The Financial Crisis in European Football

Abstract

Is there currently a crisis in European professional football? Surely there exists a common set of problems afflicting clubs, with negative financial implications for all. Moreover, a crisis in one large club or group of clubs threatens to damage the financial stability of other clubs. This introduction reviews the financial crises in football in several European countries, searches for common explanations of these crises, and proposes a few solutions, ranging from tighter financial regulation to the restructuring of competition, with the aim of easing the financial burden for smaller clubs in particular.