Reality !!

Everton have accrued the highest economic losses in the Premier League over the two pandemic affected seasons, new research has found.

The 2019/20 and 2020/21 campaigns were both severely affected by Covid, with the former paused due to the pandemic before restarting behind closed doors, something that impacted broadcasters and broadcasting rights to clubs, while the latter had to be played out in empty stadia as the pandemic raged on.

The impact of those two seasons was shown when the club published their audited financial accounts for those two years, with the two seasons seeing losses of £139.9m in 2019/20 and £120.9m for 2020/21, cumulative losses for the two seasons standing at £260.8m.


Those losses have been a continued thorn in Everton's side as they have had to implement some austerity measures at the club due to risk of breaching the Premier League's profit and sustainability rules. Transfer business has been limited, with just £1.5m spent in the summer of 2021, while this close season has seen the club part ways with their most valuable asset in Richarlison, sold for a fee that could rise up to £60m to Tottenham Hotspur on the final day of June, meaning the deal will be accounted for in their next set of financial results.

Finance experts at value analysis firm Vysyble have looked at the finances of the Premier League over the two Covid-impacted seasons and compiled a full list of where the clubs rank, with Everton having seen the worst economic losses of any team in the league that played both the 2019/20 and 2020/21 campaigns in English footballs top flight.

Economic profit and loss is the method used by Vysyble when measuring the financial performance of a business and is different to the commonly used metric of EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation).

The formula for working out economic profit and loss is taking the net operating profit figure and subtracting all of the capital invested into the business. Until a business turns a profit greater than the cost of its capital then it is a business that runs at a loss.

Combined, the Premier League made economic losses of £2.25bn, with only Wolverhampton Wanderers (£90.3m economic profit) and Sheffield United (£21m economic profit) in the black from those two seasons following the pandemic.

Everton propped up the 17 clubs that appear on the list with economic losses of £286.9m, a figure £46.8m higher than the next team on the list, Tottenham Hotspur, who stood at £240.1m in economic losses. Spurs were followed by Manchester City (£238.9m), Chelsea (£234.1m), Arsenal (£230.6m) and Manchester United (£188.7m).

The breakdown of the two seasons for Everton saw them make economic losses of £156.3m in 2019/20 (second highest) and £130.6m (fourth highest) in 2020/21.

Everton's losses for the two pandemic impacted seasons made up 12.7 per cent of the total economic losses for the Premier League during that period, although it is important to note that some of these economic losses are attributed to capital expenditure on the building of the planned new stadium at Bramley Moore Dock.

"Sustainability is a slow process and not something that can or will be an overnight success," Vysyble co-founder John Purcell told the ECHO back in December when analysing the five-year economic profit and loss figures in the Premier League.

"Our most recent figures showed three teams out of 20 had made an economic profit in the past five years, but with Spurs' latest financial results being so damaging they are now running at an economic loss.

"If football is to be sustainable going forward then you have to drive down the economic profit and loss levels."

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