I wrote a post about this recently after stumbling across this article during a particularly boring lunch break:
http://www.insidermedia.com/insider/national/146216-championship-club-club
It's a scary read, essentially a break down of the state of finances in the Championship as it stood at the end of last season. One of the reasons the article was written was that last year, for the first time, cumulative championship debt crossed the
£1billion mark - a staggering and frightening statistic.
Bolton being £200m in debt really isn't all that unusual. There are numerous clubs with net debts in the region of £75-100m and the situation is only getting worse. A friend of mine in accounting tells me that whenever a company puts 'not stated' next to 'net debt', it means that the situation is bleaker than bleak. By this measure, it looks as though the only team in the division to actually turn a profit was Preston North End, with a mighty £590,000 in the black. If it wasn't so sad I'd laugh. But mark my words, the new TV money deal is going to cripple the lower leagues.