SECOND TIER PAY TURMOIL
THE Premier League prides itself on being the most democratic in world football – but the Championship is in danger of becoming one of the global game’s most financially lopsided.
The huge sums pocketed by clubs in parachute payments and prize money, despite relegation, means that English football’s second tier has never been so split between the haves and the have-nots.
Sunderland, Hull City and Middlesbrough will all arrive in the Championship with a £47million parachute payment tucked safely away – the sort of money that many clubs in the division can only dream of.
Nigel Clough’s Burton Albion for example, recorded a turnover of just over £4m in the 2015-16 financial year.
Simon Chadwick, professor of sports enterprise at Salford University, said: “The Premier League has one of the most egalitarian revenue distribution models in world football.
“In terms of the annual money league, you could have teams that have gone up and straight back down being among the richest in the world.”
Chadwick added: “A team that’s coming out of the Premier League is going to have 10 times the revenue of a club coming out of League One. How are these clubs supposed to compete? The answer is that they can’t.”