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WHO OWNS FOOTBALL?
Nick Miller Bloomsbury £18.99 For the last couple of decades, the ballyhoo surrounding football club ownership by – among others – nation states and Hollywood bromances has eclipsed the game itself. Who Owns Football? takes a multi-layered and global approach to the growing issue. Miller concedes that football in days of yore was hardly a utopia – age-old tales about Burnley chief Bob Lord ruling using an iron rod and Oxford czar Robert Maxwell, who tried to merge the U’s with Reading and launch the Thames Valley Royals, illustrate the point. The arrival of billionaire Roman Abramovich at Chelsea in 2003 forever altered football’s financial landscape. Miller describes how, compared to the Qatari-controlled Paris Saint-Germain, left-leaning supporters of Red Star saw their club as more of a niche arthouse movie – that was until 2022, when the third-tier Parisiens were sold to multi-club group 777 Partners.