'It can't be done': Kieran Maguire on Championship sustainability - and why Portsmouth are indebted to Michael Eisner
The third and final part of football finance expert Kieran Maguire’s assessment of Pompey
Kieran Maguire is convinced football clubs cannot be run sustainably in the Championship.
Although with Michael Eisner continuing to subsidise Pompey’s losses, the football finance expert believes it represents an effective version of the sustainability model.
The Blues remain debt-free, despite posting losses of £5.6m for the year ending June 30, 2024, according to the most recent accounts.
Owners Tornante have continued plugging such deficits and, in July 2024, created £9m of new shares through equity rather than loans.
Nonetheless, Maguire is adamant that, at Championship level, a pure sustainable model isn’t realistic for clubs.
‘It’s a bit like owning a racehorse’
He told The News: ‘The only sustainable football clubs are ones like Exeter, which are fan owned. Pompey have been through that phase of being fan owned, as have Wrexham.
‘However, you can't be sustainable in the Championship. Occasionally, a club will break even because they’ve had a load of player sales. Quite often it is someone relegated from the Premier League and clubs come along and sign your best three players, so you might make a profit on that.
‘But the only club that has ever broken even on a traditional basis in the Championship has been Rotherham - and they have always been relegated. It can’t be done.
‘You can say a club is sustainable in a sense that it is being subsidised by the owner. So perhaps Michael Eisner is willing to lose £5-10m a year, but no more. That works until it doesn’t work.
‘We have this Wrexham love-in - and what’s happened there is absolutely fantastic - but it cost them £5m to get out of the National League and another £5m to get out of League Two. Goodness knows how much it was to get out of League One last season, so the romantic part of the narrative simply doesn't exist.
‘Football is not a sustainable business. It’s a bit like owning a racehorse in the sense of it’s a hobby for rich people and the two best days you’ll have in all probability is the day you buy it and almost certainly the day you sell it, but you will be a lot poorer. The bits in between are mostly rubbish, but occasionally great things happen.
‘I am a Brighton fan and we have Tony Bloom, who has put £400m in. Yet Brighton are supposed to be the teacher’s pet of how to run a sustainable football club. It’s nonsense!’
Bristol City reported a pre-tax loss of £3.3m for the 2023-24 season, compared to losses of £22.2m the previous year, primarily due to £21.7m in player sales.
Losses were also posted by West Brom (£33.9m), Stoke (£25.7m), Hull (£18.8m) and Cardiff (£11.66m). Although Coventry made an £8.7m profit for 2023-24, helped by £23.7m in player sales.
‘Carlos Kickaball’
He added: ‘I had a conversation with a chief executive of a club in the Championship and he told me of a situation he faced a few years ago,
‘It was January, they were eighth, and the manager came to him and said he’d been talking with the scouts and checked out this lad playing in Portugal. He would cost £6m, but was ‘fantastic’.
‘He wanted £25k a week, a three-and-a-half year contract, and, if the club achieved promotion, he wanted to then double that. The manager felt this player could make the difference.
‘That year’s budget had been spent, the chief executive’s head said no, but his heart said yes. So he put it to the owner - and they signed him.
‘The player turns out to be a bit rubbish and they end up finishing 11th. But, for three weeks, the fans are delighted they’ve signed Carlos Kickaball and everyone piles onto YouTube to watch his clips.
‘Then everyone finds out he has two left feet. And that is why football is brilliant - because it is nuts.’