Leeds United have just 13 games left to secure their Premier League survival.
Javi Gracia has been appointed as the man to keep Leeds out of the bottom three come May, with the Whites currently sat 17th in the table, only ahead of Everton on goal difference after two Premier League matches in charge for the former Watford boss.
Just six points separate the bottom nine teams in what is proving to be one of the closest relegation battles the English top-flight has seen in years. No fan wants to go through the tears and heartbreak on the final day of the season as their side come to grips with relegation, yet sadly that reality is fast approaching for three teams in just a matter of weeks.
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In the Championship the stadiums get smaller, the number of matches increase and some might even say the level of competition goes up a notch. There are countless other changes but one of the main impacts is undeniably the financial burden of a team that drops down a league.
Parachute payments are one way in which a relegated team is supported, with the Premier League paying clubs who go down to the Championship with a set of instalments to help ease the sudden loss of broadcast revenue.
As things stand, the three teams who drop down a division will receive 55 per cent of the equal share of broadcast revenue paid to Premier League clubs in the first year after relegation, 45 per cent the following year and 20 per cent in year three. If a team bounces back to the top flight within those three seasons, the payments cease to be made.
And should a club be relegated having spent just a single season in the Premier League, they are not entitled to the third payment in its entirety.
The numbers change year on year, but should Leeds go down this season they could expect to receive approximately £90million in parachute payments over three years - a loss of £135m in broadcasting money alone.
For the owners of the club, whoever they may be next season, relegation to the Championship would almost certainly involve saying goodbye to making any kind of profit.
Kieran Maguire, author of The Price of Football and a lecturer in football finances at the University of Liverpool, told Sportsmail : "The costs of running a club in the Championship are incomprehensible from a business perspective.
"If you look at the Championship, you have 24 clubs of whom 23 are making substantial losses, in all probability."
Sponsorship is another factor that will feel the brunt of relegation from the Premier League.
At the start of the 2020/21 season, SBOTOP was announced as the club's shirt sponsor on a multi-year deal, the largest commercial deal in Leeds' history. Yet Maguire also believes that this will be a further casualty of a return to the Championship.
“There will be significant step-downs for Leeds United and their shirt sponsorship with SBOTOP,” Maguire told Football Insider
“But the sponsor is likely to be delighted with the degree of exposure they’ve received since Leeds arrived in the Premier League. You can understand their enthusiasm for wanting that on a longer-term basis.
“Leeds will hope to extract a higher price should they secure their future in the Premier League, but that value will significantly plummet should they return to the Championship.“
Beyond TV money and shirt sponshorships, an immediate impact will be felt on the field with a number stars likely to be sold either through an inability to afford their wages or the players lack of interest in competing outside of the Premier League. There are of course certain wage and contract clauses that can help ease this burden, yet they cannot nullify it completely.
The irony with this problem however is that the money generated from player sales would provide the Whites with additional funding to reinvest in the squad or to offset the remaining wages of their current crop of players. The ultimate end product of this will of course be the quality on the pitch declining, with Leeds finding it harder to attract a certain calibre of player.
The six-point spread from 12th to 20th means that Leeds are far from panic stations just yet. There are only a handful of matches left for Gracia's side to start moving away from the foot of the table, but the Spaniard will know that his team are just one patch of good form away from putting some breathing space between them and the teams around them.
That concept, just like the financial impact of relegation, is much easier to come to terms with on paper than it is in reality. The truth is it will be the performances on the pitch that determine whether or not Leeds will feel the monetary squeeze of a return to the Championship.
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