59% of clubs surveyed from top four leagues received investment enquiries in the last year.
Only three
Half of Big 6 clubs among the worst for points earned per GBPm spent in wages
Over half (59%) of professional English football clubs report that they received formal or informal investment enquiries in the last year, despite 90% of clubs in the top two leagues reporting financial losses for the 22/23 season, according to BDO's latest
BDO's analysis found that only three
The report's authors concluded that club owners in the top four English leagues are favouring financial sustainability over profitability, and prioritising player spend in order to gain a competitive edge. This is encouraged, in part, by the Profitability and Sustainability (P&S) rules which allow significant operating losses.
The report also identified that the business models operated by clubs tend to reflect their position in the football hierarchy. While the richest clubs seek to maximise spending on players within the allowable loss parameters, clubs with fewer available resources will seek to balance player trading for financial reasons with remaining competitive.
Despite many clubs being loss-making, institutional investors, particularly from the US, are seeing opportunities to achieve a return on their investment via two main routes. The first is to invest in a lower league club with a view to exiting once the club achieves promotion to higher leagues. The second is to take a stake in an established
One of the report's more surprising findings is that
BDO also undertook an analysis of the points earned in the
The survey also sought to understand investment appetite by clubs in women's football. While only 25% of football club respondents across all leagues said that investment in women's football was a top three priority, it is clear that it is more of a focus for clubs than in prior years, particularly in the top two divisions. The women's game is also gaining new financial resources from improved sponsorship and commercial deals.
'It's clear that football clubs are not run for profit like typical businesses. For perfectly rational reasons, owners seem to accept that football club finance is more about sustainability than profitability and that investment in players is of paramount importance if you want to be competitive.
'The high wages in the
'Despite the lack of profitability, investors are still queueing up to invest in English football clubs, lured in part by the promise of the exit opportunities that come from promotion to the
'While there remains a gulf between the Big 6 clubs and the rest, our analysis suggests that clubs that make smart investment decisions have the potential to eventually trade places with the super-rich clubs which can sometimes make decisions that don't always give the desired levels of return on investment.'
ENDS
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