The Club: How the English Premier League Became the Wildest, Richest, Most Disruptive Force in Sports

Jonathan Clegg · Joshua Robinson

Dec 2018 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Shaun Grindell

About this audiobook

This is a sports and business tale of how money, ambition, and twenty-five years of drama remade an ancient institution into a twenty-first-century entertainment empire. No one knew it when their experiment began, but without any particular genius or acumen, the motley cast of billionaires and hucksters behind the modern Premier League struck gold.



Pretty soon, everyone wanted to try their luck, from Russian oligarchs to Emirati sheikhs, American tycoons, and Asian Tiger titans. Some succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Some lost everything. Today, players are sold for tens of millions, clubs are valued in the billions, and games are beamed out to nearly two hundred countries, all while the league struggles to preserve its English soul.



Deeply researched and drawing on one hundred exclusive interviews, including the key decision makers at every major English team, The Club is the definitive and wildly entertaining narrative of how the Premier League took over the world.

Ratings and reviews

I expected detail about the history of English football and the creation of the Premier league. This was a very small, kinda underwhelming part of the book. It spends most of its time giving a history of the 2000-2015 seasons and some background of the top teams. There is very little about teams outside the top 6. They deviate later in the book to talking about MLS teams and expansion from City and Red Bull. I'm not upset I listened but I didn't get what was advertised and most of the book was basic information that anyone casually following during this time would already have.

About the author

Joshua Robinson is the European sports correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Sports Illustrated. Jonathan Clegg is a senior editor for the Wall Street Journal. His work has also appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Independent (U.K.), and FourFourTwo magazine. Born and raised in Southampton, England, Shaun Grindell is an accomplished actor who trained at the Calland School of Speech and Drama and the Lee Strasberg Actors Institute in London. An AudioFile Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator, Shaun has narrated many titles in different genres.