2024 predictions - from Saudi spending to billionaires needing help

After a bumper year in 2023, what will the next 12 months hold for the business of football?

For the business of football, 2023 was a bumper year even by more recent standards.

From Chelsea’s £1bn transfer spend to Saudi Arabia’s major financial push to bring the eyeballs to its domestic competition; from Liverpool closing on its investment search in September to Manchester United doing the same on Christmas Eve, it was a 12 months that further underscored just how valuable the game has become.

Throw into the mix the conclusion to the Premier League’s domestic broadcast rights tender, where a record sum of £6.7bn over a four-year period between 2025 and 2029 was achieved, as well as the European Court of Justice ruling that UEFA and FIFA were unlawful in blocking and punishing those who sought to form a breakaway European Super League competition, and almost as much focus has been placed on what happens off the pitch as what happens on it over the course of the last year.

Now into 2024, what can the football industry expect to see over the next year? Will it be a case of treading water or will it be more of the same that was seen over the last 12 months? It will almost certainly be the latter.

With a new year now upon us, the Bottom Line has made some predictions as to what might transpire.

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