ABSTRACT
This article presents an analysis of the financial performance of English football since the creation of the Premier League in 1992. It demonstrates that despite large increases in revenue, in particular from broadcasting, football clubs in the Premier League and Football League have year-on-year collectively failed to post a pre-tax profit; there have been many examples of clubs in the Football League having to enter into administration; and debt levels have risen. The article argues that, in their denial that the financial crisis in the wider economy will seriously impact the economic health of English Football, many of the industry’s leading figures share many of the same hugely optimistic assumptions of those who seek to play down the significance of climate change. In doing so they overlook the ‘inconvenient truth’ coined by former US Vice-President Al Gore in the context of the climate change debate, that English football is not immune from the impact of wider financial instability. The article questions whether, given the current economic climate, a failure to implement pro-active regulatory action to address the problem of chronic unprofitability and unsustainable debt will lead to a major financial crisis in English football.
