The trend across Europe is football clubs are heading towards a break even point which still may be 5 or 10 years away. The revenue is up, but then so are the operating costs forcing clubs to cut back or face increasing debt.
What always amazes me is football clubs are a business that generate huge revenues yet so few ever make any profit. The English Premier League has the most lucrative television sponsorship deals that other European leagues can only dream about. The EPL teams receive an average guaranteed £123m per season compared to the next best La Liga (Spain) being £56m, Serie A (Italy) and Bundesliga (Germany) both on an average of £52m.
Last season being the 2024/24 EPL season only 4 football clubs registered a profit with 16 registering losses. Hard to imagine with combined total club revenues exceeding £6.3 billion.
Newcastle were the club who made the biggest profit last season with £34.73 million from a revenue of £335.3 million. The club had a 44% increase with regard to commercial income. This shows that a club can be profitable and be run as a business, but try telling that to the other 16 clubs. This mind you may have been a fluke as the previous season the club lost ££11.08 million.
Aston Villa who were a promoted team having come up from the Championship posted a £17.03 million profit having generated £378.07 million in revenue which was an increase of over 50% from the season before in the lower division. The previous season having won promotion which forced the club to invest heavily in new players in order to try and stay up had a net loss £85.89 million. This is kind of normal as the clubs have to try and stay in the EPL due to how much extra money is on offer.
Bournemouth registered a £14.89 million profit from only £181.7 million in revenue. Bournemouth have the smallest stadium in the EPL and the reason for profits was through the selling of players. I think certain teams have to be realistic on their expectations and buying and selling players for profit is how they are going to stay in business.
Liverpool the last of the 4 clubs that made a profit was registered at only £8.27 million from a revenue of £702.7 million which as a percentage is just over 1% and shows how tight the budgets are. Real Madrid recorded the highest revenue in their history of £1.1 billion and only recorded a £24 million profit last season.
Crystal Palace were the 5th club to record a profit of £8.27 million from a revenue of £196.6 million. Again a small club that made profit from selling players otherwise they would have been in debt. Clubs that have academies or youth programs is the future for the smaller clubs as they will feed the bigger clubs and never be able to keep their star players.
Arsenal were border line with a £1.8 million loss and is the difference of going one more match in the Champions League which is worth £2 million a match. The margins are so tight considering Arsenal generated £691.6 million in revenue for last season.
This is nothing when you compare Chelsea who recorded the biggest loss in EPL history. A loss of £262.44 million from a revenue of £490.9 million highlights bigger problems with expenses having increased by a staggering £117.4 put down to match day costs and players wages. This shows desperation and desperate clubs never seem concerned about the costs and demand success. Just look at the turmoil the club finds itself in now after yet another managerial sacking with the club having 3 managers this season.
What is interesting to note is 3 of the clubs with the biggest losses last season find them selves in 16th,17th and 18th spot this season namely Forest, Tottenham and West Ham. If Tottenham go down which looks likely unless some miracle they could register the biggest loss in their club history. The EPL is where a club has to be in order to make a profit, but this is never guaranteed and shows how badly the clubs are being run. The owners of these clubs will only make a profit when they sell or like the owners of Manchester United pay themselves using club debt.