Football Clubs and Their Grounds

For as long as I can remember, I've believed that the football team I support (Reading if I haven't mentioned it enough yet) owns the football ground that we play at. After all, we completed building the ground back in 1998 on top of the old rubbish tip in Whitley (which is a shit hole so if you're ever in Reading, it's to be avoided) and it's been our home ever since.

☝ Where I'd often sit.

☝ I sat down here once, I didn't like it.

But as we know, football is changing. To be precise, money is changing football. And in the interests of adhering to "Financial Fair Play" (which stipulates that clubs must not exceed a loss of £39m over a 3 year period), football club owners are finding new and creative ways to "balance the books". In the 2017/2018 season, this meant that we sold The Madejski Stadium for £26.5m to Renhe Sports Management Company - the company owned by club owners Dai Xiu Li and Dai Yongge at that time source. The stadium is then leased back to the club at "mates rates".

Or so the theory goes.

For Coventry City, it hasn't gone well. They completed their ground in 2005, an exciting move from their old ground (Highfield Road) and with high expectations that this was the beginning of a new era, able to compete with the bigger clubs.

👇 A thing of beauty

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The ground was initially owned by Arena Coventry Limited (ACL), which was jointly owned by Coventry City Council and the Higgs Charity source, which all sounds rather sensible. Until in 2013, they couldn't agree on how much rent to pay, which saw Coventry leave the stadium that had been built for them, away from their community and play down the road in Northampton. This situation only lasted 1 season before all parties saw sense and Coventry returned.

Then in 2014, London Wasps bought the ground and once again in 2019, rent became a problem - Coventry being forced to play at St Andrews (Birmingham) for the past 2 seasons. Apparently, Coventry are returning "home" next season but it's clear that this situation is an utter mess. And one which many other clubs could easily follow.

Football clubs really should own their grounds.

So it got me thinking and investigating, how many clubs actually own their own grounds?

A clear answer is incredibly hard to come by.

The best I can find is this article by Property Week which suggests that most grounds are owned by a holding company (owned at least partially by the owner of the football club) and/or their local council. Many grounds are then rented/leased back to their clubs.

☝ My view at Anfield - I should've added this photo to My Away Days Tale but it turns out I'd saved it in a really stupid place.

I can't help but feel that anybody owning your club's stadium, other than the club itself is utter madness. You'd think that the local council having an interest would make sense but as demonstrated with Coventry City, that's not always the case. And the primary reason clubs are selling their grounds is so that they can spend shit loads of money on short term players that are slowly bankrupting our clubs.

Source - That's Jack Rodwell if you didn't know - why him?

Once again, I started writing this article merely as curious. I was already aware of Coventry's situation but I'm utterly amazed by how many clubs have lined themselves up for the same fate since. Including my beloved Reading. Every post I seem to write in this community makes it appear as though it's just a matter of time before English football implodes upon itself. Which it probably will.

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