England’s Premier League clubs saw financial losses surge in the 2024-2025 season despite a boost in revenue, according to a new report warning that football finance across Europe could become unsustainable longer term.
Premier League clubs’ pre-tax losses totaled £948 million ($1.3 billion) over the season, up from £135 million in losses the previous year, accounting and consulting firm Deloitte found in its latest Annual Review of Football Finance released Wednesday. The analysis cited heavy spending on player trades as a key factor.
Still, revenue for these clubs from sources such as broadcasting, commercial partnerships, and matchday attendance rose 8% to £6.8 billion ($9 billion), meaning the English league continues to dwarf its continental rivals. Germany’s Bundesliga and Spain’s La Liga, for example, both saw their clubs’ total revenue grow to reach about €4 billion ($4.6 billion) each.
The Deloitte report cautions, however, that some of these revenue increases might not be sustainable. It points to rising ticket prices, which sparked protests by Liverpool fans this year, and a limited ability to continue increasing the size of the biggest club competitions, like the Club World Cup and Europe’s Champions League.
“Football cannot rely on simply adding more content to deliver sustainable growth,” Tim Bridge, lead partner in Deloitte’s sports business group, said in a statement. “An increasingly saturated market may not be good for players or fans.”
Growth in total club revenue across Europe’s top five leagues — in England, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain — is projected to slow in the 2025/26 and 2026/27 seasons, Deloitte said. But Premier League broadcast and commercial revenue remains significantly higher than in the other countries, allowing it to outspend rival leagues on wages for top players.
That advantage is reflected on the pitch, where over the past year English clubs have won two of the three big European competitions. The only exception was the Champions League, where Paris Saint-Germain narrowly beat London’s Arsenal in the final.
Recent changes to regulation are likely to cement the Premier League’s advantages.
For the past three seasons, clubs governed by the Union of European Football Associations have had to cap their wages at a proportion of revenue, a move the Premier League will echo next season. That means higher English club revenue will allow them to keep spending more on top players than their European competitors.
But the financial health of English football, known as soccer in the US, is increasingly under scrutiny, the Deloitte report says. It calls for a broader approach to regulation, taking into account factors like community value, profitability, and transparency.
