New research has revealed football’s biggest financial winners and losers during the 2014/15 season, showing which teams made their money go furthest and which were most wasteful.

The ‘Golden Goals’ financial data, compiled by business information website Company Check, reveals how each of the 92 clubs in the Football League compare on assets, turnover, cash at bank and wages and salaries.

Using data submitted by each club to Companies House, the league also calculates how much each goal cost clubs, how much they generated in turnover,

Arsenal were the champions of cash at the end of 2014, with £76 million in the bank, while Manchester City came top of turnover with almost £350 million, more than any other English team.

Liverpool were the clear losers when the ‘cost per goal’ was calculated, with each of the team’s 52 Premier League goals this season costing more than £2.7 million. The winners were Crystal Palace, who spent less than £12,000 per goal.

Founder of Company Check, Alastair Campbell, said: “Football clubs are regularly judged by their performance on the pitch, however this guide to the beautiful game’s best businesses offers a snapshot of the state of football, from the riches of the Premiership’s top four to the battling teams of the lower leagues.

“The top 92 clubs in English football spent a total of £2.3 billion on wages and salaries during the 2013/14 season. This season that figure will probably be even higher, however in terms of turnover they added almost £4 billion to the British economy last year. This just shows how important football is for the UK, despite the eye-watering salaries.

“For the typical fan though, more important than the astronomical numbers will be just how far their own club makes the money from their season tickets go. Reading this list, some will be pleasantly surprised at their team’s performance – others, I’m afraid, might be less than impressed.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

Company Check (http://companycheck.co.uk/) is the largest source of data on UK companies and attracts three million unique visitors each month who, between them, carry out more than 200 million searches each year for due diligence, checking up on customers and suppliers, researching competitors or tracking their own businesses.

It is the only affordable way for small businesses and consumers to perform credit checks on other companies without a contract or the hard sell. More details and interviews are available on request – contact pr@companycheck.co.uk or call Rob Tomkinson on 07723602254/ 0115 242212)

Workings
Data extracted from companycheck.co.uk in May 2015 representing the most recent filed account of each business. Businesses with a turnover of less than £6.5 million, a balance sheet of less than £3.26 million or with fewer than 50 employees are not required by Companies House to file P&L information and as such are marked here as ‘not filed’. ‘Cost per goal’ was calculated by dividing each club’s 2014 wage bill by the total number of league goals scored by that team during the 2014/15 season. ‘Turnover per goal’ was calculated by dividing each club’s 2014 turnover by the same goals tally.