Daily Junction.mobi portal<p>Administrators are widely seen as custodians of the sport they have invested in financially. This is the view taken in the UK’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/21">Football Governance Act 2025</a>, which <a href="https://www.footballregulator.org.uk/">brought in</a> an independent regulator to protect the financial sustainability of clubs “for the benefit of fans and the local communities that football clubs serve”.</p>
<p>If you are a popular sport organisation, spend more than you make and do not have cash to pay your debts, you can become insolvent. This is why some sports, such as <a href="https://mitsloan.mit.edu/teaching-resources-library/formula-1-unleashing-greatest-spectacle-planet">Formula One</a>, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/markets/funds/new-zealand-rugby-players-association-approve-silver-lake-partnership-2022-02-16/">rugby</a> and <a href="https://www.reuters.com/sports/golf/pga-tour-inks-3-billion-deal-with-us-consortium-2024-01-31/">golf</a>, privatise aspects of their organisation.</p>
<p>But nobody sells the family silver unless it’s become worthless, or they desperately need to sell part of it to survive. In the <a href="https://inside.fifa.com/official-documents/annual-report/2025/financials">case of Fifa</a>, with ample cash in the bank, there was no apparent need. As <a href="https://www.uefa.com/news-media/news/02a7-213a92896eb0-54dfbf454e3b-1000--statement-on-behalf-of-uefa-and-its-55-national-associations/">Uefa lamented</a>: “Some things are simply too important to sell.”<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/288999/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
<p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/christina-philippou-285216">Christina Philippou</a>, Associate Professor in Accounting and Sport Finance, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-portsmouth-1302">University of Portsmouth</a></em></span></p>
<p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-does-sport-really-belong-to-the-fans-or-the-funders-288999">original article</a>.</p> </div>