Parachute payments make life difficult for Bristol City https://footballeconomyv2.blogspot.com/2025/01/parachute-payments-make-life-difficult.html Bristol City’s 2023/24 accounts cover a season when they finished 11th in the Championship, an improvement of three places over 2022/23 and the club’s best performance for five seasons...... * This season will be City’s 10th in a row in the Championship * During this time, they have not finished higher than 8th, so have missed out on the play-offs every season. * They have still lost a hefty £149m before tax in the last decade, when they only managed to generate a profit once with £11m in 2018/19. * Bristol City’s pre-tax loss was slashed from £22.2m to £3.3m, mainly thanks to profit from player sales more than doubling from £9.5m to £21.7m, though revenue also rose £5.8m (16%) from £36.6m to a club record £42.4m. * Bristol City’s £3.3m pre-tax loss is one of the best results achieved in the Championship in the last two seasons. * The main driver of the higher revenue was commercial, which rose £3.5m (17% ) from £21.4m to £24.9m, but there was also decent growth in match day, up £1.4m (23%) from £6.3m to £7.7m, and broadcasting, up £0.8m (9%) from £8.9m to £9.7m. A history of success, it looks like the first 5 years we splashed the cash, the second we were in life saving recovery mode...
Bournemouth has a stadium that seats around 11,500 ... they obviously pay their players more because they get around £100m pa for being in the Prem ... but their self generated revenue is going to be a lot less than BCFC? with 2.5x the seating capacity can 1 year in top slot start the ball rolling! maybe survive for 2 years [ more dosh! ] Cardiff when up there had the lowest wage bill by a country mile and look at where they are now! after parachutes!!!
Bournemouth broke FFP rules to get to the Premiership, they were fined £4.75million.........4years after breaking the rules and getting promoted.
Trying to get ahead of teams that got parachute payments for their failure is almost a lost cause due those extra monies they received. How on earth do the authorities expect clubs like ours to up the ante and face possible FFP sanctions to merely try and be competitive when several of our opponents in the league have booster payments to assist their challenge to return to the top? It is grossly unfair to those trying to make their way forward as they face a bigger chance of enduring financial issues than those with the para payments. The system needs to be changed so that every team entering the Championship season is on equal ground, especially when it comes down to spending on players who might help their cause. The laws benefit those who have failed and not those who can't muster the funds to bring in new talent, with possible higher wages involved, and so it becomes a merry-go-round of second guessing as to why this selective dole out of money continues to aid some and not the rest? All we ask is parity when it comes to any financial decisions.
It doesn’t always work. Cardiff, Blackpool, QPR, Hull, Huddersfield, Swansea, Watford, Norwich, Bolton, Barnsley etc have all been in the Prem and whilst Norwich and Watford are still strong championship sides, the others haven’t exactly made good use of their payments.
