A Leeds fan has been taking a careful and detailed look at club budgets in the Championship. The context for this is the debate at Leeds about whether enough money has been invested in the team: the club thinks that the budget is a good one, but many fans disagree. However, his analysis is not just about Leeds but looks at the financial picture in the Championship as a whole and provides a considerable amount of detail.
A Leeds fan has been taking a careful and detailed look at club budgets in the Championship. The context for this is the debate at Leeds about whether enough money has been invested in the team: the club thinks that the budget is a good one, but many fans disagree. However, his analysis is not just about Leeds but looks at the financial picture in the Championship as a whole and provides a considerable amount of detail.
Not surprisingly he finds, as we do, that a lot of the financial figures available about clubs in the public domain are incomplete and unreliable. Given the time lags involved in publishing annual accounts, they are never up to date.
His analysis shows that very few clubs keep within or ever near the Uefa recommendations on spending on wages as a percentage of turnover (50 – 70 per cent). If anything, the Championship is more prone to over spending than any other division because of the impetus to reach the promised land of the Premier League.
As far as individual clubs are concerned, QPR spent a lot of money and achieved promotion, while Boro spent and didn’t. Swansea appeared to have spent more than many people realised (although their figures are incomplete) while Norwich appear to have got the balance right between spending and success. Birmingham City may well need to get promoted back to the Premiership this season to avoid entering administration while Sheffield United have a financial imperative to get out of League 1.