Skip to main content

Wolves face Championship challenge

If the dark cloud of Wolverhampton Wanderers’ horrific season has one grim silver lining, it is that they have had plenty of opportunity to prepare for the worst. In fact, for the past few months, the powers that be at Molineux have been planning for the inevitable.

It should be noted, however, that the highly competitive Championship is different from the top flight and adjusting after seven years away will be a challenge.

Now, with relegation finally certain, interim chairman Nathan Shi and the rest of the Wolves hierarchy have the chance to prove that the rare luxury of time has not been wasted. Their challenges are many and varied, but the key aims include:

  • Managing a huge summer of squad changes, with sales needed to help bridge the income drop created by relegation
  • Taking advantage of risky January sales by ensuring the bulk of Edwards’ new squad is in place for the majority of pre-season
  • Winning around angry fans and persuading back former season ticket holders who have been priced out during the Premier League years
  • Improving on commercial performances to help supplement football income
  • Finding a way to improve the Molineux experience for fans
  • Implementing Edwards’ plan for exciting, aggressive football.

The state of the club’s finances was laid bare up to a point this month with the publication of their 2024-25 accounts, which showed a £15.3 million ($21m) loss despite a club-record £117m in player profits.

Income has already dropped in recent seasons due to lower Premier League finishes and, last season, fewer live games on television.

This season, broadcast income will likely drop again, with each Premier League place expected to be worth more than £3 million in Premier League prize money, meaning a drop from 16th place last season to 19th or 20th this term will reduce merit-based income by between £10m and £15m. That drop-off should be, at least in part, mitigated by the start of a new Premier League TV cycle this season, and the increased revenues it brings.

Even with a parachute payment amounting to 55 per cent of a basic Premier League broadcast allocation in year one in the Championship, Wolves’ turnover can be expected to drop well below the nine-figure sums top-flight clubs can bring in.   In addition, Wolves anticipate a drop of around 30 per cent in this season’s £14million season-ticket income due to the promised price reductions.

Players’ contracts include wage-reduction clauses amounting to roughly 50 per cent in the event of relegation and Wolves will make further savings when some of the higher earners inevitably move on, but there will still be a gap between income and expenditure.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance.  Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected.  “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.”  He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...
Post a Comment
Read more