Stopping Financial Own Goals: Lessons from International Football
Published: December 10, 2025
As Club Brugge KV competes among the best in Europe in this season’s UEFA Champions League, Laurent Descout, CEO and Co-Founder, Neo, ponders the lessons other businesses can learn from football clubs as each navigates global finance.
As we look forward to another round of midweek Champions League football on 10th December, many may wonder how earlier in November, Club Brugge managed to go toe-to-toe with the giants of FC Barcelona, setting up a thrilling three-all draw.
Of course, it’s easy to admire what Club Brugge gets right, including its world-class academy development, data-driven talent acquisition, and sophisticated on-field tactics. But its ability to compete against FC Barcelona, with its global superstar players and 2025/26 season budget of €1bn, is still very much against the odds. But Club Brugge also depends on something far less visible to keep it aiming high: the way in which it manages its business, finances, and international operations.
Global: from pitches to payments
Behind the scenes, top clubs operate much like multinational corporations, managing international transfers, cross-border payments, and global talent acquisition. They navigate a financial landscape that mirrors the challenges faced by businesses that operate across multiple borders.
Club Brugge’s success is in part due to its smart transfer strategy. It focuses on intelligent recruitment of young, high-potential players, developing them, and selling them for a profit. At the same time, it promotes players nurtured within its own academy, Club NXT.
The club therefore recruits players from all over the world, paying salaries and transfer fees in multiple currencies. And just like mid-size corporates, it too must be precise when managing complex supply chains, multiple counterparties, and compliance legal and regulatory obligations.
But player transfers are rarely straightforward. That complexity is amplified under the intense time pressure all clubs face during the short summer and winter transfer windows, when deal sheets must be in before the deadline. Missteps are costly, both on the field and in the financial books. And the stakes can be almost unbelievably high.
During last summer’s transfer window, English clubs spent more than £1.7bn on players from European leagues. Fees charged by legacy FX brokers cost top-flight teams more than £22.5m in just seven weeks. Liverpool, the current English Premier League (EPL) champions, was reported as the club hardest hit by these hidden fees. It was billed over £3.6m in hidden charges, including, bizarrely, a reported near £1.7m FX hit on its £125m signing of Alexander Isak from another EPL team, Newcastle United.
It's clear that even elite clubs, negotiating transfers down to the last detail, can be exposed to costly inefficiencies when moving money across borders. But astute (or lucky) clubs can also be positively impacted by FX movements. Given the size of some international transfers, small changes in currency conversion rates can significantly impact the cost of a new player. For example, in January 2015, Arsenal agreed a fee for Gabriel Paulista in euros that ended up costing the club around £700,000 less than had it concluded that deal just a couple of weeks earlier. This was due entirely to a favourable shift in the pound/euro pairing.
Lucky or otherwise, this highlights how exchange-rate fluctuations create both huge risks and opportunities for football clubs. It also reinforces their need for financial expertise and careful planning, just as multinational businesses do when managing their cross-border transactions.
Tackling inefficiencies
Indeed, football clubs often face the same complexity as multinational businesses when making cross-border payments. Working with traditional banks can involve slow processes, multiple accounts for different currencies, and limited FX hedging options, all of which restrict operational efficiency.
Club CFOs and treasurers must maintain tight control over budgets and payments. However, high rates, opaque fees, and added complexities make it difficult to manage resources effectively.
Hidden charges and inflated FX margins can quietly erode funds that might otherwise be invested in players, facilities, travel, and, ultimately, success on the pitch. Meanwhile, clubs managing international transfers face complex timings of deals, as well as the headache of managing multiple currencies, and onerous regulatory requirements. In the UK, for example, clubs operate in GBP but regularly pay in EUR or USD. In Belgium, teams such as Club Brugge are expanding their scouting networks to parts of Africa, further increasing the need for a precise and well-understood currency strategy.
Working with FX and cross-border payment experts enables clubs to handle these processes accurately, avoid delays, and meet transfer deadlines. Intelligent solutions can streamline operations by offering better pricing, visibility, and integration with financial systems. This enables their treasurers to hedge effectively, manage exchange rates, and maintain control over cash flow, which is critical in today’s volatile financial landscape.
The same principles apply to businesses handling cross-border operations, where efficiency, transparency, and speed are increasingly critical. With the number of cross-border transactions growing, more football clubs - and organisations in other sectors – will encounter similar operational challenges. The potential value of modern systems that can manage risk, maintain transparency, and ultimately support success and growth, should therefore not be dismissed lightly.
Punching above weight
With Club Brugge competing against Europe’s giants in the Champions League, its performance on the pitch is being underpinned by more than just tactics and talent. Behind every transfer, payment, and cross-border transaction lies a financial strategy that mirrors the challenges faced by multinational businesses.
Success not only depends on skill and ambition, but on timing, expertise, and careful planning. The qualities that enable the likes of Club Brugge to punch above their weight on football’s biggest stage, are the same that enable smaller businesses to compete with their larger competitors in international trade. Of course, there are no suspect VAR decisions to frustrate progress in the business world…