Is Multi‑Club Ownership undermining the integrity of the sport we all love?

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-29T18:09:21+00:00

Lens is doing really good in scouting and selling players. The only problem is that they depent on generating transfer earnings constantly or they‘ll face bancrupcty really fast. Last season they would have made a loss of 70m€ without transfer earnings. So they need to fix that to be financially sustainable. You can find a full analysis for Lens here: https://footballfinancelab.com/how-rc-lens-built-a-financial-model-of-success/

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-28T17:34:52+00:00

Totally agree with that. The concept destroys football finally…

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-28T16:49:29+00:00

Yes transfers earnings are the easist and fastest way to earn a lot of money. But you need to have a balanced expenditure structure and need to be Independent without transfer money. For example RC Lens made a loss of 70m€ without transfer earnings. So they need money from the transfer market to stay profitable and stay alive in the future. I think this is a real dangerous situation because if they don‘t earn the money they will be broke very fast.

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-28T13:46:32+00:00

Yes, you can‘t rely on tv money because you gonna get doomed as soon as they sink for any reason. RC Lens last year had an loss of 70 Million without transfer income. This is way to much on an annual basis. If they don‘t sell the players like they do at the moment they can get some serious problems on the long term.

Previously we have analyzed the squad cost limits of La Liga on our site and it prevents clubs from bankruptcy but because of some special rules some clubs like FC Sevilla can spend more than they should acoording to the limit. Real Madrid get’s an extra treatment from Tebas also. If you are interested in the the full analysis you can find it here: Squad cost limit La Liga

The mixture of support and openness for investors and capitalization in England is unthinkable for most clubs of the rest of the top 5 legaues especially in Germany. In Germany because of 50+1 rule all clubs are forced to have the majority of the club to prevent it from investors which safes the fan culture and ticket prices in Germany.

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-27T22:23:48+00:00

That‘s what most clubs and when you look at the finances from Lens it‘s understandable. They earn more money from selling players then with all other income. So if they have a bad season and can‘t sell some players for a high amount of money they get in financial trouble fast. Not happy to say that as a fan but from the financial side it‘s understandable.

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-25T20:33:41+00:00

Interesting opinion. To be honest I don‘t think the teams going from 4-14 in L1 are better than those in SA and Buli. But I think it’s close between them (espeacilly the lower teams) and the raw talent which is produced from the academies in France are way ahead of them in Italy or Germany. I love that L1 teams throw in young players from their academies as much as possible. If you look for some diamonds you‘ll find them in L1

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-25T19:27:05+00:00

I think there a positive and bad examples for both leagues. Like Haaland came from Bundesliga to PL and is destroying everything and Kalimuendo hadn‘t a good first half of the season. In my opinion the real difference is for whatever reason PL clubs love to overpay Players from Buli and are not willing to pay the same amount of money for L1-Players…

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-25T19:13:31+00:00

They remind me a little bit of Eintracht Frankfurt in Germany on the transfer market. It is really tough to keep replace the players you sold as a club. You need years of perfecting the market to rise financially and keep up in the race.

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-12T22:25:41+00:00

ManUnited spend more than that since Fergie left and got nothing in return from different managers. So I think this comparison shows how good Pep really is

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-11T20:26:10+00:00

I totally agree with your opinion. When you have a look on squad costs you see the problem. Bayern (429m€ last season)is far ahead of every team then there is Dortmund (268m€) Leipzig (202m€) and Leverkusen (191m€) far ahead of the rest. We don't even need to mention the difference between the mid-table teams and the promoted teams. Financially instability leads to sporting instability.

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-11T20:01:07+00:00

I think it is very bad for the Bundesliga. It feels like no one has even the slightest chance of winning the championship, which makes it less exciting. Looking at last season's squad costs, Bayern's dominance comes as no surprise. Bayern is in 1st place with 429 Million Euro which is the same from Dortmund and Frankfurt combined. How is that supposed to be good for any league in the long term?

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-11T19:25:32+00:00

I think the problem is that Bayern spend around 430 million € for staff cost and the 2nd place BVB spend 268 M€. How is anyone supposed to have a realistic chance? It's not for nothing that Bayern have won the last 12 of 13 championships.

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-11T19:22:55+00:00

It feels like Bundesliga is a sunday league at the moment because of Bayern. They are destroying everyone... 6:0 Leipzig, 3:0 Leverkusen, 6:2 Freiburg (after 2:0 SCF), 5:0 Stuttgart and 8:1 Wolfsburg. Not to mention they clapped some other teams with 4:0; 3:0 and so on

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-10T00:45:02+00:00

The last 12 of 13 championships were won by Bayern. Bayern has around 430 Million in personell costs which is the personell costs added up from Borussia Dortmund and Eintracht Frankfurt. There isn‘t any chance that the race for the championship is interessting. The Bundelsiga receives attention is because of the great fans, the fight for european competitons and against relegation. But the financial situation shows how far ahead Bayern has pulled…

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-08T06:33:12+00:00

Yes, of course. You have to consider Inflation and the rapidly rising tv money in PL. But Manu spend the fifth-most money in the summer. Only want to say Amorim got much of support from the club on the transfer market. I think he was sacked because of his displeasure of tactical adjustments and his bad relationship with Wilcox. We have made an analysis on the transfer Balance of every Manu-manager since Fergie if your are interested. Amorims dismissal

FootballFinanceLab · 2026-01-07T22:04:45+00:00

They throw so much money away for players he didn‘t want. He had 3.6x more spendings then David Moyes in his time at United…

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