The English Premier League, one of the richest in world soccer, could see one of its teams go bankrupt. News reports in England imply that Portsmouth Football Club of the English Premier League , perhaps the richest league in world soccer, is within days of bankruptcy. Like an LA condo in , Portsmouth is now operating under its fourth owner this season!
Leeds entered the equivalent of American bankruptcy in and has fallen into the third tier of English soccer. West Ham United , along with other London clubs that have had a periodic taste of the top, such as Crystal Palace and Queens Park Rangers , have faced financial jeopardy in the past year. Or alternatively, and inconsistently, to save the clubs from the foreigners, especially the Americans.
There has been no American involvement in Leeds or Portsmouth as far as I know, although prominent American investments in top clubs like Arsenal , Liverpool , and Manchester United have brought forth various levels of vitriol from different varieties of English activists. A move to bring in some sort of a salary cap would likely find key allies, again ironically, in unusual quarters of the British polity.
His apotheosis in that regard, the English Football Association , would welcome the effects of a salary cap because it would limit the imports of foreign players and increase the number of Englishmen on the pitch. In the case of Portsmouth, I suspect that their supporters would welcome just about any owner with the cash to return them to the EPL as soon as possible they are surely doomed to relegation this year, regardless of who owns the club.
As for Manchester United, there is more than one option which appeals to different segments of their supporters. First, a debt-free, free-spending billionaire to come upon the scene, who is willing to buy out the Glazers and spend oodles of money to combat the like of the Russian-financed Chelsea and the recent upstart, the Arab-financed Manchester City. In short, the sugar daddy that English fans pine for, from Wolverhampton to Notts County.
