Championship spending hits record levels and likely to go higher as playoffs expand

With a top-eight finish offering at least a playoff place, the temptation to spend big in pursuit of the Premier League will grow – but so will the risks

The Championship’s collective wage bill grew to a record £903m in 2024-25, according to Deloitte’s latest Annual Review of Football Finance. Clubs are paying players enormous sums in their pursuit of Premier League football. With the playoffs expanding this season, the number of owners willing to risk even more money in the hope of securing promotion is only likely to increase.

In isolation, the figure of £903m does not signify much. Compared to the Premier League’s £4.4bn salary outlay, it almost looks small. But England’s top division can afford that gargantuan commitment to wages whereas the second tier cannot. The 24 clubs in the Championship earned £942m, meaning salaries consumed 96% of revenue. If there was any surprise in their collective net debt being £1.4bn at the end of 2024-25, it was only that it had reduced from the £1.5bn it was a year earlier.