Two different worlds: The Premier League and the Football League

 In his debut article for The Football Front, Olly Howells takes a look at the difference in finance between the Football League and the Premier League.

 So, how much is the difference between the clubs who play their trade in the top flight of the footballing pyramid and those who endeavour to join them? What’s the difference between earning success in the Premier League and in the basement leagues of English football? How do football league clubs spend whatever money they have on progressing as a club compared to the footballing elite? I look into how different the running of clubs is between clubs from every division of league football.

Income:

Prize money is probably the most understandable way that Premier League clubs earn more money than lower league sides. With an estimated £800,000 given for each place, the winner of the Barclays Premier League scoops an impressive £16,000,000 to go with their title as champions of England. This is compared to the winner of the Championship, just one tier below, where the winner only takes £50,000 in prize money. This is then dropped to just £25,000 in League 1, and an estimated £26,000 in League 2. Then there’s qualification to continental competitions such as the Champions League to add to the equation, a competition where clubs receive roughly £15.7m television rights for competing, with prize money of £7.8m on offer to the winner. 

Television rights bring in millions of pounds to the top clubs in English football, everyone knows that, but how much so? Premier League winners Manchester City received a staggering £60,602,289 for television rights in the 2011/12 season, and this was only for the Premier League, not including the UEFA Champions League, FA Cup or Carling Cup (now Capital One Cup). The lowest earners in terms of TV revenue in the premier league were Wolverhampton Wanderers, but don’t despair for them too much, as they still received an incredible £39,084,461. There is no sign of these figures shrinking either, with Sky Sports and BT recently paying £3.018 billion for the right to televise top flight English football for the next 3 years, over £1 billion a season. Compare this with the bottom of the football league ladder, where teams are not paid the cursory £32.5m to each club such as with the premier league, but on a game-to-game basis, and with a far smaller sum of money, rarely breaking the £100,000 barrier. 

Sponsorships obviously vary from club to club, as well as league to league, but in the 2009/10 season, Manchester United were receiving over £14m a year from their shirt sponsors AIG, a figure which will have only risen when United signed a deal with current shirt sponsors, insurance company Aon. My club Oxford United are sponsored by another insurance company, Bridle Insurance, and are extremely unlikely to be receiving a penny over £100k a year for this deal, although as details are kept much more under wraps than in the higher levels of the game this figure cannot be confirmed. This is also likely to be one of the most lucrative shirt sponsorship deals in League 2, due to Oxford having one of the largest fanbases in the league.  

These are the three main sources of income to football clubs in the English football league, but the most important part of running a club successfully is how this money is reinvested into the club, whether that be behind the scenes or in the playing staff, a decision usually varied by what division the clubs are in due to financial similarities. 

Premier League clubs have a clear tendency to spend the majority of their income on new personnel on the pitch, with a staggering £508m spent on players in the 2011/12 season, an average of £25.4m per team. This appears to be a recipe for success in the top flight, with the highest spenders of the season Manchester City, who splashed out over £76m on players, coming out victorious, and the three relegated sides were all in the bottom half of the table in terms of spending. This spending extends into the wages of these players, with City players receiving an average of £4,486,580 each a year. Players for one of last seasons relegated sides, Bolton Wanderers, averaged a salary of over £1.4m a year, a figure that would be larger than the entire playing budget for a majority of League 2 sides, and even a few League 1 sides. 

Championship sides have a different dilemma, due to the dramatically different financial situations of the clubs in the second tier. With a much smaller amount of money brought into these clubs through television rights and sponsorships, finances are a much more pressing issue to these clubs; especially while clubs outside of the top division seem to be punished more severely for financial frailty. Premier League giants Manchester United are said to be in over £423m worth of debt without punishment, while clubs such as Chester City (formerly of the Football Conference, now Blue Square Bet Premier), were forced into liquidation due to a debt of just £26,125. The obvious example of repercussions of poor financial control is Portsmouth FC, who currently have just 17 players on their books after the club narrowly avoided liquidation themselves, after poor running of the club caused the club to enter administration for the second time in three years, with the club in around £58m of debt. This may seem like an outrageously high figure of debt, but compared to the £423m of debt that Manchester United find themselves in, while still being allowed to remain active in the transfer market, it seems ludicrous that Pompey should suffer so heavily while United remain unpunished. 

These are all reasons why Championship sides have to find a successful balance between investing money into playing and backroom staff, upgrading facilities and keeping their club running smoothly; more so than Premier League clubs. 

League 1 & League 2 clubs have to run even more carefully, with even smaller financial losses leading to equally severe consequences. In the ‘basement divisions’, money often isn’t enough to guarantee promotion or titles, where as we all know how far money will get you at the top level. Swindon Town’s recent success in League 2 does appear to completely disprove my point, with their playing budget for their promotion season rumoured to be an extortionate £3.4m, more than three times the average playing budget in League 2 of roughly £1.1m. This has not often been a recipe for success in the lower divisions though, and is an extremely risky tactic: with wage caps kicking in in a clubs second season in the division, failure to earn promotion will lead to serious consequences, with a majority of clubs best players forced to leave clubs in order to keep wages below wage caps. Rotherham United are looking to emulate Swindon this season, with their playing budget rumoured to be £2.6m, but will find it hard going against the likes of Gillingham and Port Vale, even with far less money being pumped into their playing squads.

