- 7 weeks ago
The idea of two football clubs merging together is enough to make any loyal football fan's skin crawl.. but is there actually a world in which it makes sense? With recent rumours about a Sheffield United-Wednesday merger not exactly rejected by those at the clubs, Alex is here to discuss why such an idea isn't so farfetched, and why football's current financial climate could see more mergers in the near future.
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00:00Picture this, it's the opening day of the 2055-56 campaign and you sit down, excited
00:05for European Super League sponsored by Amazon action.
00:09But this year, there's a twist, they've got what they're calling Jumbo teams.
00:15To kick us off in this new era, Libertin vs Manchester Football Group, Bayern Munich
00:20Berg vs Sundercastle follows, after that it's Arsenal Hotspurs vs Juventino, and we finish
00:25with the Clasico, Realetico Madrid vs FC Barcelona.
00:29The best local teams in world football have merged, they want to be bigger, they want
00:34to win more trophies, they want to make more money.
00:36The fans protested, of course, but at this point, who cares?
00:39I don't know about you, but I think I'd find another sport.
00:43Games gone has never been more apt.
00:45Obviously a total hellscape, never gonna happen, right?
00:48Funny you should say that.
00:49Because something not a million miles away was proposed recently as high in the English
00:53game as the championship.
00:55And stick with me, because this is absolutely mad.
00:58On October 24th, Championship side Sheffield Wednesday went into administration.
01:15The club have had all sorts of financial and legal issues under owner Depon Chancery, including
01:19a dodgy stadium sale, unpaid HMRC bills and cash flow problems, and it's all led to points
01:24deductions and transfer bans.
01:26They are rock bottom of the championship, Chancery has been banned from owning or directing an
01:30EFL club for three years, and the club is set to be sold.
01:33An asking price reportedly set at over £30 million.
01:37But then, at the end of November 2025, multiple major outlets, including Sky Sports and ESPN,
01:42broke the news that an email asking for a firmer asking price and more financial details on
01:47Wednesday's assets had been sent from COH Sports, the American owners of local rivals
01:53Sheffield United, with talk of a potential merger.
01:57The rumours, understandably, sparked outrage amongst both sets of fans that peaked in the
02:02aftermath of United's 3-0 win over Wednesday in the Steel City Derby.
02:06And three days later, Steve Rosen and Helmi El Tukey, the co-chairman of United, released
02:10a statement saying that they wished to further modernise the club and be at the cutting edge,
02:15among other such business speak.
02:17But crucially, did not deny the rumours.
02:19And when Sheffield United's manager Chris Wilder was quizzed on potential merger talk,
02:24he said,
02:25Everything will be dealt with by Steve Bettis, Sheffield United's chief executive and the
02:28owners.
02:29But again, failed to deny that the conversation had taken place.
02:32What would they call themselves?
02:34Sheffield Divided?
02:35Sorry.
02:36I couldn't believe it when I first heard it, and I had to know more.
02:41So first, I needed some expertise.
02:43Hi, I'm Jordan Gardner, I'm an American sports executive, I'm a former shareholder
02:48of Swansea City Football Club when they were in the primary league.
02:51Now I do consulting work with mostly investment groups out of North America that look to buy
02:56football clubs in Europe.
02:57Jordan is a whiz at this stuff.
02:59So my first question was this.
03:00The report said that neither the EFL or the football regulator would approve this.
03:04And COH, the owners, must have known that.
03:07So why would they risk becoming the least popular people in Sheffield, considering it's basically
03:12a non-starter?
03:13I think it's most likely a misguided idea from an American ownership group, particularly
03:19the guys at Sheffield United, thinking, hey, you could create a more global, larger club
03:23that could compete in the primary league and potentially Europe if you just had one club
03:27there.
03:28They looked at it and said, look, we can take over the market share of our competitor.
03:32Why would we not do that?
03:33That's incredibly misguided for a bunch of different reasons.
03:36A, to your point, it's never going to logistically happen.
03:38A football regulator, the politicians, the family, no one would ever let it happen.
03:42And it's just not something that's part of the culture in European football.
03:45So yes, it's a misguided idea.
03:47But as Jordan said, you can make business sense of it.
03:50If you could somehow get this past the EFL, the regulator and the fans baying for your
03:55blood, you spend £30 million to double the size and quality of your squad, get loads
04:00of assets to sell off, get access to another youth academy and remove competition for talented
04:04kids in the local area at youth level while you're at it.
