October 14: English football is making more money than ever, but much of the game is still kept afloat by owners writing cheques.
That’s the stark conclusion of the Independent Football Regulator’s (IFR) first state of the game report, which found 94% of clubs in England’s top five divisions were loss-making in 2025/26 despite combined industry revenues of around £9bn.
Losses totaled £1.7 billion.
More worrying for the regulator is how little room many clubs have if ownership support suddenly disappears. 29% said they would not be able to operate for more than 30 days without new owner financing, while 66% would struggle to survive beyond three months.
In the EFL and National League, 63% of clubs were technically insolvent, with liabilities exceeding the book value of their assets. That doesn’t mean these clubs can’t meet their immediate bills, but it does underline how much the financial cushion has been eroded.
IFR chairman David Kogan said: “At the heart of English football’s success lies a great contradiction. While some of our clubs are among the richest and most competitive in the world, others are on the brink of financial disaster.”
The report is hard to read for clubs lower down the pyramid.
League One clubs now require an average of 72p. of external funding for every £1 they generate. In the Championship, the figure is 57p, compared to 33p in the Premier League and 26p in League Two.
Sixty-seven clubs received at least six injections of funding from owners during the year. Twenty-eight required at least 12.
The regulator also found that player costs continue to exceed revenue. Since 2021/22, wages have risen by 71% in League One and 63% in League Two, while wages in the Championship have risen by 32% and Premier League wages by 33%.
Twenty clubs spent more than 80% of their annual income on player wages. Six spent more than their entire income.
Transfer payback has doubled in four years to £2.6bn, while agent fees rose from £317m to £484m. Seventeen EFL and National League clubs had operating costs without players greater than their total revenue, meaning they would still have made a loss before paying a single player.
“A significant number of clubs have told us they would not survive if their owners left. This lack of resilience can no longer be ignored,” Kogan said.
The wealth gap between the Premier League and the rest of the pyramid is largely in the report.
The average top-flight club now earns more than eight times as much as their Championship counterpart, while the six biggest Premier League clubs account for 56% of the division’s revenue.
The IFR argues that the financial incentive of reaching the Premier League, combined with parachute payments for those who leave, encourages top-flight clubs to stretch their finances unhealthily to achieve promotion.
Finally, the clubs will have to demonstrate that they have sufficient financial resources to withstand the shocks, with a goal of full compliance by 2030.
A final version of the IFR report is expected early next year.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at (email protected)