Sides in League 1 & 2 often decide to invest more in behind the scenes details than blow their budgets on players’ wages, none more so than Crewe Alexandra, who use the youth academy at the club to keep the club running smoothly through the sales of bright prospects to bigger clubs, and bringing players into their first team from the academy, run by Dario Gradi. When Crewe won promotion to League 1 at Wembley in May, an incredible 9 of the starting 11 Crewe players were products of this fantastically run set-up. Players that have come through the Crewe academy include former England international Dean Ashton, Fulham legend Danny Murphy, current Celtic manager and former Leicester City and Celtic star Neil Lennon, former Wales international Robbie Savage and current Manchester City assistant manager David Platt, who went on to make 62 appearances for England after coming through the youth set-up at Gresty Road. The most recent player to come from this set-up is current Manchester United player Nick Powell, who Crewe sold for £4,000,000 at the age of just 18, after he had an impressive first season and a half with Crewe, including scoring an incredible goal in the play-off final in his last appearance for Alexandra. In recent years they have also sold current West Ham forward Nicky Maynard for £2.25m when he was just 21 and Leeds forward Luke Varney to Charlton Athletic for £2m after he came through this outstanding system. 

Another thing that lower league clubs do to spend money wisely is work on players that the clubs already have, with many clubs boasting strength and conditioning coaches, whose job is purely to get the current squad into the best condition possible. Again returning to my team, Oxford United have made a huge indent into their cash flow in this area, with new chairman Ian Lenagan spending £150,000 on fitness and conditioning. This may seem like a relatively low figure to a top flight club, but in the basement divisions this is an incredible amount of money to be pumping money into one aspect of a club. 

The route to success in English football really does differentiate from division to division, severely so when you compare any league to the Premier League. To summarise, League 1 & 2 have to be run more like businesses, trying to improve while still desperately trying to break even with a minimal income, where as Premier League clubs have to look to reinvest their outrageously high income into their club in a way that allows them to improve as a team, but breaking even is not such a high priority for many clubs, with external investment a regular occurrence for the majority of these sides. The Championship is probably the most difficult division for clubs to operate in, with boardroom staff having to try their hardest to find a successful balance between the two, or end up risking their clubs long-term future if they are unsuccessful. 

I’ve barely scratched the surface of this topic, largely due to clubs outside of the top flight keeping the large majority of their financial details under wraps, making it extremely difficult to compare clubs throughout all of the divisions in depth, but I hope I’ve been able to open your eyes to how clubs strive for success differently throughout the English footballing ladder. 

You can follow and talk to Olly about his article on his twitter: @ollyhowells

Matt Bruce’s npower League Two 2011/12 Preview - Part One

In his debut article for The Football Front, Matt Bruce in a two part feature assesses the Npower League Two teams ahead of the big kick off this Saturday.

With the new season almost upon us, this is the time when bloggers and journalists start to publish their season previews. Not wanting to feel left out, I have jumped on the bandwagon and, as a supporter of Oxford United, it seems right that I should preview League Two ahead of the season opener on Saturday.

Within the flurry of transfer activity around over the past weeks some clubs have been spending big whilst others are cutting back. Some are looking to make minor improvements while others rebuild from scratch and while some clubs grab headlines others go about their business quietly.

So who looks set to challenge and who is in for a season of struggle?

A few clubs have made serious moves in the transfer market and it is with those that I begin with. What better place to start with the league new boys Crawley Town. Last year's controversial Conference champions, who having assembled something of a non-league Galacticos last season, appear to have continued their expensive revolution by getting their hands dirty in the transfer market. After releasing a host of solid Conference players, they have shrewdly strengthened their squad with the acquisition of numerous proven league talents. They have brought in players from the higher leagues (Bristol City's John Akinde) as well as poaching some of last year's better performers in League Two (Cheltenham's Wes Thomas and Macclesfield's Tyrone Barnett). They have again assembled a strong squad capable of challenging, but much will depend on how quickly they can adjust to life in the Football League.

Other big movers include Northampton and Bristol Rovers, both of whom have seen huge player turnover as their new managers attempt to assert their identity on the squad. Northampton fans are overjoyed with the return of cult hero Adebayo Akinfenwa, as well as strengthening their midfield with Stockport's Paul Turnbull and Peterborough's Arron Davies. New Bristol Rovers boss, Paul Buckle, has been given a large budget to play around with and has used it wisely, bringing Chris Zebroski and Scott Bevan with him from Torquay. He has also brought in Matt Harrold from Shrewsbury, Adam Virgo from Yeovil and Lincoln's Mustapha Carayol. With the backing they have had, fans of both clubs will expect to challenge for promotion this year, but success will depend on how quickly the new arrivals will settle.

