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 bookiesâ 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 wasnât 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 donât.
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?
âI think that the bookies have probably got it right,â football finance expert Kieran Maguire told the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Star. âWeâve seen parachute payments turn into trampoline payments over the course of the last two years.
âBurnley 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)
âCongratulations to Sunderland. It was a good match, very, very tense. Iâm glad I wasnât emotionally involved in it, just watching as an observer.
âThereâs an opportunity. Portman Road is a good stadium, thereâs a solid fanbase, a decent capacity. I think youâve got owners who have the resources and are willing to back the manager as far as the summer is concerned.
âPeople 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.
âI 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.
âI think it will be an exciting season.â
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.
âIf I was an Ipswich fan, I wouldnât be worried at all,â he argued. âThe 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
âIf you take a look at Lutonâs finances, they spent ÂŁ27m signing players in the Premier League. That was with a squad that climbed quite quickly. Congratulations on getting there, but the owners effectively said, âwe are now budgeting to be relegatedâ.
âIf you take a look at the average wages they were paying, and weâre not going to get out the worldâs smallest violin here, it was only ÂŁ25k a week. The average in the Premier League is between ÂŁ65k and ÂŁ70k. Youâve got clubs where the average wage is ÂŁ170k, ÂŁ180k.
âThey didnât have a squad of Premier League players, and it was going to be that sort of âall for one, one for allâ mentality in the dressing room.
âI went there on a Tuesday night in late January, Iâm a Brighton fan. Luton absolutely mullered us, it was 4-0 and that was flattering Brighton.
âI thought, âwell, if they can maintain this level of camaraderie, they have got a fair chance of staying upâ. That was the last game they won all season. They had a pretty brutal finish to the season.
âThe money they generated from being in the Premier League, thatâs effectively been banked and used to build the new stadium. We didnât see investment in new players in 2024/25.
âWe didnât see many sales because the broad perception of Premier League clubs was, âweâve looked at Lutonâs squad and they did well to get to the Premier League, but they didnât 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
âI 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.
âI donât anticipate a replication of what weâve seen at Luton.â
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 isnât always where supporters enjoy football the most.
âBecause Ipswich were relegated immediately following promotion, they only get two yearsâ worth of parachute payments rather than three,â he revealed. âThat does mean that, for the next two seasons, the fiscal advantage that they have is there for a limited time only.
âWe talk about the importance, itâs 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? Thatâs a more abstract, esoteric question.
âIâve been talking to some Leeds United fans since they were promoted. What surprised me, but perhaps hasnât 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 itâs Christmas if itâs 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
âDo 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? Thatâs a discussion to have.
âIf you donât go up in the first two seasons, like Norwich and Watford â weâve also got clubs like Stoke. Stoke probably have the richest English owners in the country in the form of Bet365. I know that thereâs been a formal sale, but itâs now owned by the Coates family, formally of Bet365.
âThey have been incredibly generous owners, both the company and the Coates family. Yes, there were relegated in 2018 and seven, eight years later, I donât think they have finished higher than 14th.
âThere is that danger that you donât get into that routine of being in the Championship. That can be quite soul destroying, if youâre not bad enough to get relegated and not really troubling the scorers in terms of a play-off campaign.
âFans 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.
âItâs a strange experience, where the limit of your realistic ambitions is finishing in the top half of the table.
âI support Brighton, we finished eighth. It was the second-best finish in the clubâs history. The attitude of most fans was, âmehâ. 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!
âOur final match of the season was at home to Liverpool, who just won the Premier League, but the stadium wasnât full. There were empty seats all around me because people find it difficult to motivate themselves.
âPersonally, I donât 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.
âI have to accept that Iâm not a representative of the whole fanbase.â
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