [...]
Hated World Cup hydration breaks here to stay for even hotter 2030 and 2034 July 1, 2026 Hydration breaks are expected to remain a feature of future World Cups despite attracting widespread criticism, City AM understands. The divisive three-minute pauses, taken midway through each half, have become one of the tournament’s hottest talking points. They have effectively turned football into a game of four quarters and head coaches have said they are [...]
Enzo Maresca pays Chelsea compensation to become Manchester City manager June 29, 2026 Manchester City have confirmed the appointment of Enzo Maresca as manager – but only after he personally paid compensation to former club Chelsea. City are themselves reported to have paid £17m to the Blues in order to secure Maresca’s signature on a three-year contract, but Chelsea have made clear that the Italian was also forced [...]