£2.9bn, the cumulative worth of the 92 league clubs in England and Wales for 2010/11, up 9% on the previous season.
Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance showed that despite the challenging economic conditions, football clubs are continuing to increase revenues and with £1.2bn paid to the treasury in Tax, football’s worth to the overall health of the economy cannot be underestimated.
Significantly, capital expenditure by these clubs totalled £167m in 2010/11 with over £3bn invested in stadia and facilities over the last 20 years.
But there is still much to be done. Net debt in the Premier League stood at £2.4bn in 2011, £1bn lower than in 2009, but around half of these clubs increased their net debt in 2010/11.
Players’ wages also increased across the 92 clubs by 4% to over £1.4bn with Premier League clubs having a wages/turnover ratio of over 70%.
As the challenging economic conditions continue, football’s resilience is something to be admired but picking at the numbers shows there is still a lot of hard work to be done.
