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The Football League Championship Play-Off Final on 28 May will again represent the biggest financial prize in world football.

Paul Rawnsley, Director of the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, commented: "With seven Championship clubs still chasing a place in the Play-Offs, the final fixtures on Sunday promise drama and tension on the pitch, on the terraces and in the boardroom.”

“The financial prize for promotion to the Premiership will be around EUR88m (STG60m).  Premiership football will provide Birmingham City, Sunderland and the third promoted club with at least EUR51.4m (STG35m) of additional revenue for the 2007/08 season.  In addition, even if the club is relegated after one year in the top flight, parachute payments worth over EUR14.7m (STG10m) per season will be received for two more seasons.” 

The main driver of this additional revenue comes from the Premier League's new domestic and overseas broadcasting deals which commence from 2007/08.  The new deals will add a further EUR29.4m (STG20m) to the promotion prize fund compared to the EUR58.8m (STG40m) available to last season’s winners. 

The main priority for all of the promoted clubs will be survival in the top division.  To compete in the Premiership requires investment, not only in the football squad and management, but also in the underlying business. 

Alex Byars, senior consultant in the Sports Business Group comments: “The immediate revenue boost can provide promoted clubs with the finances to bridge the gap between Championship and Premiership revenues.  Excluding the biggest five or six clubs, most of the other Premiership clubs will be relatively evenly matched in financial terms in 2007/08.  Carrying the winning mentality from the Championship, whilst raising the club’s operations to a Premiership level, is likely to determine whether or not the promoted clubs stay up.”

After the end of the season, the 16th edition of the Deloitte Annual Review of Football Finance will be published, providing analysis of football’s finances in England and around Europe.

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Note to editors

About the Sports Business Group at Deloitte

Over the last 15 years Deloitte has developed a unique focus on the business of sport. Our specialist Sports Business Group offers a multi-disciplined expert service with dedicated people and skills capable of adding significant value to the business of sport. Whether it is benchmarking or strategic business reviews, operational turnarounds, revenue enhancement strategies or stadium/venue development plans, business planning, market and demand analysis, acquisitions, due diligence, expert witness, audits or tax planning; we have worked with more clubs, leagues, governing bodies, stadia developers, event organisers, commercial partners, financiers and investors than any other adviser.

About Deloitte:

Deloitte Ireland is a world-class firm of expert business advisers, serving senior business leaders who are seeking to protect and create value in a complex, dynamic environment. Our objective is to help our clients succeed by anticipating tomorrow’s agenda with focused, insightful and fresh thinking borne out of our multidisciplinary strengths. We draw upon our specialist skills in audit, tax, consulting and financial advisory both within Ireland and across the Deloitte worldwide network.

What’s different about Deloitte is our people, who focus on building long-term relationships and are determined to deliver measurable value for our clients’ business. With almost 900 people in Dublin, Cork and Limerick Deloitte is known as an employer of choice for our innovative human resources programmes and is dedicated to helping our clients and our people excel.

'Deloitte' refers to Deloitte & Touche and any associated partnerships and companies established under the laws of Ireland. Deloitte is the Irish member firm of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu. For more information, please visit the Irish member firm’s website at www.deloitte.com/ie.