The
Premier League cemented its status as the world’s richest football
league in 2013-14, its clubs’ record income of £3.26bn outstripping that
of the next richest league, Germany’s Bundesliga, by more than £1bn.
In
the first year of the Premier League’s 2013-16 television deals, which
total £5.5bn, a review of football finance by the accountants Deloitte
found the clubs’ TV income alone was €171m (£126m) more than the entire
income of Spain’s La Liga clubs, €405m more than the total earnings of
Italy’s Serie A clubs and €606m more than the income of France’s Ligue 1
clubs.
As previously reported in the Guardian,
15 of the Premier League clubs made a profit in 2013-14 and the league
recorded an overall pre-tax profit of £198m, its clubs’ first overall
profit since 1998-99.
This transformation of England’s top
flight into a largely profitable one was due to financial fair play
rules introduced to limit the increase in wages that could be paid from
the additional TV money in the 2013-16 bonanza. Deloitte reported 19 of
the 20 clubs made an operating profit, an overall total of £614m and an
increase of £532m – more than sevenfold – on the previous year.
The
report highlighted the huge financial divide between the Premier League
and the Football League, from which the top-division clubs broke away
in 1992 so they would no longer have to share TV income with the three
divisions below. Deloitte described as “alarming” the overall loss made
in 2013-14 by the 24 clubs in the Championship of £247m, an average per
club of £10m.
The clubs in English football’s second tier,
several now funded by investors seeking the vast financial rewards
delivered by promotion to the Premier League, paid more in wages than
their entire income of £491m. That was itself a record, although caused
largely by Premier League parachute payments to relegated clubs having
grown by £57m. Eight clubs in the Championship received these payments.
This
overall loss in the Championship was recorded in the first year the
Football League implemented strict regulations seeking to limit club
losses, with penalties for those which default. Deloitte described the
Championship’s operating losses, of £222m, as a “significant issue”.
League
One clubs’ overall income was £148m, the report said, an increase of
£28m from 2012-13. This was due largely to Wolverhampton Wanderers being
relegated to the third tier while still being entitled to £19m in
parachute payments from their stint in the Premier League.
Income
of the 24 clubs in League Two was down 9% to £78m “largely due to the
change in composition of clubs in the division”, the report said.
Credit: David Conn/Guardian Sport
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