Inside Hull City’s crisis: Missed payments, the ‘Brain Team’, and an uncertain future
Inside Hull City’s crisis: Missed payments, the ‘Brain Team’, and an uncertain future
Acun Ilicali is not shy of the spotlight, and on the final day of June, hours after a press conference unveiling Hull City’s new head coach, Sergej Jakirovic, the club’s owner was back in his element at the MKM Stadium.
A Q&A session held in the Kingston Suite afforded a couple of hundred fans the latest opportunity to ask what they wished of Hull’s owner. The microphone crisscrossed the floor before the night ended with a rendition of the club’s anthem, “Can’t Help Falling in Love”, but there was one answer, early in the evening, that fans will find difficult to forget.
“I said one time I was open to outside investment, but it was understood like we have financial problems,” he said in response to one fan’s question, wondering if Ilicali would be open to sharing the burden as owner. “It is not like we have financial problems.”
Three nights later, there were holes shot through that statement. Hull had been told by the English Football League (EFL) that their failure to maintain transfer payments would result in a penalty preventing them from spending money on new players until January 2027.
Hull were quick to confirm their intention to appeal last Friday, citing misunderstandings over the £1m owed to Aston Villa after loaning Louie Barry in January, but there are bubbling concerns over the club’s financial health in the Championship.
Now, The Athletic can reveal:
Hull have future commitments of almost £22m to clubs for players signed under Ilicali at the end of May
A debt of close to £3m is owed to former owner Ehab Allam
Several clubs have been approached with a request to delay transfer payments
Some suppliers have been forced to pursue the club for outstanding money
Hull maintain their financial position is strong ahead of the new Championship season beginning in just over a month, but major cracks are appearing in Ilicali’s tenure. Given the club only survived relegation last season on goal difference, a daunting season awaits if they are unsuccessful with their EFL appeal.
Ilicali, a 56-year-old media mogul and TV presenter in Turkey, has been one of the EFL’s most colourful owners during his three and a half years in English football.
A regular at Hull’s games home and away, he has also been known to visit the Botanic Hotel pub, a short distance from the MKM Stadium, on matchdays to lap up the adulation. Ilicali had always been hugely popular. Hundreds of supporters have benefited from free coach travel to away games and holidays in Turkey. Another 30, selected from a draw of members, will join the club for their week-long training camp beginning on Sunday.
Ilicali plays the PR game astutely and has made no secret of his intent to bring Premier League football back to East Yorkshire for the first time since 2017. That has resulted in big spending and, as the EFL have noted, big liabilities.
In financial documents seen by The Athletic, dated the end of May, Hull still had £21.8million of future transfer commitments.
It is not unusual for clubs to structure payments in such a way, spreading the cost of new signings, but Hull’s case is made concerning by the fact they have already advanced the fees agreed last summer with Ipswich Town to sign Jacob Greaves and Villa to re-sign Jaden Philogene. Those combined fees, totalling close to £30m, have now been settled.
There is scope for those deals to still bring contingencies based on future performances, but Hull’s transfer balance is uncomfortably high for a Championship outfit. No club without parachute payments detailed transfer debts that high in their most recent accounting year.
The club’s business ahead of the 2024-25 season proved largely disastrous. A squad that had narrowly missed out on reaching the Championship play-offs under Liam Rosenior, who was sacked two days after the 2023-24 season concluded, was rebuilt at cost but spent last season flirting with a return to League One, first under German head coach Tim Walter and then Ruben Selles. Both of those head coaches were sacked by Ilicali, who dispensed of three managers in 12 months.
These were expensive mistakes on top of a cost base that has soared in the past three years. The players’ wage bill has climbed from £8.6m in 2021-22 to £27.4m last season, comfortably more than revenues, which were last published at £21.4m in 2023-24. Mohamed Baloumi (£4.5m from Farense), Eliot Matazo (£3.5m from Monaco), Charlie Hughes (£3.5m from Wigan) and Abu Kamara (£3m from Norwich) were all signings from last season that pushed up the club’s wage bill.
