This irreverent new guide to running a football club is from the people behind ‘The Price of Football’ Podcast. Writer Kevin Day, football finance expert Kieran Maguire and producer Guy Kilty have created a fictional football club, West Park Rovers and we discover what is really going on behind the scenes as they rise through the leagues.

West Park Rovers implausibly romps up the FA pyramid from the lowest level to the heights of the Premier League and Europe. They encounter challenges along the way, but it is always amusingly easy progress at the ‘Kleanwell Stadium.’

Writer Kevin Day adopts a jokey style, which may not be to everyone’s taste, but there is plenty of important detail about the problems of owning and running a professional football club.

We learn that there is currently very little to stop unscrupulous individuals owning your football club and that there is a long list of dodgy owners who have reaped havoc such as Ken Richardson at Doncaster Rovers, The Oystons at Blackpool, Steve Dale at Bury and Au Yeung at Wigan.

We learn about serious matters such as Financial Fair Play, Parachute Payments, Elite Player Performance Plan, the Transfer Window, Amortisation, the Multi-club model of ownership and the Super League but this is all presented in Day’s light-hearted style.

Finally, we are left with numerous scenarios about what might happen to West Park Rovers when the Podcast group sell up. Although the journey through the leagues has been written in Day’s self-deprecating and light-hearted style there is no doubt about the many serious issues that the book raises.

‘Unfit and Improper Persons’ provides a timely reminder of the perilous state that many of our football clubs are in.

There is a desperate need for a football regulator and new legislation to ensure that our football clubs are protected from unscrupulous owners and corrupt practices.

Everton’s recent ten-point deduction and the looming decisions about Manchester City’s and Chelsea’s punishments for breaches of Premier League rules can only have damaging effects on our football league system. It is likely that more chaos will ensue due to the greed of owners, their corrupt practices, and the push for a European Super League.

Unfortunately, football in this country is increasingly run by nation states and unscrupulous rich people and the threat to our national game is now an existential one.

Unfit and Improper Persons: An Idiot’s Guide to Owning a Football Club by Kevin Day, Kieran Maguire, and Guy Kilty. Published by Bloomsbury, Price £16.99.

This review first appeared in the January/February 2024 edition of Late Tackle magazine.