After the game Bristol City’s manager, 78-year-old Roy Hodgson, joined his players in a gentle lap of honour around the pitch, applauding the fans for their support. Their team had finished comfortably in mid-table. And the joyous involvement of Mr Hodgson, better-known for his four-year stint in charge of England’s national side, reflects the enduring attraction and romance of the lower leagues. A lot has changed since Mr Hodgson began his managerial career in 1976. One recent development, and a topic of endless debate among football commentators and cognoscenti, is the introduction of video assistant referees (VAR). Premier League games are increasingly decided by often controversial refereeing decisions made miles from the stadium, by officials watching a monitor. Critics argue that it slows momentum and blunts the emotion of football’s defining moment: a goal. Another reason people are attracted to non-Premier League football? One fan states it bluntly: “There’s no VAR.” ■ For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in Britain, sign up to Blighty, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//britain/2026/05/21/why-football-attendance-is-booming- outside-the-premier-league
The legal case hanging over Man City and the Premier League Loud shouts for a penalty May 21st 2026 In the otherwise sunny story of the Premier League there is one big cloud. In 2023 Manchester City, one of England’s most successful clubs, was charged with well over 100 breaches of the league’s rules. Some of City’s alleged transgressions (all resolutely denied by the club) relate to non-co-operation with league officials. Most deal with failures to accurately report the club’s accounts, thus avoiding “financial fair play” regulations that could have curtailed the spending—over £1.9bn ($2.5bn)—that took City from mediocrity to dominance. In the 14 seasons covered by the charges, Manchester City won seven Premier League titles.
To adjudicate the case the Premier League has employed an independent commission of three anonymous judges. The hearing took place behind closed doors in December 2024. A lengthy judgment is still being prepared. The long wait for a verdict has caused frustration and fuelled conspiracy theories among fans. Chief among them are unsubstantiated suggestions of diplomatic interference (Manchester City are owned by Sheikh Mansour, the vice-president and deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates). In recent years Everton and Nottingham Forest have received points deductions (of six and four points respectively) for single breaches of the league’s financial rules. If City were to be found guilty, Premier League rules mean they could face a fine, a points deduction or even expulsion from the league. Given the sheer number of charges, the scale of any potential punishment would almost certainly invite an appeal and legal challenges from the club. If City are cleared, receive a light punishment or strike a favourable plea bargain, fans and clubs alike will question the sporting integrity of the competition. It is without doubt the most consequential case in English football’s 163-year history. An initial decision, rumoured for the summer, is unlikely to put the matter to bed. Any sanctions would have to wait until after the inevitable appeal. That could easily take another year. This looks destined to stretch into extra time plus plenty of injury time.■ For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in Britain, sign up to Blighty, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//britain/2026/05/21/the-legal-case-hanging-over-man-city- and-the-premier-league
Britain’s second-biggest city goes from dysfunctional to worse Once the best-governed city in the world May 21st 2026 Britain’s second-biggest city is strangely Italian. After the second world war its road system was remodelled (not entirely wisely) by Sir Herbert Manzoni, the son of a Milanese sculptor. Its canals are said to be lengthier than those in Venice. One of its greatest monuments, a gigantic clock tower often known as Old Joe, evokes Siena. Its most famous bit of civil engineering is Spaghetti Junction. Now Birmingham has Italian politics, too. In 2022 voters handed the Labour Party a healthy majority on the city council, with almost two-thirds of the seats. In local elections on May 7th they gave no party as much as one-quarter (see chart). Some electoral wards in Birmingham were so politically fragmented that the outcome of the
election seemed almost random. One councillor was elected in Tyseley and Hay Mills after winning just 20% of votes. Fury at the local and national Labour Party brought Birmingham to this pass. In Northfield, two middle-aged white women, both named Karen (“but not the ‘Karen’ thing you see on Facebook”) complain about shoplifters, shabby streets and the prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer. Their neighbourhood voted for Reform uk, a populist right-wing party. Nearer the centre, Ward End switched from Labour to an independent, Harris Khaliq. He says that people were livid about the disruption caused by hs2, a troubled railway line, and the sorry state of the local park. Birmingham lags behind economically. It is one of many cities outside south-east England that ought to be doing much better, given the size of their populations. But in a political sense Birmingham might point to Britain’s future. Of 136 English local councils that voted on May 7th, fully 64 now have no majority party, up from 41 beforehand. The mess in Birmingham is an extreme example of the mess everywhere. It was once a paragon. In 1890 Harper’s, an American magazine, declared that Birmingham was the best-run city in the world. “All the streets are kept uncommonly clean,” it gushed. The city had “a deep-seated spirit of what is