Ilicali had been able to absorb these costs, but failing to meet obligations over Barry’s loan signing from Villa had damaging consequences. Hull owed the Premier League club £1m and not paying that back within 30 days saw the EFL take action over an agreement that cost in the region of £1.5m in wages and a loan fee. Barry made just four appearances.
A transfer embargo was placed upon the club before they were then informed that it would be followed by a three-window registration limit that ensures Hull, like Sheffield Wednesday, will not be able to pay money for permanent or loan signings until January 2027. It is a punishment the EFL typically sees as a means of protecting a club’s long-term health.
“Perhaps there were some administrative errors, but I am sure the EFL will be understanding of our appeal, and we are confident in our case,” Ilicali told fans in an open letter published on the club’s website on Tuesday morning.
Hull settled that debt to Villa at the end of last week to see the embargo lifted, but a further embargo has since come their way from the EFL. Money owed to Manchester City for the loan of defender Finley Burns was overdue, which brought the embargo back in place over the weekend. That had been settled by Monday, so the transfer embargo has once again been lifted.
“We intended to use the proceeds of a player sale to settle this fee, and as soon as the EFL told us this wasn’t possible, due to reasons not related to us, we made the payment immediately to end the matter,” added Ilicali in his attempts to clarify a concerning financial picture.
Hull have attributed both situations as being due to “administrative errors”, but sources familiar with the club’s day-to-day operations, speaking anonymously to protect working relationships, have not had their concerns allayed.
Cash flow issues are said to have been common, and in the week before their final game of the Championship season, all players were made to wait 48 hours for their salaries. That did not count as a late payment as the money arrived before the month ended, but correspondence from the club said the delay was down to an “overseas payment not yet being cleared into the club’s account”.
The Athletic has also been told of a number of suppliers having to chase the club for payment this summer, including one long-standing partner. Requests to other clubs, asking for a change to agreed payment terms, have also been made in the past month to improve short-term cash flow. Hull say the issue stems from not receiving a scheduled payment for a player sold and that Ilicali was now covering the shortfall to rectify matters “as soon as possible”.
There is also money owed to a very recognisable face. Hull’s debt to the Allam family extends a relationship most considered to be over when Ilicali bought the club from its former owners in January 2022. As part of that deal, however, Allam is owed money if add-ons from players sold under his ownership were realised.
That included England winger Jarrod Bowen, who left Hull to join West Ham United two years before Ilicali arrived in English football. A number of add-ons, including goals scored and international caps, have seen West Ham’s commitment rise by £3m, but very little of the money has been passed to Ehab Allam, the club’s former chairman and son of the late Assem.
That goes against the agreement to transfer money, but Allam, to this point, has not pushed the issue, and those sums effectively stand as an interest-free loan.
That could yet climb even higher this summer. A sell-on included in Andy Robertson’s £8m move to Liverpool in 2017 would also be ringfenced to Allam should the Scotland international move clubs for a fee in excess of that. He has been the subject of interest from Atletico Madrid.
Allam, who was involved in the running of Hull for over a decade, declined to comment when approached by The Athletic, but a response from the club said “the terms of the sale of the club are confidential” and that a “very positive working relationship” was in place with the former owner.
At Hull, they call it the ’Brain Team’. A small number of figures are trusted by Ilicali and together they make strategic decisions on the recruitment of players and coaches.
That currently includes sporting director Jared Dublin, head of recruitment Martin Hodge, and board member Mustapha Yokes, but the past 12 months have seen the make-up of Ilicali’s closest allies, those who have shaped the club, change dramatically.
Vice chairman Tan Kesler departed abruptly last October, before Beri Pardo left his position as head of performance strategy without an announcement.
Most curious, though, was the sudden exit of Merthan Acil. Ilicali once described Acil in an Instagram post as one of his “most important companions” and, along with Yokes, considered the “most important architects of my dream squad”. The post from October 2023, still visible, ends with: “The unseen heroes who are always in our lives. I love you guys.”
