Editor’s Letter: ISSUE 13

Premier League clubs have spent €20bn on transfers since 2014. Twenty billion. That was the total I calculated after going through pages of data on the German football website Transfermarkt. My research was for a graph to be produced for this issue of the magazine, supporting the opinion piece by contributor Steve Hoyles on Page 57.

I thought about that number for a while. If a government had spent €20bn on a particular issue in the last decade, some pretty concrete positive outcomes would be expected—if not demanded. Some might say that England’s top-flight has gone from strength to strength since 2014, further solidifying its status as the world’s greatest league and offering up some of the most entertaining football teams ever assembled. And yes, it has done those things. It is a show of the league’s strength that clubs can spend billions over ten years, and (for the most part) look forward to another decade of high-spending. But could a €20bn expenditure on the transferring of football players between clubs ever really be justifiable?

Apparently, it’s an amount of money that is absolutely necessary to sustain the beautiful game, and continue entertaining the millions of global Premier League fans. I immediately thought that such excessive transfer spending simply reinforces the importance of the smaller stories in football. Some stories might not involve billions, but are just as significant and generate just as much hope and enjoyment.

While I think that FUTBOLISTA has always championed these perspectives, ISSUE 13 does so more than ever. Step away from Soccer Saturday or Monday Night Football and read about the impact football can have on communities around the world.

This edition’s cover feature takes you to Jerusalem and football’s place in the Israel-Palestine conflict, with Mohammad Joseph interviewing Palestinian striker Oday Dabbagh on Page 8. The footballer does what many think players cannot do—speak with incredible meaning and awareness.

ISSUE 13’s other long-read features include Christopher Evans’ piece on the uplifting feeling taking hold in his small town in Türkiye, after an earthquake-hit club moved to the seaside resort (Page 16), and Theo Gardner’s account of the Swedish lower league side founded by displaced Assyrians on Page 46. These stories might not make the headlines, but they have a home in this magazine.

Thanks to you, the reader, for making all this possible once again. I hope to publish a fourteenth issue of FUTBOLISTA this summer, so watch out for that. For now, enjoy ISSUE 13 and let me know what you think of the magazine. My email is below. All the best,

Archie Willis, Editor and Publisher of FUTBOLISTA Magazine

Email: editor@futbolistamag.com