called civicism, a broad and enlightened communal spirit”. So powerful and far-sighted was Birmingham that it would soon build reservoirs 50km away, in Wales, to supply its water. The streets are no longer uncommonly clean. Birmingham City Council declared a financial crisis in 2023, owing partly to a wave of equal-pay claims from female employees. An attempt to introduce a new it system failed. Refuse workers have been on strike for more than a year. Residents have suffered steep tax increases. “Nowhere has been as badly governed as Birmingham,” says Roger Harmer, leader of the Liberal Democrats on the city council. A persistently dysfunctional city government would harm not just Birmingham but its neighbours too. Greater Manchester has turned itself around since the 1990s largely through a heroic effort at co-ordination: the ten councils of the metropolis speak to investors and Westminster with one voice. The urban West Midlands can hardly prosper if its biggest city is a gibbering wreck. Its mayor, Richard Parker, has pleaded for “serious people”. The Italian remedy for a fissiparous electorate is coalition government. But that will be difficult in Birmingham. Almost nobody is prepared to work
with Reform, the largest party on the council. Labour is licking its wounds and is loth to join any coalition. Mathematically, a majority could be constructed by combining the Conservative, Green and Liberal Democrat councillors, along with a few independents. Unfortunately, a recent attempt to form such a coalition in Worcestershire was stymied by the national Conservative Party, which could not stand the sight of its members working with the populist-left Greens. Birmingham has problems that are not strictly economic. It has long been a city of people who came from somewhere else—other parts of England, Ireland, the Caribbean, south Asia, sub-Saharan Africa. Its neighbourhoods change quickly. The mostly white suburban fringes of the city are growing less so as ethnic minorities move out of the city centre. Some of the most Asian areas are becoming more black-African and Caribbean. Overall, concluded Richard Harris of the University of Bristol in a study in 2024, Birmingham is growing less ethnically segregated. Some think this is fine. Others do not. “We’ve been overtook,” mutters an elderly white woman who is waiting for a bus in Northfield. “Asians,” she adds. Many lampposts there are festooned with British and English flags. A benign symbol in many places and contexts, the national flags in Birmingham are often put up illicitly and have been defended by aggressive masked men. They seem like attempts to mark streets as belonging to natives, or whites. Meanwhile, in some largely Asian neighbourhoods, local politics is not strictly local. In the early 2000s the People’s Justice Party, which campaigned on Kashmiri issues, won seats on the council. This year some independent candidates were supported by a lawyer, Akhmed Yakoob, who has railed against the Labour Party’s record on Gaza and has been filmed telling people that “Zionists control everything”. Need it be added that Mr Yakoob has a substantial following on TikTok? Loudmouths and sharp racial views are to be expected in a large, diverse city. But they need to be pushed firmly to the fringes, where they cannot cause too much damage. A confident, well-run place where people feel themselves to be part of a civic project is more likely to be able to do that
than a dysfunctional place. One of Britain’s greatest cities is in danger of being let down by its politics.■ For more expert analysis of the biggest stories in Britain, sign up to Blighty, our weekly subscriber-only newsletter. This article was downloaded by zlibrary from https://www.economist.com//britain/2026/05/21/britains-second-biggest-city-goes- from-dysfunctional-to-worse
Labour’s “battle for ideas” is a skirmish over small differences And it ducks the questions that matter most May 21st 2026 Sir Keir Starmer is still prime minister, but the battle to succeed him is in full swing. Andy Burnham, the front-runner, has been popping up across northern England wearing bomber jackets and proselytising “Manchesterism”, his creed of localism and business-friendly socialism. Wes Streeting, the leading candidate from Labour’s right, is stirring things up by stressing that he wants Britain to rejoin the European Union. That this puts Mr Burnham in a sticky position—he needs to win a by-election in Leave-voting Makerfield before he can stand in a leadership contest—is all part of the fun.