The overall numbers would be even bleaker were it not for some smart accounting, with several clubs selling off assets to their own ownership groups.<\/p>\n
Saudi-backed Newcastle United sold their St James\u2019 Park stadium to another company owned by the club\u2019s shareholders to turn a profit, while Everton and Aston Villa cashed in on their women\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem with the Premier League is that clubs are so incentivised to overspend,\u201d football finance expert Kieran Maguire told AFP.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s an arms race at the end of the day in terms of competing for players on transfer fees and wages,\u201d Maguire said.<\/p>\n
The figures for the 2024\/25 campaign do not even fully account for a record \u00a33b spent on transfer fees by Premier League clubs in last year\u2019s summer transfer window, smashing the previous high by \u00a3650m.<\/p>\n
Liverpool\u2019s \u00a3125m signing of Alexander Isak set a new record for an English club and was part of a \u00a3450m window for the English champions, which has so far failed to reap tangible reward.<\/p>\n
Wages continue to spiral, reaching \u00a34.4b last season, a 9% increase on the previous year, outstripping the 7% rise in revenue.<\/p>\n
Spending on agents also reached new highs, fuelling fans\u2019 anger at the money flowing out of the game while they are asked to pay higher ticket prices.<\/p>\n
In the frenzied world of the Premier League, success in an increasingly competitive league is no longer measured solely by trophies.<\/p>\n
For the second consecutive year, at least five English sides will qualify for the Champions League, which guarantees a huge financial windfall.<\/p>\n
New financial rules will be introduced next season focused on limiting squad cost in line with revenue.<\/p>\n
Spending on wages, transfer fees and agents must not exceed 85% of revenue, with a stricter 70% limit placed on teams in Uefa competitions.<\/p>\n
However, those changes are unlikely to make a significant impact on losses, with operating costs, which jumped to US$1.9b for Premier League clubs last season, excluded.<\/p>\n
Despite clubs\u2019 tendencies to haemorrhage money, they remain an attractive asset because of their scarcity value and role in the Premier League\u2019s global soap opera.<\/p>\n
British billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe\u2019s 27.7% stake in Manchester United, bought for \u00a31.25b in 2024, valued the 20-time English champions at \u00a34.5b.<\/p>\n
Chelsea were sold in 2022 for a total package worth \u00a34.25b to a consortium led by American investor Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital.<\/p>\n
Manchester City have become the dominant force in the English game since a takeover backed by the Abu Dhabi royal family, while the Saudi Arabian sovereign wealth fund took control of Newcastle in 2021.<\/p>\n
Former Manchester United captain Gary Neville believes the scale of Chelsea\u2019s financial problems could signal a slowdown in the bull market for English clubs.<\/p>\n
But Maguire argues that losses are deemed affordable by super-rich owners.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith billionaire owners and sovereign wealth funds in charge of clubs, whilst the losses seem high, for those people, they are deemed to be affordable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless there\u2019s a mindset change from club owners in terms of controlling your core costs, which are player-related in transfer fees and wages, we\u2019re going to continue in this vein for some time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The overall numbers would be even bleaker were it not for some smart accounting, with several clubs selling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":413372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[212522,12116,8613,46326,19671,156507,1644,2082,78,685,14731,34438,5342,5836,11692,111,139,69,16803,10112,14730,85522,7798,212521,6926,2437,26213,213,3502,199284,86361,377],"class_list":["post-413371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-170b","tag-arms","tag-billion","tag-clubs","tag-envy","tag-epl","tag-financial","tag-for","tag-in","tag-last","tag-league","tag-locked","tag-losses","tag-lost","tag-nearly","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-onfield","tag-power","tag-premier","tag-pursuit","tag-race","tag-revenuegenerating","tag-season","tag-security","tag-soar","tag-sports","tag-success","tag-trumped","tag-us1","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/413372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}