Premier
League clubs' wage bill rose by 15% to £2.9bn in the 2017-18 season, hitting
profits - despite them making record revenue during the campaign.
Having five teams each reaching at
least the last 16 of the Champions League helped push revenue to £4.8bn,
according to analysis from Deloitte.
But the high transfer fees paid out
by clubs also helped push up wages.
That brought profit before tax down
to about £400m for the clubs, a reduction from about £500m a year earlier.
Tim Bridge, a director in the Sports
Business Group at Deloitte, said: "The increased wage expenditure was
expected given the busy transfer market in the 2017-18 season, with two record
transfer windows driving estimated Premier League gross spend of £1.9bn."
However, he said, broadcast fees are
only likely to rise by a small amount in the next three years.
"With the emphasis now on clubs
to generate revenue growth from sources other than central broadcast
distributions, it may be that we see the levels of pre-tax profit diminish over
the next few years," he said.
The "big six" clubs of
Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham
accounted for 89% of the league's pre-tax profits, according to financial data
firm Vysyble.
They earned more than £53.4m a week
between them, up from £48.4m the previous season, while the other 14 sides made
a combined £39.4m a week, down £200,000 on the year before.
Premier League clubs paid out more
than £260m to football agents in the 12 months to the end of January 2019, an
increase of £49m on the previous year, according to documents released by the
Football Association.
Liverpool were the highest-spending
club in the top flight, paying £43m to agents in that period.
Chelsea (£26m) and Manchester City
(£24m) were the next biggest spenders.
Fees to agents went up despite
spending on transfers falling by more than £500m when compared with the
previous season.
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