Ipswich Town Finances 2023/24

The Whole Of The Moon

So Ipswich Town’s relegation has been confirmed after just one season back in the top flight - along with the other two teams that were promoted the year before. This is the second season in a row that all three promoted clubs went straight back down, underlining the increasing struggles for clubs coming up from the Championship.

As Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna said, “This year has been a challenge, it was always going to be a challenge.”

Mark Ashton described Ipswich’s season in the Premier League as “Brutal. It’s been a huge learning curve.” The chairman added, “We haven’t got as many points on the board as we would ultimately have liked, but the club is in a healthy place.”

Transfers after Promotion

In fairness to Ipswich, they did spend big in an attempt to survive in England’s elite competition, having the seventh highest gross transfer spend this season with £129m, which was nearly £100m more than champions Liverpool.

Indeed, in terms of net spend, their £127m was actually the second highest in England, only surpassed by Brighton, so more than every single member of the so-called Big Six.

Signings in the summer included Omari Hutchinson from Chelsea (though this deal was booked in the 2023/24 accounts), Jacob Greaves from Hull City, Liam Delap from Manchester City, Jack Clarke from Sunderland, Dara O’Shea and Ari Muric from Burnley, Sammie Szmodics from Blackburn Rovers and Chiedozie Ogbene from Luton Town.

They were followed by Jaden Philogene from Aston Villa and Alex Palmer from WBA in the January window, while a number of other players arrived on loan, namely Jens Cajuste, Julio Enciso and Ben Godfrey.

In fact, only three promoted clubs have ever spent more than Ipswich in their first season in the Premier League, namely Nottingham Forest (2022/23) £170m, Aston Villa (2019/20) £156m and Bournemouth (2022/23) £130m.

Therefore, it’s fair to say that Ipswich could not have done much more in their attempt to be competitive, at least from a financial perspective. However, it has become evident that even splashing out more than £100m does not guarantee survival in the Premier League, when a promoted club is up against more established clubs.

Recent History

Following relegation from the Premier League in 2002, Ipswich came close to returning to the top flight three times, though they were defeated in the Championship play-off semi-finals on each occasion.

However, for the most part, their 17 years in the second tier felt like they were running to stand still, as the financial disparity with other clubs increased.

In fact, things got worse before they got better, as the Tractor Boys were relegated to League One in 2019. They languished in England’s third tier for four seasons before a dramatic change in their fortunes, leading to back-to-back promotions from League One and the Championship, which paved the way for their return to the Premier League after 22 long years.

Ownership

Ipswich’s transformation has been driven by the arrival of new owners, who purchased the club in April 2021 for a reported £40m. As a result, Ipswich Town are now majority owned by the appropriately named Gamechanger 20 Limited, though the ultimate owner is a US investment firm, ORG.