Where's The Money Gone?

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Once again we find ourselves in the middle of a transfer window with some fans asking why their club has not splashed out more cash on bringing in new players, despite generating significant revenue.

This analysis will attempt to explain this by looking at where the money goes by analysing the last five years for the Big Six Premier League clubs, namely Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

This analysis will actually look at both the source and use of funds for the five years up to 2021/22 (the most recently published accounts). We will remove any pure accounting entries, such as player amortisation and profit on player sales, but incorporate all the genuine cash movements to give a “real world” view.

Source of Funds

The Big Six Premier League clubs had a total of £18.2 bln of available funds in the last five years. Manchester City led the way with £3.4 bln, closely followed by Manchester United £3.3 bln. There were three other clubs around the £3 bln level, but there was then a big gap to Arsenal, who lagged the others with “only” £2.5 bln.

The main source of funds is obviously revenue with £14.1 bln, followed by player sales £1.9 bln. That means that the vast majority of Big Six funds came from football operations, adding up to £16.0 bln (89%).

Despite the adverse impact of the pandemic, the Big Six only required £1.6 bln funding with £806m from owners and £768m from banks, though they also had to take £336m from cash balances they had previously built up.

Broadcasting was the highest revenue stream with £6.3 bln, though commercial was not too far behind at £5.9 bln. Match day was by far the lowest with £1.9 bln, exacerbated by COVID restrictions which meant that virtually all of the 2020/21 season (and some of 2019/20) was played behind closed doors.

Revenue

Manchester United generated the most revenue in the last five years with £2.8 bln. They were just ahead of Manchester City £2.7 bln, even though they were overtaken by their rivals in the last two seasons.