Thursday briefing: How football sold its soul and was gobbled up by global capital

Today at 01:45 AM

In today's newsletter: Boxing Day fixtures are a reminder of the dying traditions in a sport where everything is for sale. Journalist and author Nick Miller explains how the beautiful game came to put finances over fans

Good morning – I hope you had a great Christmas. If you love football, and even if you hate it, one inescapable feature of Boxing Day is the festive fixture list – and a look at today's matches in the Premier League tells a familiar story of a game that has been swallowed whole by international investors.

Ten of the 20 top-flight clubs are US owned, and many others are linked to nation states or private equity. When the Premier League formed in 1992, 21 of 22 clubs were majority English owned; today, only four are. But if these owners are expecting to make money, they have chosen a lousy economic model. Only five out of the 20 clubs now in the league made a profit in the 2022-23 season, with an aggregate loss of £685m.