Premiership Wages Top £1bn
Total wages in the Premier League have exceeded £1bn for the first time as England’s elite football clubs take advantage of extra television rights revenue in a scramble for talent. The Premiership wage bill rose 23 per cent to £1.2bn in the 2007-08 season according to Deloitte’s annual review of football finance. Chelsea comfortably topped the wages league, with Roman Abramovich’s club spending £172m on salaries, compared with £121m spent by Manchester United, £101m by Arsenal and £90m by Liverpool. Premier League clubs’ increase in total wages of £342m in the two years in 2007/08 is broadly equivalent to the £351m increase in broadcast revenue over this period repeating the experience of previous significant increases in broadcasting deals. Across Premiership clubs there is a relatively strong correlation between wages and league position. However, in the Championship there is no clear link which highlights the division’s unpredictability and suggests that high wages are not a sure fire guarantee of success at this level. Championship wages went up year on year by 17 per cent, League 1 by 27 per cent and League 2 by 8 per cent.
The latest Deloitte review of football finance shows that gross transfer spending across the top 92 professional clubs grew to £779m in 2007/08, up 35 per cent from 2006/07/. Over 85 per cent (£664m) was spent by Premiership clubs. The majority of Premiership clubs’ transfer spending continues to be with overseas clubs, £351m or 52 per cent. However, the proportion of intra Premier League transfers has increased. Chelsea became the first club to report over £80m gross transfer spending in one season. Three others – Liverpool (£70m), Manchester City (£62m) and Portsmouth (£50m) – had gross transfer spend in excess of £50m. The net transfer movement between the Premiership and the Football League in 2007/08 was a net outflow from the Premier League of £59m, an increase of 69 per cent from £35m in 2006/07. Total transfer spending by Football League clubs has increased by 34 per cent to £115m with ten clubs recording transfer fees in excess of £5m.
Championship Revenues Show Steady Growth – 06/06/2009
The Championship has resumed its path of steady growth, according to Deloitte’s Football Finance report…
Premiership Revenue Tops £2 Billion – 05/06/2009
The publication of the Deloitte report on football finance is always one of the highlights of the year for those of us interested in the business side of football and we will be providing further analysis from this year’s report over the next few days….