The changing face of English football

As Fraser said earlier, we’ve got a great piece by Mihir Bose in the latest issue of the mag on British football’s debt crisis. I would normally say that non-football fans should look away now, but the story is so redolent of the entire financial crisis that it’s worth any CoffeeHouser’s time. What you’ll find is a tale of big clubs, big egos and even bigger debts – the latter running into billions of pounds.

Much of this debt has been down to financial brinkmanship on the part of football club owners and chairmen. Even though money has been pouring into the English game from global television deals and the like, they’ve been spending money to buy players, and fund wage structures, that they simply can’t afford. This has left many clubs close to ruin. But it has also limited opportunities for young, British players. Why wait for national talent to develop when a few £million will buy a finished article from the Continent?