Donald Trump's tariffs could make football owners think twice but there will always be someone else, says Kieran Maguire

Maguire, regarded by supporters, chairmen, would-be owners and even former prime ministers as the country's top authority on football economics, will be at Rotherham United's New York Stadium with host Kevin Day for a Price of Football podcast live show on April 28.

Stock markets plunged this week over planned US import tariffs on 185 countries and trading blocks. They recovered after an 11th-hour decision to pause many, but only for 90 days, and fell again because of retaliatory tariffs on China.

"American investors are now looking at their costs and saying, 'I've got the ranch to run, my three apartments in Manhattan, if the value of all my shares go down, do I still want to to get involved in this football club that's costing me 100 grand a week?' or whatever it is," he says.

"So I'm slightly twitchy about the ripples it could cause to the football industry, given it's so popular with American investors."

Thirty-three English and Welsh league clubs, including half the Premier League plus Leeds United, Sheffield United and Huddersfield Town, are American-owned. Sheffield Wednesday are owned by Thai Dejphon Chansiri, Hull City by Turkish media mogul Acun Ilicali and Bradford City by German Stefan Rupp. Indian Neerav Parekh is Barnsley's biggest shareholder.

Maguire says there will always be someone willing to take clubs on.

"If I ran a business where for every £100 through the door I was spending £240 in wages, as at Reading in the past, you'd close down the business," he argues. "You can't with football, it is so important.

"It's a very expensive hobby. I've got friends that own racehorses and they all lose money. If you're a wealthy person, what else are you going to spend your money on?

"I was talking to a big American investor about the economic shakedown and he said he was going to wait for the next club to go into administration and just buy the assets.

"I said, 'That will cost you a 15-point deduction,' and he said it was a price worth paying.

"Football is subsidised by owners more than ever and even though at times they will walk away, the fans will fight tooth and nail to preserve the memory of that football club.

"It's a weird model but it works because if you compare it to rugby union and potentially rugby league with Salford, clubs are being destroyed and not resurrected.

"Some of the things I did as a 30-year-old chartered accountant when Brighton nearly went out of business, I'd get arrested for if it ever came to light.

"But if you list the 10 greatest moments of your life, how many involve football? Probably five or six."

He thinks the financial model which will put Leeds and/or Sheffield United at a disadvantage if they win promotion to the Premier League does need looking at.

"We've had two seasons in which the three up (to the Premier League) are realistically going to become the three down and we're creating a trampoline environment, which isn't good for the product," he says.

"Last year I went to both Brighton-Sheffield United games and we (Brighton) scored 10 goals.

"The rules need reviewing but who's going to change them? If I was a middle-class Premier League clubs why change the rules to assist clubs just about to get promoted?

"The clubs in the Premier League can lose £105m over three years. Ipswich, Luton or Forest when they came up could only lose £61m.

"Given it's the (Premier League) clubs that make the rules, they're not going to help out.

"Is there a case for a review? Yes. Ideally agreed between the Premier League and EFL but they seem unable to sit down together. Having somebody who can be objective and non-partisan can help."

The Senior Teacher in Accounting and Finance at the University of Liverpool Management School is not just a go-to man for football.

"It's bonkers," he says. "I'd done about 30 interviews one week when a big story broke and my wife was furious by the end of it. It got to Friday night, she'd cooked me a lovely dinner, and she told me the next phonecall I had to tell them to go.

"It's Gordon Brown, who's on the telly the following morning speaking about football. As he's no longer an MP he no longer gets briefings from the civil service.

"My wife was going absolutely nuts so I put it on speakerphone so she could hear who it was because he's got quite a distinctive voice."

Listening to ordinary fans is important to him too, which is why he is looking forward to Rotherham.

"It gives me the opportunity to talk to people face to face, which as a teacher is what I love doing more than anything else," he says. "In the bar afterwards we get bombarded with a long list of questions they didn't manage to ask in the show.

"Whilst it's great fun for me, football is jumpers for goalposts and seeing mates before a match. PSR, amortisation and valuing women's teams at £200m should not be on the front or back pages but I don't see it going away for a long time."

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