The Independent Football Regulator published its first State of the Game report last Tuesday, the day after Edition 13 went out, and it has run through the week’s coverage ever since. Its chair warned that a game at its richest and most competitive is standing close to financial disaster. The Football Supporters’ Association called the existing model broken and unsustainable. The Premier League and the EFL both welcomed the report and then disagreed, as they have for two years, about what should be done with the money.

Rather than summarise 245 pages, we’ve spent the week testing its findings against real clubs and the negotiation that is supposed to fix them — and found a case for each of its central claims without having to look very far.

English Football’s £9bn Problem: Losses, Owner Dependence and the Rise of Creative Compliance

Ninety-four per cent of the 116 clubs across England’s top five men’s divisions are loss-making, in a game generating around £9bn a year. Thirty-two of them could not survive thirty days without further money from their owners. Seventeen EFL and National League clubs had non-player operating costs exceeding revenue, meaning they would lose money even with no player wages at all.

The gap underneath those numbers is what the report is really about. In 1992/93 the average Premier League club earned 2.7 times the average Championship club. By 2024/25 it was 8.7 times. Top to bottom of the regulated pyramid, the multiple went from 70 to 173.

And the regulator has given a name to what clubs did in response. Under a heading called “Creative compliance” on page 194, it groups stadium sales, hotel sales and the transfers of women’s teams at Chelsea and Aston Villa, observing only that the arrangements “appear to have helped the clubs comply with PSR”. There is no finding of a breach. The point is sharper than that: the rules created the incentive, and clubs found the legal ways through.

Northampton Town Is Debt-Free. Who Controls the Sixfields Land?

Sports Alpha Capital acquired 70% of Northampton Town Ventures, the holding company above the club, on 30 September. Both incoming and outgoing management describe the club that emerged as debt-free. The explanation is a land transaction beside Sixfields, dealt with separately from the sale of the football business, plus loans written off by the outgoing owners — and the development land went to Neneside Ltd, a company incorporated in April, founded by a Northampton shareholder, and now controlled by a property company whose principals are directors across the GRS construction group.

Nobody has disclosed what the land was worth, how much debt it discharged, or how much was waived. Kelvin Thomas has been explicit that the land did not sell for £20m. This is precisely the shape of arrangement the regulator says it will assess on economic substance rather than accounting outcome.

AFC Wimbledon Names Preferred Investor Ahead of Fan Ownership Vote

Wimbledon have a preferred investor after talking to more than twenty parties, and members vote between 21 October and 18 November on a proposal that could take the Dons Trust’s voting control down to 50.01%.

The reason is the report’s central finding in one club’s words: the Trust has accepted that commercial and stadium revenue growth alone will not let it compete while breaking even in League One or League Two. Supporter ownership could be diluted because the division’s economics don’t work — which is owner dependence arriving at a club that deliberately has no owner. The terms are due to be put to members on Wednesday, before voting opens.

Premier League and EFL New Deal: How Much Would Each Club Get?

The policy answer to everything above is a settlement that has not been signed. On the reported terms, the Premier League’s 80/12/8 split would be worth an indicative £12.1m a season to a mid-table Championship club, £2.5m in League One and £1.8m in League Two. The EFL has asked for 75/15/10 and around £27m a year more, producing £20.6m, £3.8m and £2.5m.

The EFL’s position has been framed as fighting for the lower divisions, and in share terms it is. In per-club terms it isn’t. Because it asks for a bigger pot as well as a different split, a Championship club gains £8.5m under its proposal against a League Two club’s £700,000 — and the ratio between the two rises from 6.7 to one to 8.2 to one. The version presented as better for Leagues One and Two would leave them further behind the Championship than the Premier League’s.

Burger Index: Raynes Park Vale — 7.6/10

A £6 burger with 50p extra for onions, £10 through the gate and £6 for a pint of Moretti. That’s a £22 afternoon at tier eight — £5.50 more than Racing Club Warwick, a division above.

Behind the price list is something the regulator cannot see at all. Raynes Park Vale’s accounts to August show net assets of £131,369 against a £901,348 deficit a year earlier, a swing of £1,032,717. A £917,468 fall in long-term creditors is the largest part of it, with smaller movements in short-term creditors, current assets and fixed assets making up the rest — and no note anywhere explaining how those liabilities were discharged. In the same twelve months the club allotted new shares, changed controlling shareholder, and Kingstonian left following a dispute over proposed groundshare costs. The IFR’s remit stops at the National League. This is three divisions below it.

At Northampton, the value attributed to the Sixfields land transaction and the treatment of the associated debt remain undisclosed. At Raynes Park Vale, the balance sheet records a dramatic improvement without explaining how its largest creditor reduction occurred. At Wimbledon, members are approaching a vote on an investment proposal whose detailed terms are still due to be disclosed. And in the negotiation meant to reshape funding across the EFL, the figures are public — and show something rather different from the way the argument has been described.

A regulator can demand evidence that clubs are financially sustainable. Making football’s finances intelligible to supporters is a different challenge.

If there’s a club whose accounts you’ve tried to read and couldn’t make sense of, reply and tell me which one.

Arthur Lewis
The Pyramid