04:07And you acquire all the other assets that come with the club, the stadium, the training ground,
04:11the offices and so on.
04:13You also make sure your stadium is the only one getting the gate receipts in the local
04:17area.
04:18COH acquired Sheffield United in December 2024 and since then have permanently signed the
04:22likes of Umuchukwu, Kaceres, Cannon, Polendakoff, Bukkaki, Tanganga and Zatterström for the
04:27first team at a combined fee of around £22 million before wages.
04:31You could nearly buy Sheffield Wednesday for that.
04:34But United and Wednesday have been bitter rivals for over 130 years, making the Steel City
04:38derby one of the oldest in the country.
04:41As Mourinho would say, FUTBOL ERIBDICH.
04:44So even if you can make business sense of it, it's never happening.
04:47But is that it?
04:49Just an open and shut case?
04:50Well, that'll be quite a short video.
04:52So no.
04:53And I think this bizarre moment in time actually raises more questions than it answers.
04:59Firstly, do fans really understand what's going on financially in football and what's
05:04at stake here?
05:05I don't need to explain why Sheffield United and Wednesday fans, and indeed football fans
05:09up and down the country, shouldn't like the idea of this.
05:12The sporting integrity, the heritage, the passion, the family ties, the history eroded.
05:18But the championship and wider football's financial model is broken and the Premier League is the
05:23golden ticket.
05:24Deloitte's most recent analysis has the Premier League's revenue at almost double that of the
05:28the next most successful European competition, the Bundesliga.
05:31And those figures are consistent across match day, broadcast, sponsorship and commercial
05:35revenues.
05:36Crucially for the ambition of teams like Sheffield United, the mid-table Premier League teams are
05:40capitalising on this growth in a way that wasn't happening before as well.
05:44Quote, developing commercially-led strategies and business models, enabling them to further
05:48grow and diversify this revenue stream for reinvestment into their football infrastructure.
05:53The combined impact of ever-rising broadcast revenue and increasingly lucrative commercial
05:57deals has solidified the financial standing of the Premier League's middle pack.
06:01Which is good news for clubs that have ambitions, but know that they won't be Liverpool any time
06:05soon.
06:06But despite championship revenues approaching £1 billion across 23-24, every single club in
06:12the league generated operating losses for the second consecutive season, actually worsening
06:18by 25% from the losses the year before.
06:20And League One clubs lost more than the previous year as well.
06:24Clubs are basically existing on a financial precipice in the hope that they can make it into the
06:28Premier League one day.
06:29And the Premier League's broadcasting revenues are only going to keep rising too.
06:32Amazon Prime have already got their foot in the door.
06:34And how long before Netflix, potentially bolstered by the purchase of Warner Brothers, Apple TV or
06:39even social media companies like YouTube or X decide they want a piece of the pie as well.
06:44The interest and potential financial gain from the Premier League is higher than ever.
06:49But that also means financial inequality grows every year.
06:53Fair Game UK reports that for every £1,000 from the Premier League broadcast deal, £882.42
07:00goes to Premier League clubs, £73.48 to Championship clubs in receipt of parachute payments, then
07:06falls to £6.22 for League 1 clubs, £4.15 for League 2 clubs, National League clubs get £58 and
07:16it drops to just £15 for National League North and South clubs.
07:20So, unless the football regulator can get that under control with higher solidarity payments,
07:25with David Cogan, the head honcho, saying recently in an interview to The Times he
07:29absolutely refutes the idea he's going to come in and demand more money from the Premier League,
07:33while also seeming to suggest that maybe there might be some tough calls on certain clubs,
07:37asking does any club have a God-given right to exist in that same interview?
07:41Is it any wonder certain club owners are asking some big questions?
07:45It's easy to demonise COH here, and I'm not here to defend them at all, but I get it.
07:50And to me, this all begs another question.
07:52Are we going to see more new ways of thinking like this across the English football pyramid to
07:57try and stay afloat?
07:58On the mergers point specifically, Jordan explained to me that that's not going to happen anytime soon
08:02at the top level, simply because it's so hard to achieve.
08:06But for the lower leagues, for clubs in financial trouble, there might be something here.
08:11I do think there is an argument in European football that do we have too, I mean,
08:14this is an American thing, but do we have too many football clubs?
08:17Not at the top level, but if you go down to the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh tier,
08:20there's clubs and they are cannibalising each other in terms of supporters, commercial dollars.
