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Birmingham City Finances

Disco_Pants93

Disco_Pants93

Striker
Birmingham City's wage bill in League One last season was £38.9m, the highest third tier wage bill in history by a country mile. The next highest was Sunderland £26.7m in 2018-2019. Birmingham's 24/25 wage bill was higher than two thirds of Championship sides in the same season.

They also spent £27.7m on new players in league one and in the 23/24 season the 24 clubs in the league spent a combined £12.9m.

They now lie 16th in the Championship and have been absolutely miles away from challenging at all this season after spending approximately £35m. Now I know the League One finances don't actually contribue towards the Championship's FFP measures, but even without that, how can they afford to freely spend £35m on top of what they did the season before when surely they don't have the revenue of other clubs in the division?

What it does highlight once again is how immaculately we've been ran since the owners came in. To achieve PL promotion with the net spend we had, to my mind, is one of the biggest footballing achievements in recent memory. It really is mind boggling when you look at what other teams are doing to try and make it to the PL.
 

Disco_Pants93 said:
Birmingham City's wage bill in League One last season was £38.9m, the highest third tier wage bill in history by a country mile. The next highest was Sunderland £26.7m in 2018-2019. Birmingham's 24/25 wage bill was higher than two thirds of Championship sides in the same season.

They also spent £27.7m on new players in league one and in the 23/24 season the 24 clubs in the league spent a combined £12.9m.

They now lie 16th in the Championship and have been absolutely miles away from challenging at all this season after spending approximately £35m. Now I know the League One finances don't actually contribue towards the Championship's FFP measures, but even without that, how can they afford to freely spend £35m on top of what they did the season before when surely they don't have the revenue of other clubs in the division?

What it does highlight once again is how immaculately we've been ran since the owners came in. To achieve PL promotion with the net spend we had, to my mind, is one of the biggest footballing achievements in recent memory. It really is mind boggling when you look at what other teams are doing to try and make it to the PL.
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deserve all they get
 
Disco_Pants93 said:
Birmingham City's wage bill in League One last season was £38.9m, the highest third tier wage bill in history by a country mile. The next highest was Sunderland £26.7m in 2018-2019. Birmingham's 24/25 wage bill was higher than two thirds of Championship sides in the same season.

They also spent £27.7m on new players in league one and in the 23/24 season the 24 clubs in the league spent a combined £12.9m.

They now lie 16th in the Championship and have been absolutely miles away from challenging at all this season after spending approximately £35m. Now I know the League One finances don't actually contribue towards the Championship's FFP measures, but even without that, how can they afford to freely spend £35m on top of what they did the season before when surely they don't have the revenue of other clubs in the division?

What it does highlight once again is how immaculately we've been ran since the owners came in. To achieve PL promotion with the net spend we had, to my mind, is one of the biggest footballing achievements in recent memory. It really is mind boggling when you look at what other teams are doing to try and make it to the PL.
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Paid for by the fact they will have the biggest revenue outside of the parachute payment clubs.

But I'm sure they had hoped to be where Wrexham are right now.
 
mackembhoy said:
Paid for by the fact they will have the biggest revenue outside of the parachute payment clubs.

But I'm sure they had hoped to be where Wrexham are right now.
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How though? A relatively small ground so ticket sales won't be as big as others. Admittedly I don't know loads about their off field operations but struggle to see how they're generating bags of revenue.
 
Disco_Pants93 said:
How though? A relatively small ground so ticket sales won't be as big as others. Admittedly I don't know loads about their off field operations but struggle to see how they're generating bags of revenue.
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Birmingham revenue in 24/25 was £35.6mil

Wrexham revenue in 24/25 was £33.3mil

Sunderland revenue in 24/25 was £40.3mil

These clubs are getting the money in from somewhere that their much smaller stadia isn't going to have the impact it should have for the money they spend.
 
Just proves if ever it were in any doubt that you can throw money about all you like, but unless you have the right people in charge of spending it with a proper plan, there’s absolutely no guarantees it will bring success. At the higher end of the scale, see also Man Utd over recent years.

Speakman did brilliant for us and latterly Ghisolfi has seemed to continue that trend.
 
mackembhoy said:
Paid for by the fact they will have the biggest revenue outside of the parachute payment clubs.

But I'm sure they had hoped to be where Wrexham are right now.
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I don’t think it is. Wages were 107% of revenue and that’s before everything else. God knows what their losses are and at least one massive chunk of income is the owners overpaying for ground sponsorship. Also looks like they are spending really badly. I guess it’s just how much the owners are willing to to suck up but I’ve said it before I think there is something really off there.
 
halfpast3 said:
I don’t think it is. Wages were 107% of revenue and that’s before everything else. God knows what their losses are and at least one massive chunk of income is the owners overpaying for ground sponsorship. Also looks like they are spending really badly. I guess it’s just how much the owners are willing to to suck up but I’ve said it before I think there is something really off there.
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Most championship clubs are operating with wages over 100% of their turnover.

The difference is Birmingham and Wrexham will bring in revenues the rest would love to have to offset that.

Birmingham have defs gone too far in their spend compared to Wrexham and gambled too heavily. Whether that will stabilise next year I guess you wait and see.
 
halfpast3 said:
I don’t think it is. Wages were 107% of revenue and that’s before everything else. God knows what their losses are and at least one massive chunk of income is the owners overpaying for ground sponsorship. Also looks like they are spending really badly. I guess it’s just how much the owners are willing to to suck up but I’ve said it before I think there is something really off there.
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Just had a quick look and looks like they sponsor the training ground as well. So at a guess the bulk of these “record” revenues is just the owners sponsoring stuff I think. In the Birmingham city article I found they also don’t mention and loss figures and just bang on about what they increased. Does any know know if the sell of figures from Jude and Jobe would be revenue or sit somewhere else? They were both in that years accounts anyway and either way will have probably reduced a load of their losses and that’s fair enough it’s just a player sale really but they are not coming back around next year for them.
 
Svarta katten said:
I'm sure they expected to be where Coventry are right now
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Probably right. As I said in a following post they've gambled a lot more than Wrexham have.

Might blow up bad for Birmingham, especially with the main owner having stepped away for health reasons. I guess we will see next season.

Wrexham will be able to build well on this season even if they end up just short of the playoffs.
 
Problem Wrexham have is apart from Calum Doyle, all of their big signings last summer are 27+ years old (they spent £33millionin total).

We went down the route of free transfers for experienced players, and paying smallish fees for young hungry, players who could develop (Cirkin, Ballard, Hume, Clarke, Bellingham, Mayenda, Isidor etc - this lot cost the same as they paid for Nathan Broadhead).
 
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