Sunderland released their latest accounts covering their Championship promotion campaign this week
Sunderland on Tuesday released their accounts for the 2024/25 campaign, in which they won promotion to the Premier League with a win over Sheffield United at Wembley.
Impressively the club managed that feat with an operating loss of £1.1 million, a very modest sum by second-tier standards. Phil Smith has been taking a closer look at the accounts as whole for The Echo and here are seven key things he noticed…
Sunderland’s promotion was a spectacular success story
Over the course of Sunderland’s three seasons at Championship level, the club incurred losses of just under £20 million. A huge amount of money, but a paltry one by the modern standards of the Championship (in their first season back at the level, last season’s champions Leeds United lost three times that). Given that they at no stage benefited from parachute payments from the Premier League and that their squad was packed with academy graduates, it isn’t even remotely biased to say that their promotion to the top tier was one of the most impressive of the last decade.
It’s important to note that these accounts don’t paint a perfect picture of Sunderland’s financial position as a Championship club, as the accounting period ran until the end of July last year. That means they include a lot of very significant transfer business that happened in the aftermath of the club’s promotion both in and out, as well as the bumper bonus payments that were awarded as a result of that Wembley win. What they nevertheless do illustrate is that Sunderland achieved a rare feat of winning promotion on a relatively sound financial footing, and how they were able to make such a major investment in their squad in the months that followed.
Player sales are vital to Sunderland’s future
It’s tempting to look at Sunderland’s £1.1 million operating loss and assume that they are in an exceptional financial position. That they have a very good foundation from which to build is undoubtedly true, but these accounts also paint a slightly more complex picture. What they reveal is a hefty transfer bill, a manageable one but a significant one nevertheless. Player sales have been crucial to Sunderland’s rise, and that is not going to be any different now that they are a Premier League club.
Had Sunderland not been able to post a profit of £45,853,000 on player trading in the period in question, thanks mainly to the sales of Jack Clarke, Jobe Bellingham and Tommy Watson, they would have posted a very significant loss. That would also have been the case the previous year, when their losses were kept in check by Ross Stewart’s departure for Southampton.
Sunderland’s underlying costs have been kept impressively low and that their staff costs jumped above their turnover in this period was mainly because of those promotion bonuses and the fact that they had started to take on Premier League contracts towards the end of the accounting period. Regardless, without player sales they remain like most clubs, an operation that lose money on a day-to-day basis. That’s despite having the best revenues in the Championship last season for a non-parachute payment club, the ninth highest average attendance in English football and growing revenues across the board.
These accounts also confirm that since the start of August, the club have a net transfer spend of £47,436,348 (while the initial fees from early summer signings such as Habib Diarra, Noah Sadiki and Chemsdine Talbi are included in these accounts, later additions such as Nordi Mukiele and Brian Brobbey are not). They also owe £101,641,979 to other clubs in terms of fees still outstanding from their summer business (like most clubs, Sunderland pay modestly up front and spread the cost of deals over a longer period of time), and a potential bill for future add-ons of £36,380,876 even if the notes make clear that the prospect of having to pay this in full is ‘extremely remote’. Their amortisation costs (the process where the cost of signing players is spread over the length of their contract) jumped to over £10 million in these accounts and will soar again next year off the back of the summer investment.
None of this is a concern in of itself - Sunderland’s TV revenues were just over £12,000,000 last season and will soar to somewhere around £130,000,000 when next year’s accounts are published. It simply serves to illustrate that as Sunderland bid to keep investing in their squad over the next few transfer windows, sales are going to be vital in precisely the same way Bellingham’s departure did so much to create the room for last summer’s bumper recruitment drive.
Revenues are trending in the right direction
Sunderland’s turnover grew by just over £2 million over the course of the campaign, in part due to the new EFL TV deal and also because of the club’s playoff participation. The club are trending in the right direction but expect revenue to become a key word in the years ahead.
The switch from PSR to SCR rules from next season make revenue vital for all Premier League clubs, and Sunderland need to pull every lever possible in order to reinvest in the squad. This is why season tickets are going up, why so much money has been invested into the club’s hospitality and matchday offering and why the club have signed up for a pre-season tour in the US.. Expect a big boost in sponsorship revenues when this season’s accounts are released next year, but the club know they are only just starting to scratch the surface of the club’s potential.
Retail revenue drops - but overall picture complex
At face value, it was a surprise to see Sunderland’s retail and merchandising revenue drop from just under £3,000,000 to £1,180,000 given the popularity of the Hummel produce. Club sources say this is not a reflection of a dip in revenue but rather a change in how it is reported now that the retail operation has been outsourced to Fanatics and Hummel took over as kit partner.
The ‘cost of sales’ on the accounts dropped from just under £3 million to £1,454,000 as part of the move, while there was a major spike in the club’s sponsorship and royalties. They grew by almost 70% year-on-year, up from £2,391,000 to £3,952,000. Club sources say this reflects the success of the new arrangements and that sales and Sunderland’s share of them is rising quickly. These are long-term contracts, so it will be interesting to see how much Sunderland benefit in the years ahead as it’s an area they need to maximise their income.
Sunderland’s debt is growing quickly
The accounts underline how Sunderland’s ownership have changed their approach over the last year. Sunderland’s debt to their shareholders remains unmoved at £19,820,000, a loan that does not accrue interest and which the owners have said they will convert to equity at some stage.
However, the club does now have significant external debt with the accounts revealing that as of July 2025 they owed £25,216,788 to Dutch company Akira BV. This is a company with very close ties to the Louis-Dreyfus family, and so isn’t your traditional external debt by any means. It is nevertheless a loan on which Sunderland pays commercial interest, which can if allowed to grow too quickly become a drain on resource. One to watch.
Academy challenge underlined
The notes accompanying these accounts quite rightly relay the club’s pride at the success of their academy players last season, referencing Chris Rigg’s significant number of appearances over the course of the campaign and that it was Tommy Watson who scored the winning goal at Wembley. The notes add that 26% of minutes were played by academy players, and that matchday squads on average featured 5.04 academy players. This time next year, those numbers will have dropped considerably given Sunderland’s understandable drive to add quality to their group to survive in the Premier League.
Last season was a remarkable feat, but protecting that pathway as a top-tier club is a major challenge.
Sunderland want Stadium of Light concerts as part of the future
Earlier, we noted the importance of growing revenues to Sunderland’s future in the Premier League. To that end, the club’s accounts note their disappointment at not being able to host a concert at the Stadium of Light last summer even though it enabled a lot of work to happen: “It was a challenging year for the concert business with a difficult touring environment meaning the stadium went untapped during the summer period.”
Take That return to the Stadium of Light this summer and it is clear that Sunderland want to develop revenue opportunities away from regular matchdays. This is easier said than done, most Premier League clubs have the same idea and competition for gigs is growing at the same time many artists are beginning to opt for residencies at one venue rather than sprawling tours.
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