08:25So the question is, you know, at what point do smaller clubs, very small clubs,
08:29potentially come together to create more viable, you know, football clubs that can make sure they
08:33can pay their bills and survive. But I think when it comes to a necessity of a Barry,
08:37like then you potentially could seek conversations, but I still find it highly unlikely.
08:41Clubs may have to think increasingly radically to survive.
08:45Barry FC, two-time winners of the FA Cup, by the way, merged with Barry AFC in 2023,
08:51and they survived. And the influence of American ownership in the league,
08:54now in effect, at least partially in 12 of the Premier League's 20 clubs,
08:58is getting more and more powerful. And that brings with it a whole different
09:01mode of thinking to English football. English clubs are good investments.
09:05The league system means that a team like Everton, when they were purchased by the Friedkin Group,
09:09were a relative bargain because they were having a down year,
09:12and that sort of volatility doesn't exist in US sports as much.
09:15And the Premier League also has the highest number of qualification spots for UEFA competition
09:19across any league in Europe, a highly lucrative prospect.
09:23I asked Jordan if he thought clubs could get even more desperate if things don't change.
09:27Yes, I do. You know, we obviously haven't spoken yet about the
09:31financial model in some of these leagues, particularly outside of the Premier League,
09:34and it's incredibly difficult. Frankly, from someone with a savvy business background,
09:38it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You have 24 clubs, I think, in the Championship
09:42who all think that year they're going to make the Premier League, and when they don't,
09:44you know, significant losses. Lots of groups I talk to have new ideas of how to change the model,
09:49and how to make it work. You know, there's talk, obviously, of the American groups,
09:52and particularly in the Premier League, of coming together to make kind of governance changes,
09:56which I think is probably not really something that you have to worry about too much,
09:59because every American group has different ideas of what they want to do.
10:02I mean, obviously, I consistently hear, you know, we're going to do a Wrexham, right?
10:05We're going to have a media play of some kind, which is obviously,
10:08we can have a separate conversation about how Wrexham is entirely not replicable.
10:11There's like an apparel component I hear a lot of like, hey, you know, if we have a third kid,
10:16if we have a line of apparel, maybe that's the revenue stream that other clubs don't have.
10:19Obviously, everyone talks about selling players, and that's a part of the model,
10:23which helps minimize some losses. You do have some folks look at what's happening at Birmingham,
10:26where it's part of a larger real estate play. So that's one that, you know, I understand it makes
10:31sense. Although getting infrastructure built in Europe, for instance, can be quite challenging,
10:35especially being a foreign investor. So there's different areas, but none of them to me solve
10:40the day to day problem of how do we fill the gap between what we're bringing in and what we're
10:43spending for the most part, and particularly outside of the Premier League.
10:47So the final question is this, where does it leave the fans? What's the price of this ambition,
10:53this constant desire for more? More investment, more players, more everything? We're all guilty
10:58of it, myself included. We all want more from our clubs. And Sheffield United's owners and fans
11:04want the same thing, certainly on the surface. They're just going about it in a different way,
11:08right? So my question is, what is worth it to make it to the promised land? A tell-all
11:12documentary? Bring it on. A new strand of apparel? Probably yes, depends on the colours.
11:17But a disrupted city centre buying up local land? A constant revolving door of players,
11:22or a cold marketplace of footballers you never get a chance to connect with? A merger with your rivals?
11:27Where's the line? As clubs seek multi-club models and more global commercial deals,
11:32the game grows and globalisation marches on. That tie of identity that holds the fabric together and
11:37makes this such a mad idea to begin with, begins to fray. Every fan wants their club to succeed.
11:42But what's the price? And what next? Total rebrands? Red Bull leads? What about
11:47relocations if the Chelsea Stadium redevelopment plans stall? This might sound mad, but is it?
11:53Considering what's already been on the table in 2025 and when we know what's at stake for these owners?
11:58And where does that leave supporters up and down the country?
12:01The question COH asked is a symptom, in my opinion, not the problem itself. And if we continue to see it as a
12:08problem of solely uninformed owners who don't understand our game, I think we continue to miss
12:14the wider reality. And this tension reveals the true question at the heart of this. A football club
12:19is a set of assets. It's buildings, it's wages, it's a training ground, of course. But it's people.
12:24It's the people who give it meaning. Who score the goals, who make the tea, who buy the players,
12:29who pay the gate receipts. And those people should be ambitious. But their identity must be respected.
12:35And no matter where the game goes from here, our ambition can never blind us to what truly
12:39binds us together. And the reasons we all love football.
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