Kieran Maguire claims that Ipswich Town will have a strong financial advantage in the Championship next season
Kieran Maguire claims that Ipswich Town will have a strong financial advantage in the Championship next season
Ipswich Town are the bookies’ favourites to secure promotion to the Premier League next season, but does their financial advantage in the Championship back that up?
The Blues spent heavily in the top flight, but it wasn’t enough to keep them there. They now come back to the second tier with a stronger squad than they had in 2023/24, although some players will look to move on before the start of the campaign.
Of the three teams who are relegated, at least one tends to bounce back at the first time of asking. In terms of resources, there tends to be a significant gap between teams who receive parachute payments and those who don’t.
Of course, the likes of Southampton, Leicester City and Sheffield United will look to compete for automatic promotion, but do Town have what it takes to finish above them?
“I think that the bookies have probably got it right,” football finance expert Kieran Maguire told the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star. “We’ve seen parachute payments turn into trampoline payments over the course of the last two years.
“Burnley and Leeds United were both in receipt of parachute payments, they were automatically promoted. Sheffield United could have been promoted but they lost to Sunderland in the play-off final.
Burnley returned to the Premier League at the first time of asking
Burnley returned to the Premier League at the first time of asking (Image: PA)
“Congratulations to Sunderland. It was a good match, very, very tense. I’m glad I wasn’t emotionally involved in it, just watching as an observer.
“There’s an opportunity. Portman Road is a good stadium, there’s a solid fanbase, a decent capacity. I think you’ve got owners who have the resources and are willing to back the manager as far as the summer is concerned.
“People are asking whether we have two or three Premier Leagues. We have a big seven or eight, then the middle classes and nine to 10 clubs fighting over six positions who are bouncing between the Championship and the Premier League.
“I think Ipswich Town have all of the resources to join that group. They have been up, come down and are rightly deemed to be a club with the opportunity to bounce back.
“I think it will be an exciting season.”
There is, of course, a risk of complacency. Luton Town, for example, were expected to compete for a top-two finish last season, having just come down from the Premier League. Instead, they finished 22nd and were relegated down to League One.
Some outsiders believe that the Blues could be on a similar path, with supporters also wary of what happened to the Hatters. Maguire, however, believes that there should be no cause for concern.
“If I was an Ipswich fan, I wouldn’t be worried at all,” he argued. “The two clubs have nothing in common.
Maguire doesn’t believe that the Blues are at risk of following Luton Town’s spiral post-relegation
Maguire doesn’t believe that the Blues are at risk of following Luton Town’s spiral post-relegation
“If you take a look at Luton’s finances, they spent £27m signing players in the Premier League. That was with a squad that climbed quite quickly. Congratulations on getting there, but the owners effectively said, ‘we are now budgeting to be relegated’.
“If you take a look at the average wages they were paying, and we’re not going to get out the world’s smallest violin here, it was only £25k a week. The average in the Premier League is between £65k and £70k. You’ve got clubs where the average wage is £170k, £180k.
“They didn’t have a squad of Premier League players, and it was going to be that sort of ‘all for one, one for all’ mentality in the dressing room.
“I went there on a Tuesday night in late January, I’m a Brighton fan. Luton absolutely mullered us, it was 4-0 and that was flattering Brighton.
“I thought, ‘well, if they can maintain this level of camaraderie, they have got a fair chance of staying up’. That was the last game they won all season. They had a pretty brutal finish to the season.
“The money they generated from being in the Premier League, that’s effectively been banked and used to build the new stadium. We didn’t see investment in new players in 2024/25.
“We didn’t see many sales because the broad perception of Premier League clubs was, ‘we’ve looked at Luton’s squad and they did well to get to the Premier League, but they didn’t have Premier League quality players.
Town will aim to secure a top-two finish next season
Town will aim to secure a top-two finish next season
“I think Luton are a completely different place to Ipswich because Ipswich have had that investment in the squad. They have a bigger ground, greater match receipts, greater commercial revenue and greater commercial appeal off the back of the sponsors.
“I don’t anticipate a replication of what we’ve seen at Luton.”
Fans will be expecting to see Ipswich in the promotion mix next season. If they do miss out, they only have a finite amount of time before their parachute payments run out.
As a result, there will be a burning desire to return to the top flight as soon as possible, although Maguire argues that this isn’t always where supporters enjoy football the most.
“Because Ipswich were relegated immediately following promotion, they only get two years’ worth of parachute payments rather than three,” he revealed. “That does mean that, for the next two seasons, the fiscal advantage that they have is there for a limited time only.
“We talk about the importance, it’s in terms of self-worth, self-reflection, self-analysis and so on, but is it important for you as an individual Ipswich fan that you follow the club in the Premier League, or just following Ipswich? That’s a more abstract, esoteric question.
“I’ve been talking to some Leeds United fans since they were promoted. What surprised me, but perhaps hasn’t surprised me, is that they love it in the Championship, they love being top dog and going to away grounds in the expectation of a win as opposed to celebrating like it’s Christmas if it’s a 0-0, which tends to be the case in the Premier League.
Mark Ashton wants to see a change in football’s finance rules
Mark Ashton wants to see a change in football’s finance rules
“Do you want to be a big fish in a small pond, or do you want to be a small fish, or a tiddler, in a much bigger pond? That’s a discussion to have.
“If you don’t go up in the first two seasons, like Norwich and Watford – we’ve also got clubs like Stoke. Stoke probably have the richest English owners in the country in the form of Bet365. I know that there’s been a formal sale, but it’s now owned by the Coates family, formally of Bet365.
“They have been incredibly generous owners, both the company and the Coates family. Yes, there were relegated in 2018 and seven, eight years later, I don’t think they have finished higher than 14th.
“There is that danger that you don’t get into that routine of being in the Championship. That can be quite soul destroying, if you’re not bad enough to get relegated and not really troubling the scorers in terms of a play-off campaign.
“Fans become a bit weary, but that also happens in the Premier League. If you think about what happened to Stoke in the Premier League, they used to finish eighth or ninth every season. It was the same with Charlton 15 or 20 years ago and look at what has happened to them now, although I appreciate that they are back.
“It’s a strange experience, where the limit of your realistic ambitions is finishing in the top half of the table.
“I support Brighton, we finished eighth. It was the second-best finish in the club’s history. The attitude of most fans was, ‘meh’. Certainly not helped by Crystal Palace winning the FA Cup, it has to be said. That was probably the bigger reason for misery at the Amex!
“Our final match of the season was at home to Liverpool, who just won the Premier League, but the stadium wasn’t full. There were empty seats all around me because people find it difficult to motivate themselves.
“Personally, I don’t give a damn about those people. I saw us beat Liverpool, which was absolutely fantastic. It was a brilliant game of football and I support my team regardless of the division.
“I have to accept that I’m not a representative of the whole fanbase.”
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