Acil, a former low-level footballer in Turkey, is married to the sister of Ilicali’s former wife, Seyma, and had been on the payroll at Hull up until this spring, when a warrant was issued for his arrest in Turkey. It related to a huge investigation into corruption centred on Acil’s company, Creative Medya, a contractor with Istanbul council. Hundreds of arrests were made, but local reports suggested Acil was detained in March 2025. Hull told The Athletic: “The moment we learned (Acil) was involved with another business, we parted ways with him, as per our company policy.”
Neither Hull nor Ilicali have made any reference to Acil leaving his post at the club, but an overhaul of the ‘Brain Team’ is in keeping with a squad that is routinely transformed year after year.
A total of 60 players were signed across the past three seasons, with only limited success stories. There was misfortune, with Mataza, Balloumi and Liam Miller all suffering ACL injuries. There was also a backfired gamble when loaning Oscar Zambrano, whose doping charge, handed down in October, with Hull aware of the suspension threat, would see him miss the majority of the season.
That meant a total of 37 players featured in the club’s 46 Championship games in an underwhelming season that ended with Hull securing survival on the final day with a draw at Portsmouth, a result that condemned Luton to relegation instead.
Ilicali’s impatience saw Selles eventually go the same way as Rosenior 12 months earlier. Progress was noted under both, but not enough for the club’s owner, who opted to make Jakirovic, once of Dinamo Zagreb and Kayserispor, his next head coach last month.
Ilicali had initially caused a very public backlash among Hull’s fan base by targeting former Turkey international Emre Belozoglu. He was considered the leading candidate to succeed Selles in the middle of May, despite receiving a two-and-a-half-month suspended prison sentence in June 2014 for using a racial slur during a game against Didier Zokora two years before.
Hull’s owner appeared on BBC Radio Humberside to defend Emre, claiming that “in Turkey, there is no racism”, but the decision was made to eventually go with Jakirovic. The 44-year-old Bosnian becomes the third head coach appointed by Ilicali (after Shota Arveladze and Walter) to have no previous experience of English football.
The self-styled ‘Brain Team’ began a rebuild for next season without Jakirovic, turning Gustavo Puerta’s loan from Bayer Leverkusen into a permanent deal and signing Reda Laalaoui from Rabat, but it remains to be seen if either of those cash deals will get EFL registration given the club were under embargo on July 1. The two players are currently in pre-season training with the club, but their registrations will hinge on the success of the EFL appeal.
Ilicali maintains his heart is with Hull this summer and beyond, with a Sky Sports documentary crew following his moves this season. There have been promises on social media to bring the good times back now that Hull have his full attention: he spent last year juggling his duties with being a board member at Turkish giants Fenerbahce, his childhood club. Ilicali was part of the delegation that convinced Jose Mourinho to take a chance on Turkey’s Super Lig last summer.
There was an acceptance that Hull had drifted in that time, with the first rumblings that Ilicali was open to the idea of selling his stake in the Championship club.
Acun Medya, Ilicali’s media company classed as the owners of Hull, have held exploratory talks over a sale, while an experienced football financier has also been involved in negotiations on behalf of at least one interested party.
There is not currently a desperation to sell, but there is a willingness to listen to offers for a club bought for £20million three years ago. Any prospect of a sale will hinge on Ilicali’s stance on the debts of £60m owed to Acun Medya by the club, who do not own their MKM Stadium. Built by Hull City Council in 2002, it is still operated by SuperStadium Management Company and owned by the local authority.
“Acun Medya isn’t actively looking to sell the club, but naturally there is huge demand for English football clubs, so there will always be interest from other parties, especially after the investment we have put into the club,” said a club spokesperson. “Our chairman told fans the club is losing money and he is supporting when required. The club will always have his full backing whenever it needs it.”
Hull’s greatest problems are in the short term if they are unable to lift the EFL’s spending restrictions. A squad that scored only 44 goals last season, the lowest in the division, is in desperate need of attacking reinforcements, but the danger is that only free transfers and loans will be permitted before the transfer window closes on September 1.
Ilicali might be ready to go again alongside Jakirovic this season, but the EFL currently see problems that cannot go unchecked.
