Crystal Palace was amongst all but one of the 20 English Premier League clubs that achieved record breaking revenues and profits for last season. With the new combined operating profits sitting pretty at the highest ever total of £614 Million, it is beyond exciting to think how this can only grow with the staggering new TV deals kicking into gear for the 2016/17 season. The top flight has now overtaken Germany’s Bundesliga as Europe’s most profitable league, and revenues for the Premier League were even reported as more than in Spain and Italy’s top divisions combined.
So what will this mean for Crystal Palace and other clubs in this league who will be a pawn in a “new age” of football finance? Dan Jones – head of Deloitte’s Sports Business Group said “The transformation of Premier League Club profitability will fuel even greater global investor interest in Premier League Clubs”. This is not new news for Palace; rumours were widespread 2 months ago that potential takeover of Palace from American billionaire Josh Harris was on the table. This has now been squashed and according to reports the takeover deal has broken down, but with Parish revealing he is still in discussions and is still keen on bringing more investment to the club in the near future. Should Parish now sit back and relax and let the money pour in from increased Premier League profits rather than risk bringing in global interest that may want to make too many changes and damage our club? Or… are we still in need of further funding to ensure our continued climb up the table of wealth.
Of course for us and all other clubs it means ultimately more money – but we may need more than your average club – as to grow we have a few debts and dollars to spend on developing further; Selhurst Park – pitch improvements are already in full swing with a new state of the art surface being laid to rival the turf’s of Manchester City, Arsenal and Wembley Stadium. The team – Pardew is the best man for the job to start spending some of that £77.3million in the transfer window. Pards has already spoken up on a few players he has his eye on and fortunately money will not play as much as a deciding factor and barrier to purchase as it has in previous seasons. Surely the Palace academy will also take some further investment which is always a bonus – to ensure we keep bringing through new young talent season after season. And finally a bigger marketing and expenditure budget, which will continue to build the clubs great reputation in new territories and excite and entice new younger fans to the club.
One thing that is clear from the figures released from the Deloitte report is that the competition is only going to get fiercer. The heightened value of the new broadcast deals is going to be appealing to every football club. The chance of relegation is still a great possibility for most clubs bar the top 5, with the prospect of automatic promotion again seeming even more un-realistic as the widened gap between the Premier League and Championship is becoming even wider. So full advantage needs to be taken…. to secure Palace’s place for yet another season, possibly even with a top 8 finish?
