nlondonimp
Vital Champions League
so the obvious reason all the other clubs are aiming for the top, as you mentioned previously, is not the probability of huge debt. but to emulate the teams you have just mentioned. and find a place where it seems that a football club can become immune to the zero-sum game. and evolve into a giant business [or giant institution if you prefer] that regularly makes money within football, sport.No, football, sport, is completely unlike a regular business
For a start, regular business is not a zero-sum game. Markets are elastic, sport is not, each week there is a result and an updated table of winners and losers.
Good businesses know that if they position the right products at the right price and have them available then they will sell them. Costs can be predicted and controlled.
None of this is possible in football. If you predict your income conservatively and budget accordingly you will straight away be priced out of the market for players. You will then have to get lucky, because in football there is a very limited pool of available talent. In general business practice most people are just doing a job, the pool of labour is large.
I'd ask you to tell me any football clubs that regularly make money? In fact, I'll help you out: Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, Manchester United, Barcelona. That's it. Finished. Finito. There is no football club, other than those giant institutions, that makes money.
Peterborough I've always thought of as a club that makes the best of itself, buying players cheap and selling them dear. As of 2017 Peterborough United was technically invsolvent with a 1.4m loss that year and accumulated losses of over £11m. Reliant on loans from its Chairman.
I'll wager his actual business is not run in that way. And nor, I would say is the furniture business run by Notts County's owner.
with the tv money-financial backing-global reach of football, i suppose man city, tottenham, liverpool are poised to join them in the next decade, or sooner.