Championship sails into choppy waters

NOT content with sharing the points at Deepdale last weekend, Alex Neil and Lee Johnson decided to share the love.

“I’ve got nothing but respect for Preston,” said Johnson, the Bristol City manager. “There’s a lot of big hitters in this division, in terms of finances and former Premier League clubs, but you see ourselves and Preston consistently competing.

“We inevitably lose our best players but that ethos remains - sign, develop, promote from the academy. Myself and Alex, we have to coach.”

Earlier, Neil had expressed almost identical sentiments when asked to appraise Preston’s play-off rivals.

“Bristol City are quite similar to ourselves in terms of having a lot of good young players,” he said. “That is what they go for - guys who they think are on the up and aren’t necessarily household names.

“They try to improve them and have a good manner of how they try to play. It is a method I have a lot of respect for.”

In other words, paradigms of virtue. Academy products in the first team. Modest playing budgets. Underdogs sticking it to the loaded elite.

Which is true; both clubs have overperformed significantly even to lie within bowshot of the Championship top six. Both have maximised their resources. Look closer, though, and things aren’t so rosy.

Figures released last week showed Preston lost £7m in the financial year to June 2018. And whilst a wage bill of £15m represents one of the lowest in the division, it also means the Lilywhites paid out £113 in wages for every £100 coming in.

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The picture at Bristol City was even bleaker. Over the same period, their wage bill rose from £16m to £20.6m, contributing to an overall loss of £23.5m - the 14th highest in the whole of England.

Both clubs are utterly reliant on their owners, Steve Lansdown at City and Trevor Hemmings at Preston, to cover the shortfall. By any normal measure, these are failing businesses. Without backing, neither generates enough revenue to pay their debts. Yet in the warped world of Championship finance, that is par for the course.

Earlier this week, it was revealed that Wolves lost a staggering £1m per week during last season’s title-winning campaign.

Cardiff, who went up in second place and were widely regarded as plucky upstarts, posted a wage bill of £40m.

Losses

Then you’ve got play-off finalists Aston Villa, who on Wednesday announced pre-tax losses of £36.1m for the 2017-18 season. But for player sales, they would have joined Wolves in the £1m-a-week club. In total, Championship clubs lost £408m in 2017-18. Why? Over the last decade, parachute payments have allowed Premier League wages to trickle into the second tier, inflating the demands of moderate and mediocre players along the way.

Take Bristol City and Preston. Neil and Johnson are justified in raving about their overachievement, but the broader issue is that a team of kids, prospects and lower league signings is still costing both clubs more than they can afford.

It’s crazy, but not surprising. Just 12 years ago, the average Championship salary was £3,000 per week. Today, it is £25,000, an increase of 833 per cent. Obviously, income has not kept pace.

The EFL talks of Profit & Sustainability but, in the Championship, there is no such thing as profit and the only form of sustainability is a sugar daddy.

Success boils down to who is prepared to shoulder the biggest losses; prudence is a matter of limiting the bloodletting. The division is a basket case built on debt and the fact that two clubs on life support are hailed as beacons of sagacity is testament to its rotten foundations.