‘The Billionaires Club: The Unstoppable Rise of Football’s Super-rich Owners’ by James Montague (2017)

“The question is, at what point do we accept some culpability for humanising those who have played a role in dismantling the freedoms we hold dear, or even dismantling whole countries”

The Billionaires’ Club is an investigation into the new class of super rich owners who have snapped up many of the world’s biggest football clubs.  Rather than being about the football business, the book is about the business interests of those billionaires who have been using their vast resources to reshape global football.

Montague digs deep into the business histories of a string of recognisable names questioning their motives for buying into football and at times our own culpability as football fans for ignoring their character and misdeeds.

Starting with Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, Montague examines the Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs who have used investments in football to increase their visibility and profile, largely as an insurance policy against the consequences if they lose favour of their political allies back home.  Possibly more troubling is the rising influence of Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant, whose investments in football seem inextricably linked to the politics of the energy industry.

The book also covers the influx of owners in European football from the US, the Middle East and Asia.

The American owners are portrayed as arch capitalists who seek to make money and couldn’t care less about the fans or anyone else for that matter.  It says a lot that they appear less troubling than many of the other owners.  It was also interesting to see how much more liked Liverpool’s current owners were than Hicks and Gillett at a time when they are starting to make more and more noises for a European or

The Middle Eastern owners appear more troubling.  The phrase “reputation laundering” seems very apt to describe the intentions of much of the investment in European football.  Football clubs like Man City have become vehicles of foreign policy for members of Middle Eastern ruling families with questionable human rights records. Montague covers the abuses of migrant workers in some detail.  He highlights the personal stories of poor Bangladeshi’s and the horrific ordeals they face trying to earn enough money to send home to their families.

The Asian owners covered appear more like the Russians – buying major clubs to appease their own political masters and to increase their political visibility abroad.  The coverage of China’s changing relationship with football in the books really interesting – I had no idea the Chinese Premier’s passion for the game was directly responsible for the huge investment in the Chinese Super League.

I’ve been a huge fan of James Montague’s since I read his 2014 book Thirty-One Nil: The Amazing Story of World Cup Qualification.  It’s clear he is a very good writer with an intense curiosity about the world which informs is work.  The global nature of his writing makes him the ideal person to chronicle the global power shifts in football politics.  The Billionaires’ Club is a sobering examination of modern football and those who shape it, but its a riveting, insightful and brilliant read.