How clubs not winning much are trying to save themselves financially – but finding it difficult

 

• How Arsenal made it to the very top
• Why are so many Premier League clubs losing so much money?

By Tony Attwood

This season, Liverpool looks like finishing fourth or fifth, perhaps around 20 points below Manchester City and maybe 30 points below Arsenal.  And yet in the course of this season they made a profit of £8m, had an all-time record revenue of £700m (up by £89m), and overall spent more than Manchester City.  But still made a profit of over
£15m!

Now all of those figures are pretty impressive.  The only thing that is missing is a trophy.  They did get to the last 16 in the Champions League, but with that achievement, I am somewhat reminded of the people who used to write in to this site saying “fourth is not a trophy” in the Wenger years.  The position was helpful, and the statement was true, and Wenger kept the club afloat financially as the new stadium was built.

Liverpool was the most-watched team in the Premier League, partly because they have a lot of armchair supporters and partly because they receive such a regular boost from the media.   People watch Liverpool on TV because Liverpool is on TV.  Liverpool are on TV all the more because people watch Liverpool on TV.  It’s a circle that helps keep them afloat financially.

The problem for Liverpool is that while they are taking in more and more money when the club is on TV, the cost of running the company is also going up.  Parts of the ground have been improved, which brings in more money on match days but still the losses mount.   For it would have been a disaster if the revenue of the club had not gone up since these figures cover the first complete season with the revised Anfield Road stand open.  But the club is spending more and more on admin and players.  In fact, staff costs went up by 10% – which is a lot in a year when inflation was just over 3%.   Indeed, Liverpool spends more on staff of all types than ManC.

Now of course, one can always say, “we’re clawing it all back in the next set of figures, except the next set of figures will include another £450m on new signings – and the wages those players are paid.  They are losing money.

Of course, Liverpool are not the only big team losing money.   Chelsea lost an estimated £355m in 2024/25, according to figures from Uefa.   That doesn’t include playing in the Club World Cup in the USA, so the next set of figures might improve because of that, but the CWC was a one-off and now largely forgotten. Although it did bring in around £90m.  

Now, when clubs lose money like this, the question arises, how are those losses paid for – and usually the answer is “by the owners”.   And although the owners have money, they can get a bit fed up with their clubs losing money and not winning anything.   Tottenham got away with last season by winning the Europa.  This season, they, like Chelsea and Liverpool, are being much more closely scrutinised byu concerned paymasters.

In short, when the manager asks for £100m for players, it is noted just how much the manager asked for last year, and what the club got in return.   Which means, is the income going up, is there a bit of silverware in the trophy cabinet and how much extra will TV money from European games bring in, in the forthcoming campaign?   

Four years ago, Arsenal were losing £100m a year.   In 2.024/5 Arsenal also made a loss but of £1.4m, and revenue went up by 10%.   This season will see them in profit as income continues to shoot up year by year at something approaching 20%,  which primarily comes from commercial revenue, rather than profits on player sales of the type that the Chelsea model is built on.  And the longer Arsenal keep going in all the cups each season, the more money rolls in.

In the season just finished, Arsenal only used up 22 of their 25 available first-team slots for senior players, showing they are able to sell off (rather than give away) players no longer part of the grand plan.

The more Arsenal can bring in and utilise their own young players, the better the finances look.  So it is promising to see the evolution of Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri, Eberechi Eze, Max Dowman and Bukayo Saka.  But that production line needs to keep rolling – although the rapid promotion of players like Dowman is a perfect advertisement for the effectiveness of Arsenal’s youth system.