london manchester united liverpool chelsea aston villa fulham west ham united manchester city portsmouth sunderland and about a quarter of arsenal heading into the new season almost half the teams in the premier league are in foreign handsshould english football be worried has it as tom bower the author of broken dreams vanity greed and the souring of british football put it sold the crown jewelsis wealth generated by english clubs being sucked away from english shoresgiven how often the question is asked the answer is both surprising and surprisingly simple no it isnt for the very simple fact that english football clubs tend not make a profitat the moment the premier league is ahead of any other football league in the world but its revenues still lag behind those of major us series such as the nfl or major league baseball said stefan szymanski a sports economist at the cass business school part of londons city universityon the other hand its growing much faster and it has broader appealif it continues to grow in asia and especially in china then it could become the biggest sporting series in the worldthese investors think the globalisation of football will mean much bigger opportunities to make moneyalso several of them already run sporting franchises in the us and they think they can draw on that experience to make premier league clubs more profitablebut the premier league is a different beast to the protected franchises of the us football has proved remarkably resistant to making a profit and according to the most recent figures premier league clubs owe a total of 31 billion pounds 52 billionthe most recent figures available show that of the sides in last seasons premier league only arsenal blackburn rovers everton fulham tottenham hotspur and west bromwich albion were profitable not a single one was not in debtthis is the great trick that premier league football has played its sense of glamour and style has pulled in foreign investors who cannot conceive how profits cannot be made and has taken their cash in investments that in most cases will never pay offbut even leaving that aside are foreign owners such a bad thingwhen only 37 percent of players in the premier league are qualified to play for england and three of the socalled big four as well as the england national team are managed by foreigners why should foreigners not get involved in other areas of the gamethe premier league is after all the global league although that may change given the fall in the pound and the new 50 percent tax bracket that will come into effect for those earning more than 150000 pounds a year next april by contrast foreign players in spain pay just 23 percent if registered as an executivethe fitandproperpersons test is toothless but then how could it be otherwisefootball is not above the law and the law says that anybody who has not been convicted of a criminal offence is entitled to buy