The Premier League clubs with the biggest debts – Oh dear! (2024)

A very interesting new report has detailed the Premier League clubs with the biggest levels of debt.

Some serious amounts of money, totalling billions of pounds.

The report looks at all English football clubs when it comes to debt, with a surprisingly large number of Championship ones also featuring.

This analysis below comes from Swiss Ramble, who modestly describes himself as a ‘Brit blogging from Switzerland, usually about the business of football.’ His analysis is always excellent, giving an insight into the financial state of play, particularly when it comes to Premier League clubs.

He has now prepared the following tables, showing the most up to date figures which are included in the last full season of accounts at the end of the 2021/22 season for each club

This first table from Swiss Ramble shows the Premier League clubs (and Championship ones) with the highest ‘Gross financial debt’:

Some truly shocking amounts, with a combined figure of over £3billion owed by six Premier League clubs – Spurs, Man U, Brighton, Leicester, Everton and Arsenal.

Swiss Ramble then giving extra context / info with another two tables regarding Championship / Premier League clubs and debt. Firstly, external debt (owed to banks etc.):

Swiss Ramble adding this text to go with the table above: “The picture is a bit different if we only look at external debt, i.e. owed to banks, where only four clubs had more than £100m debt: Tottenham £853m (stadium), Man U £636m (Glazers), Everton £174m and Wolves £105m. Most debt in the Championship is provided by owners, so “soft” in nature.”

Then the second additional table looks at the debt owed to owners by Premier League clubs (and some in the Championship:

Swiss Ramble adding on the above: “And for the sake of completeness, here’s the highest owner debt in England, led by Brighton £406m, Everton £381m, Leicester £266m and Arsenal £218m, largely driven by infrastructure investment. Much of the debt in the Championship is provided by owners (12 of top 20 clubs).”

As you can see, as thing stand in these latest available figures, as at the end of last season for each club, Newcastle United missing from the three table showing the Premier League clubs with the highest levels of debt.

With the massive job they had on their hands when dealing with the Mike Ashley ‘inheritance’, the need to invest significant amounts of cash in all areas of the club after woeful minimal levels of investment for almost a decade and a half, it remains to be seen what the position with be for the Newcastle United owners moving forward. Where they will feature in future updated tables showing levels of debt, especially those owed to the owners of each of the Premier League clubs.

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