Graphic: The money machine

A year ago, financial analysts reported astonishing news: average wages of Barclays Premiership footballers had fallen for the first time. They were not quite in the same category as university lecturers or newly qualified nurses, but their wages had gone down by 3 per cent on average.

That now appears to have been a momentary aberration. The latest review of football finances by Deloitte shows the natural order reasserting itself, with wage bills rising 9 per cent.

From next season, a new £2.7 billion television package will add to Premiership revenues, leaving them £680 million higher than the nearest foreign league, Serie A in Italy – a league that less than a decade ago had a roughly similar turnover. Meanwhile, the average Premiership club will earn five times the revenue of its Championship counterpart.

Critics gave warning that clubs would have to fight to ensure that players did not take an equally large chunk of the new TV money, but with the price of failure rising so high, further wage inflation is expected. The analysts found a strong correlation between success and spending on players.

The average Premiership player will earn more than £1 million next season and within three years fans in England could be watching a £10 million-a-year player, who will earn enough to buy a reasonable-sized house in outer London every week.

Dan Jones, of Deloitte’s Business Advisory Group, told The Times: “We are seeing the English league pulling away from the pack in Europe.” However, Professor Tom Cannon, Dean of Buckingham University Business School, saw signs in the report of stronger competition from Germany, Spain and France – whose revenues grew by nearly a third – in years to come. “They have learnt the lessons of the Premier League,” he said. “How much longer will English clubs be able to take their pick of foreign players?”

The top four Premiership clubs are also pulling ahead, making nearly treble the average revenue of the remaining 16. Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic were able to buck the trend to some extent, achieving successful seasons despite lower turnovers and player salaries.

Despite rocketing revenues at the top of the English game, the report excluded the £604 million debt of the parent companies of Manchester United. Dr Rory Miller, of Liverpool University’s Football Industry Group, said: “They say Arsenal had the highest net debt [£262 million] but most of that was incurred in building a new stadium, whereas Manchester United, which was debt-free, has been saddled with the debt Malcolm Glazer incurred to purchase it. I think the same thing will happen at Liverpool. It’s very worrying – in the end these takeovers are being financed by fans via higher ticket prices.”

In the Championship there were 11 clubs surviving on drastically lower revenues, with debts of more than £10 million and their only hope of reducing it lying in promotion or a generous new owner. Still, there was less correlation between spending and success. “Derby [County] finished twentieth last year and went up, Leeds [United] made the play-offs last year and are going down,” Miller said. “The question for the Championship is how to turn that exciting competitive balance into TV revenues.”

Meanwhile, Serie A appeared to pay the price of corruption and hooliganism scandals. Revenues for this season are expected to be behind those of the German and Spanish leagues. Miller saw this as a cautionary tale for the Premiership. “The risk is of some sort of financial or bribery scandal,” he said.