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Special report by Ged Henderson
A DIFFICULT BALL GAME
The increasing financial challenges of operating a professional football club have been laid bare by its outgoing chairman of Preston North End.
Craig Hemmings, pictured above, announced in October that he was stepping down from the role after more than six years in the Deepdale hotseat.
The Hemmings family, who own the Championship football club, has also revealed their strategy to seek out new investors or owners – with a two-year target to “find the right fit”.
Fans were told that the family had invested “well over £100m” during its ownership and they would continue to “push for the club to become far more self-sustaining and financially viable”. At the end of the two-year period the Hemmings will review their options again.
The outgoing chairman also spoke of an urgent need for a “financial reset” of football and the parachute payments that clubs relegated from the Premier League receive.
He revealed that PNE had achieved club record revenues in the region of £20.6m but added: “It is becoming increasingly difficult for owners such as us to afford and control the levels of investment required to compete against those clubs who have been awarded riches and
therefore spending powers way beyond any rational level of sustainability.
“I do not believe that either the Premier League or the EFL wish to drive owners like us out of the game.
“The inevitable consequence, however, of the current structure and gulf in riches between the Premier League, the parachute payment clubs,
both on and off the field of play, with teams whose income is artificially and unsustainably inflated to four or five times that of clubs who receive no parachute payments is increasingly onerous and fraught with financial pitfalls.
“To the best of my knowledge there are no clubs in the Championship that exist or are financially sustainable without the financial help and support of an owner or benefactor,
Without this, the gulf between the haves and the
have nots will continue to widen and the long-term future of the game will suffer accordingly. The only true losers here are the fans
the rest of the Championship and the balance of the football pyramid, is that the reckless boom or bust mentality of some owners will drive responsible owners out of the game we love.”
Spelling out the growing challenges he said: “The financial model for football, especially the flow of money – parachute payments – down from the Premier League to the Championship, is just not fit for purpose.
“For clubs like PNE, to have to try and compete,
whether to a small or large degree, helping to cover financial losses. This cannot be right. This cannot continue.
“Football needs a complete financial reset for the good and for the soul of the game.”
Craig said clubs like Preston now need the intervention of the new Independent Football Regulator (IFR) to ensure a fairer distribution of resources across the whole of the football pyramid.
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