The first edition of The Price of Football quickly established itself as the go-to guide to understanding football club finance for the serious fan. Kieran Maguire, one of the UK’s top football finance analysts, shows how professional clubs operate as businesses and explains, in non-technical language, how to read, understand and interrogate club accounts.

As a clear-headed analysis and presentation of the financial imperatives and challenges facing football clubs across the English and Scottish Leagues, it has become a welcome resource not only for students of the industry, but by a wider constituency of supporters looking to understand their club’s latest transfer deal, or season ticket price.

This fully revised and updated edition includes analysis of the most recent club accounts, the latest legal rulings on club affairs, as well as the impact of Covid-19 on the game’s finances.

Contents

Foreword by Kevin Day

1. Introduction

Part I Football club financial reports
2. The balance sheet
3. The profit or loss account
4. The cash flow statement

Part II The price of football
5. Buying players
6. Ticket prices
7. Broadcasting and sponsorship income
8. Financial fair play

Part III Football club financial analysis
9. How to analyse club accounts 1: trend analysis
10. How to analyse club accounts 2: ratio analysis
11. Valuing a football club
12. Ownership models: love, profit, vanity and insanity
13. Red flags: things that make you go “hmmm” – creative accounting and football finance
14. Football finance in a post-Covid-19 world and Project Big Picture
Glossary of accounting terms

Author Information

Kieran Maguire teaches the Football Industries MBA at the University of Liverpool Management School. He specialises in financial reporting, financial modelling and football finance, and regularly appears on television and radio commentating on matters relating to club finance.