Business owners like buying football clubs, but football is a business like no other

In the beautiful game, splashing the cash on players does not guarantee big wins

As the final whistle blew at this year’s Championship play-off final, between Fulham and Aston Villa, I don’t mind admitting, I had a lump in my throat.

A Fulham season ticket holder, I’ve been going for years with two of my sons, and a group of friends. We’ve had our recent triumphs – not least, beating the mighty Juventus 4-1 in the Europa League. But we’ve also had our downs – in particular being demoted from the Premier League.

Now, at Wembley, against Villa, we were on the cusp of glory once again. With 20 minutes to play, and one-nil ahead, we had a player sent off. That last portion of the match was nerve-shredding. We held out, though. We did it, we got there.

Almost immediately, though, attention turned to next season, and the players we need to make it worth their while to remain, and those we must buy. Fulham’s ascendancy was softened, simply by gaining promotion; by the future additional revenue of £170m across the next three seasons, which could rise to in excess of £280m if they survive their first season in the Premier League.

I was reminded of how, a few years ago, I texted a friend who was at that year’s play-off final as a guest of the chairman of one of the two finalists. His team were leading, and he must be euphoric, I noted. Not really, came back the reply – privately he was dreading promotion because he knew the expectation and pressure it would bring.

To be fair, he was wealthy but not that wealthy, and certainly nowhere near as rich as Shahid Khan, Fulham’s owner. When Fulham beat Villa, Khan gave no sign of dread, but he would only be human if his mind was not whirring, calculating what he would now have to spend. It might seem substantial, but £170m spread over three years does not get you an awful lot of player – not these days, not in the Premiership. Khan knew he would be stumping up extra, of his own money.

Likewise, a pal, who owns a club in the north of England. He’s pumped many millions into improving the ground, and attracting new talent. To little appreciation: the fans always want more, more, more. In fact, as he said to me recently, it’s a paradox: the greater success of the team, the higher the bar of what is demanded from him is raised.

In an attempt to level the playing field between the haves and have-nots, the football authorities issued the Financial Fair Play regulations. But these are so full of loopholes as to make them almost meaningless, and the regulators have shied away from coming down severely on transgressors.

No, the owner is expected to open their wallet. It’s no use the hardened capitalist brain kicking in, insisting the club is managed on tight, commercial lines, and not making the funds available. If that means raising ticket prices, and the cost of food and drink, and replica shirts, and at the same time selling players and not replacing them, not strengthening the squad, then the protests will be deafening, and possibly, nasty.

Of course, there are other walks of life where organisations and brands are purchased by the super-rich, who, it is taken for granted, will dip into their deep pockets to meet running and expansion costs. I’ve worked in newspapers where it’s regarded as duty for the proprietor to carry on financing losses. Once, I recall explaining to the union representatives fighting redundancies that management did not have the power to tell the owner how much he should invest – we could recommend and suggest, but the actual total was entirely his call.

The argument fell on deaf ears then, and do so, if anything, more markedly in football. It might just be 22 players on a pitch, but it’s a game that unites strong passions and tribal loyalty, one that is fought over and dissected, scrutinised and analysed, across the media and social media. Everyone believes they know best, certain as to what they would do, which tactics they would deploy, who to buy and who to sell.

Khan made a fortune from supplying car parts. He now wants to buy Wembley Stadium for a reported £800m. But while that is a considerable sum, and Wembley has deeper significance as the home of national football, owning it is relatively simple, about managing a major sporting and cultural venue; running Fulham, by contrast is altogether more complex, challenging, and fraught.

You can spend, though, and still lose. Football is not programmable. The calculating Moneyball approach, made famous by Michael Lewis’s book of the same name about baseball – of studying performance data, of acquiring players for particular strengths to make percentage gains, to deliver success, does not work in football. A club may splash out on building a collection of individuals, but still fail to form a winning team.

It may attract the best business brains, those who have amassed enormous fortunes, but professional football is a business like no other. There’s the problem: to do it well entails not running it like a business at all.

Chris Blackhurst is a former editor of The Independent, and executive director of C|T|F Partners, the campaigns and strategic communications advisory firm.