By James M. Dorsey

Gulf investment in European soccer threatens to become a hot potato.

That is if the European Union’s competition authorities decide to investigate assertions by Spain’s top soccer league, La Liga, and a second-tier Belgian club, Royal Excelsior Virton (RE Virton), that subsidies from Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to two European professional football clubs distort competition.

The complaints and legal battles between UAE-owned Manchester City and the Premier League reflect changes in European soccer, which supporters’ associations or local businesspeople historically bankrolled.

Please read, watch, or listen further at https://jamesmdorsey.substack.com/p/gulf-investment-in-european-soccer

By James M. Dorsey

is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the same title.