Eye-popping figures behind Championship crisis that has left two clubs in hot water
Stoke City’s owners have deep pockets but the EFL is fighting against the tide
Stoke City’s owners have been prepared to take substantial losses on the chin over the last few years and it is becoming ever clearer that you’ll be up the creek without a paddle in the Championship unless your owners have that mindset.
Sheffield Wednesday have been placed under transfer embargo amid allegations of unpaid bills, including player and staff wages at Hillsborough. Hull City have also had a brush with the EFL City were placed under a temporary embargo earlier this week which has now been lifted.
But as a result of failure to meet a payment within the ’30-day rule’ the club have been slapped with the fixed penalty of a transfer fee restriction spanning the next three windows. Although HullLive report City owner Acun Ilicali is expected to ‘come out swinging’ in defence of the sanction.
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Football finance expert Kieran Maguire summed it up when he posted on social media: “If you’re wondering why Sheffield Wednesday and then Hull are subject to transfer embargoes, the weekly Championship operating losses may give some explanation.
“Player sales (erratic and volatile) and owner subsidies (also at times erratic and volatile) keep the lights on.”
The figures he posted, taken from the latest accounts that cover the 2023/24 season, are startling.
Plymouth Argyle had to cover losses of £72,000 a week and it went sharply up from there. At Wednesday it was £171,000, Hull £507,000, Stoke £592,000, Leeds United £1.3m and Leicester City £1.8m.
The money in the Premier League is so extortionate that the rest of the pyramid either has to write off the top flight altogether or rack up the kind of losses that put them on the brink.
This is combined with profitability and sustainability rules that don’t particularly seem fair and certainly aren’t helping to make the sport sustainable.
Football is awash with cash but competition is negligible and the plight of Sheffield Wednesday and Hull’s experience highlight just how close the whole thing is to disaster.
Someone has to get a grip, probably starting with a redistribution of the huge broadcast pot that separates the big time from the rest. If there’s going to be a pyramid – and English football is nothing without it – the Premier League has to come to the table and negotiate with the rest of the family.
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