10/. Sunderland - £66 million. Not a massive debt in the grand scheme of things and does not include the £24 million that they received from the sale of Darren Bent to Aston Villa or the reported £20 million that they received from Liverpool for star player Jordan Henderson. Steve Bruce is however expected to spend the majority of this money on replacement players including Wes Brown, John O'Shea and Darron Gibson from Manchester United amongst others.
9/. Wigan - £72.5 million - A staggering fact is that Wigan spend 90% of their turnover on wages in order to compete with their Premier League rivals. Not the most fashionable club by any stretch, they have one of the lowest ticket prices in the league but still have one of the lowest average attendances. With the likes of Bolton, Man United and Man City nearby they are always going to struggle to fill their stadium. The cost of relegation for a club like Wigan would be huge so it is testament to Dave Whelan and Roberto Martinez for keeping them up.
8/. Tottenham - £78.6 million - The biggest problem that Spurs have is that White Hart Lane is simply too small. It's capacity is 36,000 and to getting a ticket for a game is a mission impossible. A friend of mine is on the season ticket waiting list and is 24,000 in the queue. Tottenham can easily fill a 60,000 capacity stadium so a massive revenue opportunity is missing at the moment -this is being addressed at the moment but it can't come soon enough. The Champions League run would have brought in a lot of cash this season and there is also talk of Bale and Modric going for mega money. This will significantly reduce the debt but will be disastrous for the team as a whole.
7./ Bolton - £93 million - A massive jump from the previous season of £29 million leaves Bolton in seventh place in the list. Similar to Wigan, an unfashionable club with an extremely high wage bill they need to ensure Premier League survival each year or they will be in big trouble.
6/. Aston Villa - £110 million - Villa are in a interesting position due to the fact that the debt of 110 million is owed to Chairman Randy Lerner. Of course he can write off this debt but it is highly unlikely. With the sale of key players this summer (Ashley Young and possibly Stuart Downing), the debt will of course be reduced but the team will never get into Europe without the money being reinvested in quality players.
5/. Arsenal - £135 million - The Arsenal strategy of investing heavily in their new stadium for long term gains in the long run whilst at the same time being extremely frugal in the transfer market seems to be working as their debt has more than halved in the space of a year. Your everyday Arsenal fan would rather see the money invested in the team and frustration is abound amongst their supporters at Wenger's reluctance to splash out on some much needed world class players.
4/. Liverpool - £143 million - A vast portion of Liverpool's debts are in the form of bank loans which means that they are paying ridiculous amounts of interest. Although they received £50 million for Fernando Torres this has been spent on Andy Carroll and Luis Suarez. Expect the debt to increase as Kenny Dalglish restructures the entire first team in order to gain a top four spot and entry into the lucrative UEFA Champions League.
3/. Fulham - £190 million - A big surprise in this list is Fulham who for a mid-table team have racked up a huge £190 million debt. There is only a finite amount of times the Mohammed Al-Fayed can bale them out and their position seems precarious as they don't have the funds to get world class players therefore always seemed destined for mid-table obscurity.
2/. Manchester United - £590 - This massive debt is largely due to the Glazer family who have placed their debt onto the club. Manchester United are however still the most valuable and well supported club in the world and their achievements this season will have helped the coffers. Sir Alex Ferguson has seen 3 key players retire this season so he will no doubt be using some of the money from the Cristiano Ronaldo transfer for replacements. The financial pressure to maintain their success is huge as their interest payments on their debt runs into millions.
Visit my Premier League Shop for all your Official Premier League Team Merchandise and Gifts.
For information and statistics on legends of the Premier League take a look at Premier League Heroes
No comments:
Post a Comment