Swindon are another club who have undergone major surgery this summer, following their relegation from League One, and they have been the subject of much publicity after the controversial appointment of Paolo Di Canio as manager. A host of exotic names have since signed up to the Swindon cause giving the squad a rather international feel, however Di Canio appears to have put together a team designed to play physical, English football. With their high-profile manager and the high expectations of the fans the pressure will really be on for Swindon’s gamble to work immediately.

Other clubs have opted for evolution instead of revolution. Clubs such as Oxford, Gillingham and Southend have built on the foundations of last season's solid but unspectacular showings. Oxford have added experience and strength to last year's young and inconsistent side, bringing in Michael Duberry in defence and Peter Leven in midfield. Gillingham lost two important players in Cody McDonald and Adebayo Akinfenwa but have replaced those with local boy (and Gills fan) Danny Kedwell and with Dover Athletic's 45-goal Adam Birchall, but this places quite a burden of pressure onto the shoulders of two strikers with little Football League experience to spearhead a promotion charge. Southend boss Paul Sturrock knows what is required to get out of this league and has made some canny acquisitions to add to the firm base he established last season. However, most notable of these signings is Millwall legend Neil Harris, a gamble at the age of 33 (especially as he's been given a three year contract) but if it pays off he could emulate Bury's Ryan Lowe, who scored 22 League Two goals last year at the tender age of 32. Aldershot manager Dean Holdsworth has kept the core of last season's squad together and supplemented it with solid signings from non-league clubs, such as York City's creative striker Michael Rankine and Bradley Bubb from neighbours Farnborough. Bubb scored 22 goals in the Conference South last season. Holdsworth clearly feels he can get more out of these players and if he shows traces of the brilliance he hinted at while at Newport then Aldershot could be dark horses for the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the likes of Shrewsbury, Port Vale and Rotherham have been left licking their wounds this summer. After challenging closely for promotion for most of last season only to see late downturns in form cost them at the death. Shrewsbury can feel especially aggrieved at still being in the division. They were denied an automatic promotion place by a truly awful refereeing decision after Wycombe earned a point at the New Meadow when they were awarded a goal that clearly never crossed the line. Despite this, they were strong last year and are clearly of the opinion that a few tweaks here and they should be strong enough to go one better this time. Shrewsbury have signed Reuben Hazell. The midfielder will provide some much needed leadership into to the team.

Port Vale's preparations have been hampered by boardroom conflicts which left them unable to sign any new players for several weeks. Returning manager Mickey Adams has not made many additions to the side, instead placing much faith in the players that were challenging for automatic promotion when he left to take over at Sheffield United last season. But his buys, such as Ryan Burge and Ben Williamson from the Glenn Hoddle Academy are prospects for the future.

Rotherham's preseason has been much more stable, though they have lost two important players in Nicky Law and Ryan Taylor. They have, however, kept hold of goal machine Adam Le Fondre (so far), while the signings of Chris Holroyd and particularly Danny Schofield are impressive.

Plymouth, meanwhile, have had little time to concentrate on footballing matters at all, with the club still blighted by financial difficulties, and their inability to pay their players, it doesn't make the club a particularly attractive prospect for new signings. Both Liam Dickinson and Anthony Elding have signed for the Pilgrims over the summer, before making a quick exit when the full horror of the situation became apparent. Plymouth fans will be desperately hoping for some stability this season and, rather than dreaming of glories on the pitch, they will just be happy to still have a team to support this time next year.

Last season's playoff finalists Torquay have lost some of their more important players, as well as their manager, to Bristol Rovers. New manager Martin Ling is left to try and repeat last season's success on a tight budget, bringing in a mix of strong Conference players and young cast-offs from higher leagues. However, without their stronger performers from last season, one should expect them to be considerably weaker this time around. Crewe have been rocked by the not-unexpected departure of last season's top scorer Clayton Donaldson and have been unable to replace him, turning once again to their much-vaunted youth system for replacements. After falling short last year, Alex fans will be disappointed to see that this looks set to be a rebuilding season, but the style of football they play means that they create a lot of chances, so they are not likely to go without goals this season. However, goals alone do not make a successful season.

Another club who seem to be making youth a priority is Bradford. The club’s well-publicised financial problems have severely hampered their ability to compete for big names in the transfer market and so, instead of buying stars, they've chosen to grow their own and have begun assembling a separate developmental squad for the future. But back in the present, they're still struggling to bring in the quality signings they desperately need, especially in the striker department. They have, however, brought in Guy Branston, who will be sure to get them organised at the back, which should be enough to prevent them from struggling too much this season.

Part Two will be available on Friday 5th August

This piece was written by Matt Bruce, you can follow him on his Twitter - @tbfuth, You can find Matt’s blog here too: theboysfromupthehill

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