WHEN is a multi-million pound bonanza not quite what it first seems? When it happens in the madcap world of Championship football finance.
Earlier this summer, Middlesbrough sold Hayden Hackney to Everton. Over the weekend, Aston Villa agreed a £117m deal with Chelsea for Morgan Rogers that will see Boro receive a hefty sell-on as part of the package that took the England international to Villa Park from the Riverside.
Two huge deals resulting in significant income for Boro. But do they now mean the Teessiders are one of the richest clubs in the Championship, with money to burn as they look to complete their own incoming transfer deals? Or is the situation not quite as simple as that?
Let’s start with the Rogers deal. Boro signed Rogers from Manchester City for £1.5m and sold him to Villa for £16.5m, generating a £15m profit. Twenty per cent of that went back to City as a sell-on agreement, so Boro’s initial profit from the sale of Rogers, which went through in February 2024, was £12m.
Chelsea are paying £117m to sign the 23-year-old this summer, meaning Villa are making a profit of £100.5m on his sale. Boro are due 20 per cent of that profit, which is £20.1m. However, again, 20 per cent of that sum goes straight to Manchester City, leaving Villa owing Boro just over £16m.
That’s a considerable sum for a player who hasn’t kicked a ball for the Teessiders for almost two-and-a-half years, but it will be paid in four instalments over the course of the next three years. That means, this summer, Boro will receive just over £4m from Rogers’ sale.
Middlesbrough sold Morgan Rogers to Aston Villa in February 2024 (Image: Tom Banks)
What will they receive in the current window from the Hackney sale? Everton agreed an initial fee of £16.5m when they signed Hackney earlier this summer, with a further £9.5m of potential add-ons also forming part of the agreement. They should kick in further down the line, but for now, Everton are paying Boro £16.5m in three instalments over the course of the next two years. So, this summer, Boro will receive an initial payment of £5.5m. Add that to the first chunk of the Rogers money, and you’re at around £9.5m.
What do Boro estimate their expenditure for the 2026-27 season will be? Exact figures are difficult to pin down at this stage, with the transfer window still open and so many uncertainties ahead, but discussions with senior sources have revealed that the club expect their wage bill for the current financial year to be around £30m. Agent fees related to that are expected to add a further £1.75m-2m.
The off-field costs of running the club through the financial year stand at around £13m, plus a further £5m that has to be ringfenced to maintain a Category One academy. So, the costs of simply keeping Boro going are around £18m.
Crucially, because of significant transfer business in the last few windows, Boro have a number of payments on previous signings that are due to be paid this summer. The deals that brought David Strelec, Tommy Conway and Aidan Morris to the Riverside all contain payment schedules that leave Boro needing to spend money in the next couple of months. The Teessiders are also committed to paying the first tranche of money to Brighton for the signing of Jeremy Sarmiento, which was automatically triggered at the end of his loan deal.
In total, it is understood that Boro have to make £15m of payments on outstanding transfer fees this financial year, and that’s before they spend anything on the first instalment of new deals they intend to agree to this summer. So, before any new signings are made, that’s a total expenditure of around £65m.
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What about income? Cup runs and fluctuating attendance figures will make a difference, but Boro expect to make around £11m from matchday income this season. Again, their exact share of the Championship’s central distribution funds (effectively Championship prize money and TV income) will be dependent on how the team fares on the pitch, but unless things go either exceptionally well or exceptionally badly, the figure is likely to be somewhere around £12.5m. Net commercial income is expected to be around £8m.
Add all that together and you get a total income figure of around £31.5m. As opposed to a total expenditure sum of £65m. You don’t have to be a financial wizard to work out that those two numbers don’t match up, with a £33.5m difference.
That is the financial black hole that Boro, like a number of other Championship clubs, are having to try to plug every season. Premier League parachute payments are one way of making up the shortfall, but they disappeared from Boro’s balance sheet a long time ago.
How do you plug the gap? Either through owner investment, which effectively means Steve Gibson pumping more money into the club, or income from player trading. But as we have seen from the way payments are staggered, the £9.5m Boro are due to receive from Hackney’s sale and Rogers’ sell-on clause this summer doesn’t come close to filling the financial hole that is inevitable.
That doesn’t mean Boro are in financial trouble or that they won’t be making additions this summer. They can also pay fees in instalments and be creative when it comes to finalising the terms of a deal, and Gibson remains a committed owner who is willing to write off his own money to try to ensure the club remains competitive.
As recent seasons have proved, it also doesn’t mean they can’t realistically hope to win promotion next term. Hull City were working under a transfer embargo at this stage of last summer, but ended the season as play-off winners. Coventry City never had the benefit of parachute payments during their most recent spell in the Championship, but are heading into the Premier League as second-tier champions.
It does, however, explain why the notion that Boro are suddenly one of the richest clubs in the Championship, able to compete with a West Ham or a Wolves, clubs awash with parachute-payment money, is somewhat wide of the mark.
This has been a good summer for Boro in terms of raising funds, but not necessarily a transformative one. That is simply the reality of competing in a league where clubs routinely spend more than they can really afford in pursuit of the Premier League dream.