More strong warnings over 'precarious' Championship financial position as losses top £317m
More stark warnings have been given over the financial state of clubs in the Championship.
As club’s release their accounts, it has been revealed that figures are already showing that the collective losses recorded are over £317m for the latest financial year.
Aside from the Covid season which saw clubs lose £450m - it is set to become a new record.
Figures have been climbing year on year - and there have been repeated warnings of a financial collapse.
For Albion, their £17m loss in the latest accounts was met with positivity as the owners Bilkul Football continue to repair the mess left by the previous regime.
But football finance expert Kieran Maguire insists that Championship clubs are becoming more and more reliant on ‘the bank of Mum and Dad’.
And he explained that if owners walked away from clubs, most currently in the Championship would run out of money in just six weeks.
He told the BBC: “What concerns me is that we've become anaesthetised to the huge numbers which are involved.
"The losses are very high.
"If you go back over the finances of the Championship for the past 13-14 years, probably on 10 of those occasions, the wage bill has exceeded the revenue generated.
"That's before you put 50p in the meter to put on the floodlights. The club is already losing money. So it is now a culture of overspend we've arrived at."
He has likened Championship owners looking to win Premier League promotion to buying a lottery ticket, because of the financial rewards on offer to reach the top flight.
Maguire added: "If I'm a Championship owner, I know at the start of the season, in theory, I've got a one in eight chance of getting promoted.
"They hand over money effectively unquestioningly, which is nominally a loan, but both parties know there is no chance of repayment.
"The owner of Stoke wrote off £90m, the Hemmings family in Preston put in £1m a month.
"And that now becomes the norm.
"We've had this doomsday scenario mentioned on multiple occasions over the last 15 to 20 years.
"It does create a very precarious industry.
"If owners collectively stopped subsidising the clubs, the vast majority of them would run out of money within six weeks.
"That's no way to run a business."
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