Everton have six games left to preserve their Premier League status. A constant fixture of top flight English football since 1954, the past two campaigns have been major struggles for the club as the off-field issues were reflected on the pitch.
Last season the club managed to maintain their unbroken streak, which now stands at 69 years, but to tick over into a 70th year is far less than certain as Everton gear up for one of the most important periods in their history over the coming weeks.
The stakes have always been high when it comes to dropping through the Premier League trap door into the Championship. But as the wealth of the top flight has grown exponentially in recent years through bumper broadcast deals struck domestically and internationally, so too has the reliance of clubs on that income to continue to maintain their business models and invest in the kind of players required to be a competitive force in the most watched league on Earth.
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The magnitude of relegation from the Premier League and what it could mean financially for the bottom three clubs was outlined on Monday afternoon in Brussels when club leaders from across the continent came together for the launch of the Union of European Clubs, a lobby group for non-elite European teams to give them a collective voice to challenge the larger sides across Europe’s major leagues.
Speaking at the event was Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish, who painted a grim picture of what relegation from the Premier League looks like in reality.
“Relegation from the Premier League is probably the biggest financial jeopardy in world football,” said the 57-year-old, whose Palace side under Roy Hodgson have hauled themselves clear of relegation trouble in recent weeks.
“If you look at (Crystal Palace’s) turnover in the Premier League, it’s in the region of £175m. First season in the Championship it would be about £70m. There’s no amount of salary cuts for players you could bake in to cover that loss.
“In the third season it’s worse and by the fourth season (without a parachute payment) you’re down to about £20million. So, in three years you have to come down from £175m to £20m.”
Everton’s financial struggles in recent seasons have been well documented, with the club having made combined losses over the last five years of almost £417m. The most recent accounts for the year ending June 2022 showed a loss of £44.7m, down £76m on the previous year but a figure aided in no small part by the £50m sale of Richarlison on the final day of the financial year.
The club face charges from the Premier League relating to allegations of breaching of the division’s own profit and sustainability rules, something that the club deny and vow to ‘robustly’ defend against. An independent commission will rule on the issue in due course.
Everton also have a stadium build of more than £500m ongoing, set to be opened next year and still awaiting the final tranche of funding that club owner Farhad Moshiri, who has been footing the bill until now, has been looking to secure for some time.
While the sole aim is to secure the club’s Premier League status and try and stabilise to rebuild from a firmer foundation next season, the club noted in their most recent set of accounts that they had made contingency plans in the event of relegation.
Parachute payments that exist on a sliding scale for relegated Premier League sides for three years in the Championship would soften any blow should the worse happen, but with onerous player contracts, a business regularly losing money and the likelihood of reduced options commercially, relegation to English football’s second tier would have severe consequences.
In order to avoid the “biggest jeopardy in world football”, Everton face arguably the biggest six games in the history of the club.
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