sport news Premier League: In the battle to avoid relegation, who's facing financial ... trends now
The battle to avoid relegation to the Championship (and swerve an immediate £50million hit) is a three-way affair.
Everton and Burnley take on Crystal Palace and Aston Villa respectively on Thursday night, before Sunday's final day when Leeds can have their say too.
Sportsmail looks at Leeds, Everton and Burnley and examines how well-equipped they are to cope with the drop — and avoid financial Armageddon...
Everton are one of three teams looking to avoid what would be a disastrous relegation this year
Jesse Marsch's Leeds side only have one game to play while their rivals have two matches left
EVERTON
Heading in a very dangerous direction with fat salaries and a £450million new stadium on the way.
Goodison regulars have been saying for years that following Everton should come with a health warning but never before has the risk been as grave.
How not to run a football club? The blue half of Merseyside are writing the book, and the final chapter may be the grimmest of the lot.
Getting to this stage — where an unthinkable relegation is perilously close to becoming reality — has not come cheap. In 2020-21, they lost £120.9m — that’s £331,232.88 every day. The year before it was £140m. The year before that £111.8m. And for what? A hotch-potch, fragile squad that Frank Lampard is trying to squeeze over the finish line to safety.
In January, £28m was splurged on full backs Nathan Patterson and Vitalii Mykolenko. And yet Seamus Coleman, signed for £60,000 from Sligo Rovers by David Moyes in 2009, continues to get a game every week.
Alex Iwobi moved to Everton for £28m from Arsenal in one of a number big-money signings
Sound bizarre? It gets better. At the time, the £28m paid to Arsenal for Alex Iwobi seemed about £20m too much.
Insiders say the former Gunner’s weekly salary would make you weep. In fairness to Iwobi, who may well play a key role in keeping the Toffees up, he is far from the only one that applies to.
What of the curious case of Anwar El Ghazi?
In January, after losing Lucas Digne to Aston Villa for a generous £25m, Everton had the winger head in the opposite direction on loan. They are understood to be paying all of his £40,000-a-week salary plus a substantial loan fee. El Ghazi has played the grand total of 11 minutes for the grand old team.
There are fat salaries everywhere and a strategic review, the findings of which are being implemented, will no doubt have focused on that area. The key issue is whether the lucrative contracts dished out contain any form of relegation reductions and word is that they do not.
Finding takers for many members of a staggeringly underperforming, overpaid squad will be close to impossible and the wage bill will be the biggest problem the bean counters will face in what could be a summer full of them.
Carrying similar levels of expenditure in the Championship, with revenues drastically reduced, would see a proud club heading in a very dangerous direction.
Regardless of which division they’re in, expect to see attempts to improve the production line through the club’s academy.
Then there is the Alisher Usmanov issue. The oligarch is a close associate of majority shareholder Farhad Moshiri and, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the club suspended all their sponsorships with Russian companies backed by Usmanov, which came at a cost.
And then there is a £450m new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock to pay for, albeit with a fixed price contract. No pressure, Frank…
Everton suspended all their sponsorships with Russian companies backed by Alisher Usmanov
There is also £450million new stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock that the Toffees have to pay for
LEEDS
Should be able to ride the storm. Relegation clauses are in place, there will be pay cuts... but no redundancies.
Listen out for the champagne corks popping in the accounts department at EFL headquarters should Leeds return to the Championship after two years in the top flight. The huge support levels for the Yorkshire club mean giant — and lucrative — television audiences for the second tier, and do officials no harm when chasing cash
