One burning question

James
5 days ago
5 min read

Maguire and his band of social media muppets will need something else to bore on about as the Deloitte Football Money League for 2026 is published and Villa are apparently no longer the unsustainable, profligate, wage expenders they once were.

It’s worth noting that the intent of this report is not the financial health and well-being of football clubs, but to claim bragging rights for who is the richest - the world of the modern football follower.

That said, the report does throw up some useful nuggets of information, albeit those same nuggets are often wildly misused by ‘experts’, commentators, pundits and media alike.

And there remains one burning question.

The headlines then:

Villa are the 14th richest club in the World according to Deloitte.

Doesn’t that just harden your loyal support for the club?

Imagine a world in which we were the 13th richest. We can only dream of such things.

Putting sarcasm aside, though, and although it will never be the actual ranking that matters, the revenues of a football club, as we all know, are a crucial barometer for success, given the insipid rules placed by the Premier League on clubs to ‘Protect the Six’.

These rules have stymied Villa repeatedly over recent seasons whilst allowing the Six to accelerate away in terms of spending, if not on-field performance.

Make no mistake, the rules are working exactly as the Premier League wanted.

Explainer: https://www.avfchistory.co.uk/post/premier-league-profit-sustainability-rules-psr-explained

Combined with UEFA’s Squad Cost Ratio, the spectre of finance has entered into the strategic thinking of progressive clubs, and not in a good way.

Let’s not forget that a true rich list of clubs would see Villa higher based on owner wealth. Indeed, those clubs occupying the top two places would be nowhere near, given their perennial indebtedness, but again, we need to remind ourselves that we’re not dealing with a level playing field.

Cheat, borrow, lie, steal, that is all fine as long as you have the revenue to show for it.

Grow organically, profitably, with independent wealth, no thank-you, we want no sustainable clubs breaking into the cartel.

So, how have the Premier League and UEFA painted such clubs as Villa as a risk to the integrity of football?

Simple, make it up as you go along, feed some media stooges simple soundbites, and let the social media hordes do the rest.

That may be a little cynical, but it’s not entirely disconnected from reality.

The big one they held against us was our Wages to Revenue ratio.

This, they shouted, was unsustainable! wreckless! Who do they think they are! they’re bust!

Although they conveniently forgot to mention, or simply didn’t understand, that the 91% (yes, they’ve settled on that after bandying around 93% for a while - make it up as you go along, see) was for a period covering 13 months of costs over 12 months of revenue.

Take your household income and expenditure and work that out on the same basis… clue: it won’t look healthy.

This little piece of factual nonsense, however, didn’t write headlines or ill-informed social media posts, so out the window it went.

c82% was the real figure, but this was too high for UEFA, who decided their ratio should taper down to a notional 70%.

To be fair to UEFA, even though there is something unpleasantly arbitrary in their methods, they are doing something the Premier League nefariously fail to do - validate genuine income from what has become known as Chelsea Bull Shit. No sales of hotels back and forth or Women’s team over-valuation here, please.

Explainer: https://www.avfchistory.co.uk/uefasquadcostratio-scr-explained

So on the face of it, Deloitte’s recognition that Villa’s wages-to-revenue ratio has decreased to 71% (suggesting a wage bill of c€320m) is ostensibly great news and credit to the club in their managing of a contrived situation that flies in the face of any reasonable logic.

But, for all the positives it suggests, this cannot be taken for granted.

Deloitte’s number is NOT the same as the SCR that will ultimately be output from UEFA.

Firstly, SCR is calculated over the calendar year and will therefore capture a completely different set of financial information than the Deloitte data and indeed Villa’s accounts for their financial year.

Secondly, SCR could be more, it could be less, as UEFA reserves the right on a club-by-club basis to make a ruling on what can and cannot be excluded.

More costs could be included, less income could be recognised or vice versa.

If that sounds like a recipe for inconsistent application of rules, then you are clearly far too cynical.

But the case remains that the one number that Maguire and his cronies threw around with such gay abandon is about as relevant as a chimney in Birmingham’s Sporting Quarter.

Looking more closely at the wider numbers being reported by Deloitte:

Villa’s revenue for the period increased to €450m from €310m. A 45% increase in top line.
Commercial revenue jumped from €43m to €83m. Almost a doubling. Blame Chris Heck
Broadcasting revenue rose from €215m to €287m. Which underlines the value of Champions League qualification but also shows that this is incremental, given the huge underlying base that Premier League participation provides.
Matchday revenue grew to €80m from €52m. Bloody Chris Heck again.

Arguably, the element most at risk from failure to qualify for the Champions League for 2025-26 is the one that showed the lowest % growth but the highest €m - broadcasting revenue.

Commercial revenue and matchday revenue should sustain themselves, broadcasting revenue will remain strong purely on a Premier League basis plus the benefit of Europa League participation, but there may be a hit of c£35m competing in Europe’s second tier.

If that were the case, and this is all guesswork, the potential revenues are estimated at €415m, suggesting a scenario where wages rise to 77% of turnover.

That is without further sales, reduced contract terms or additional monetisation of Villa’s assets.

Bizarrely, every extra pint in the Warehouse truly counts.

So should we be worried?

The truth is, we just don’t know.

UEFA approach their measures on a club-specific basis, and with Villa already under sanction, it will be obvious to them that we have been making significant efforts to come into line with their financial ‘rules’ but there is always a risk with allowable/disallowable items and the simple fact that you can’t simply wish away contractual obligations no matter how much you may wish to get a player off the books.

Our original UEFA punishment was:

Not the most significant of financial burdens, however, the threat of exclusion from European competition for serial, material and wilful transgressors remains.

It would, however, take a truly skewed view of Villa’s attempts to fall in line to accuse them of any of those three. Stranger things have happened, though - like Chelsea being allowed to create their own budget for their first year of required compliance, whilst Villa had theirs invoked upon them.

The burning question is, can we sue Thomas Bramall?

And if we do, shall we do it for the €5m fine or the full €35m hit to revenue?