English football makes 9 billion pounds a year, and almost every club loses money
More than 60% of lower league clubs are technically insolvent, and 17 would lose money even if players played for free.
Global News Podcast · Pope has surgery for lung cancerEnglish football brings in 9 billion pounds a year, yet almost every club loses money.
That is the warning from David Kogan, chairman of the sport's independent regulator, who said the game is ridden with debt and ridden with risk. Last season, nearly every club in the top five tiers of men's English football, 94%, from the Premier League down to the National League, lost money.
Kogan said, "The further you go down the pyramid of 116 clubs, the more those risks increase." The pyramid is the league system from the top flight down to the lower leagues. More than 60% of clubs in the English Football League and the National League, which sit below the Premier League, are technically insolvent, meaning they owe more than they own.
Player wages are not the whole story. Seventeen lower league clubs would still lose money even if they paid players nothing.
Questions people ask
What does it mean for a club to be technically insolvent?
It means a club owes more than it owns. In practice, such a club can keep operating while bills are paid on time, but it has no cushion if income falls or an owner stops covering the gap.
How could a club lose money even if it paid players nothing?
The regulator said player wages, while high, are not the only problem. For those 17 clubs, costs apart from the wage bill were still larger than income, so removing wages alone would not bring them to break even.
What is supposed to fix this?
The regulator wants the Premier League and the English Football League to conclude years of talks and agree a new funding settlement that would see the top flight share more of its wealth. Separately, Manchester City has appealed after being found to have broken Premier League financial rules, but if a commission's guilty verdicts are upheld, the regulator could force a sale.