First published 2019
The Premier League began as an experiment by an unlikely group of businessmen who stumbled into extraordinary wealth. Robinson traces how Russian oligarchs, Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian billionaires poured money into English football clubs over twenty-five years. Some investors made fortunes beyond imagination. Others lost everything they put in. The transformation created a world where players command transfer fees in the tens of millions and clubs sell for billions. Television broadcasts now reach nearly two hundred countries while the league fights to maintain its English identity. Robinson conducted one hundred exclusive interviews with key decision makers at every major English team. The result reveals the business machinery behind modern football and the people who built a sports entertainment colossus from an ancient English institution.
Genres: business, economics, sports, non-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism
Setting: England, Premier League
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
384 pages · Paperback · Mariner Books