Speaking recently on The Price of Football podcast, finance expert Kieran Maguire discussed Leeds United’s financial advantage in comparison to other sides promoted from the Championship.
Since winning the Championship title last season, Leeds have landed the signings of Rodrigo in a £27 million deal from Valencia, Diego Llorente from Real Sociedad for £18 million, Robin Koch from Freiburg for £11.7 million and Joe Gelhardt from Wigan Athletic for £900k (as per Transfermarkt).
They have also made last season’s loan signings of Illan Meslier and Helder Costa permanent moves for fees of £5.85 million and £15.93 million respectively, with the club spending a total of £79.38 million in the summer transfer market thus far.
Further to this, Marcelo Bielsa’s side also still appears to be active in the transfer window, with the club being linked with a move for Udinese’s Rodrigo de Paul, for whom the Serie A side are demanding a fee of around £40 million, as well as Norwich City’s Todd Cantwell and Bayern Munich’s Michael Cuisance.
In comparison to Leeds’ fellow promoted sides from the Championship last season, the Whites have spent more than both Fulham and West Bromwich Albion combined, with these clubs spending £25.38 million and £22.32 million respectively in the summer transfer window.
This is something that Maguire discussed on a recent episode of The Price of Football podcast. In response to a question as to why Leeds seem to have a financial advantage on the other promoted sides, he said:
“Leeds were very, very successful in the Championship. If you take a look at the three sources of income that a football club gets, which is commercial, matchday and broadcasting, Leeds had the highest matchday income in the Championship in 2019.
“They’ve got decent-sized ground, and also they charge pretty high prices. I compared them to Norwich, and they were earning around about £7 million more than Norwich from ticket sales.
“Then you take a look at their commercial income – Leeds have got a pretty decent worldwide fanbase, so, off the back of that, they’re able to go and sign deals and they get more money for shirt sponsorship, for kit manufacturing, and so on.
“That put them around about £10 million pounds ahead of what you might call similar sized clubs in the Championship.
“So, you put that into the Premier League and realistically, I think Leeds have got a start point of somewhere between £20-30 million ahead of other clubs who have been recently promoted.”
Are you happy to see Leeds spending large sums of money in the transfer market?
Yes
No
TIF Thoughts…
From Maguire’s comments, it is clear that he believes Leeds’ matchday and commercial income is much greater than that of sides who have been promoted recently and, as such, subsequently allows the club a larger amount of money to spend in the transfer market.
Considering that both of these factors, as Maguire points out, are largely down the fanbase of the club, the Elland Road faithful would appear to have played quite a large role in giving their side a financial advantage over the other promoted sides.