The reckless fantasy of austerity as a panacea is coming for European football | Aaron Timms

The problem with running a modern top-flight football club is that raising revenue is hard to do. Once you’ve grabbed your slice of league-wide media rights, made a vaguely colonial-sounding pre-season tour of the “Far East,” stitched up some sponsorship deals with a gambling company or a country’s tourism agency, and shipped as many shirts as the global merch market can handle, you hit the ceiling of your earning capacity. At that point, as a club, what do you do? You can raise ticket prices, which risks alienating fans and the local community you’re supposed to represent. You can try

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