Soccer & LacrosseHistory

The Club

How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports

by Joshua Robinson with Jonathan Clegg

Paperback

Prix habituel $21.99
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The Sports Plus take

How the Premier League took over the world.

Two Wall Street Journal writers tell how English soccer's top clubs broke away to form the Premier League and built the richest league in sports on television money, foreign owners and global stars. Drawing on about a hundred interviews, including Rupert Murdoch and the people running England's biggest clubs, it reads like a business thriller. Great for Premier League fans and anyone curious about the money side of sports.

How it reads

Moderate

Best for

  • Premier League fans
  • Readers who like sports business
  • Fans of Soccernomics

About this book

Author
Joshua Robinson with Jonathan Clegg
Publisher
Mariner Books
Published
September 3, 2019
Format
Paperback
Pages
384
ISBN-10
0358213053
ISBN-13
978-0358213055

Book description

The Club is the inside story of how English soccer's Premier League became the wildest, richest, most popular sports product on the planet, "a narrative that is part Great Expectations, part Game of Thrones, in equal measure" (Roger Bennett, NBC Sports, Men in Blazers).

This is a sports and business tale of how money, ambition, and twenty-five years of drama remade an ancient institution into a twenty-first-century entertainment empire. No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaire owners and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold.

Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly two hundred countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul.

Deeply researched and drawing on one hundred exclusive interviews, including the key decision makers at every major English team, The Club is a soccer history and entertaining narrative of how the Premier League took over the world. This is a story of boom and bust--except, in football, the bubble never burst.

About the author

Joshua Robinson is the European sports correspondent for The Wall Street Journal and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post and Sports Illustrated. Jonathan Clegg is a senior editor for The Wall Street Journal. His work has also appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Independent (U.K.) and FourFourTwo magazine.

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