Professional football's characteristics as a sport have always been linked inextricably with its attributes as a business, but never more so than at present. Complaints are aired regularly in the media and elsewhere that players are over-paid; that the transfer market is out of control; that shareholders' priorities are over-riding the interests of supporters; that exorbitant ticket prices are driving long-standing spectators away from football; and that the priorities of television are dictating both the strategic and the operational decisions of football clubs and the sport's organising bodies. Horton (1997) voices a typical supporter's concerns over a wide range of matters of this kind, all of which are essentially issues of economics, commerce or finance.

This chapter presents an overview of the historical development of English club football as a business, and provides some international comparisons. The contents will serve as background to the more detailed analyses of various aspects of the economics of professional football, which are the subject of subsequent chapters. Section 2.1 begins by presenting some broad comparisons between the present-day commercial structures of the five leading European football leagues, in England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. This material helps place the analysis of the history and present-day commercial structure of English league football that follows in subsequent sections of chapter 2 into its proper international context.

The more detailed analysis of English club football begins in section 2.2, with a description of the competitive structure of the major English league and cup tournaments.