The Sweeper: Who Owns Your Club?

Big Story

Today’s Sweeper offers you a video A-Z (that’s Zed, folks) from England on where the money comes from for the owners of every club in the Premier League and the Football League.

There’s something telling about the stream of industries here that gives a better sense than I’ve seen for a while about the bizarre randomness of ownership in English football; it would be quite interesting to compare to similar videos for other countries like Italy, Spain, Germany or the United States.

A sampling:

Birmingham City: Property/Hairdressing/Gambling
Exeter City FC: The fans
Fulham: Harrods

Quick Hits

• Two Hundred Percent on FC United of Manchester’s proposed dream stadium…located right next door to Manchester United’s original home in Newton Heath.
• Reuters on why we shouldn’t be surprised by the crisis in Chinese football: “Football, full of fraud, gambling and crime, epitomises the whole of Chinese society. Within government, academic and legal circles and even NGOs, everyone is suffering similar problems,” well known human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang told Reuters.
• David Conn on why football on satellite television is an election issue.

The Sweeper appears daily. For more rambling and links throughout the day every day, follow your editor Tom Dunmore @pitchinvasion on Twitter.