Leeds avoid PSR penalty despite £49m loss in 2024/25
Thursday, 2nd Apr 2026 22:15 by Tim Whelan
In the 2024/5 season Leeds broke their own record for the amount of revenue generated by a club in the Championship, but couldn’t avert another big loss. Which left us close to the PSR limit, but thankfully not above it.
Yesterday The Athletic published an analysis of the club’s published accounts which have recently been published. The club haven’t gone out of their way to draw attention to the release of the accounts, as there has been no news item on the official website, and you have to go to the ‘Corporate’ section of the site to dig them out.
Leeds United received £137 m in turnover, up from £127.5m the year before, mainly thanks to a 3 % increase in commercial revenue, which more than made up for the fall in ‘parachute payments’ in our second season outside the Premier League. This was the ninth highest figure in England, and comprised £24.5m from merchandising, £26.9m from ‘other commercial’ and the rest from catering.
The ‘other’ figure will include corporate hospitality, and also the value of the new shirt sponsorship deal with Red Bull, which brings in double the amount we received in the previous Premier League campaign. This is a reflection of the size of our fanbase throughout the country and beyond, with fans buying replica shirts online even when they live too far away to make regular trips to Elland Road.
But match-going fans more than played their part as well, with gate receipts increasing by just over £1m to £31.6m. A figure which would of course have been much higher if everyone who wanted to come along had been able to get tickets, and will obviously be much higher once the stadium expansion is complete.
But even with this increase in revenue, we still made a substantial loss in our efforts to get back into the Premier League, amounting to an operating loss (before player transfers) of £68.4m. The main reason was the amount spent on players’ wages, a whopping £102.7m, or the second highest ever in the second tier of English football, beaten only by Leicester’s figure the year before.
Thankfully this figure was reduced by the time we get to the pre-tax loss, which is after player trading is taken into account. There were ‘Amortisation costs’ of £46.4m, which was the amount of transfer fees to be written off in 2024/5 as they are spread across the length of a player’s contract. Some of this will be for players signed in previous seasons who were still on the books, but out on loan.
But we made an overall profit on transfers as incoming fees brought in £67.5m, mainly through the sales of Georgino Rutter, Crysencio Summerville, Charlie Cresswell and Glen Kamara. Archie Gray isn’t included in this figure as he left just before the end of the previous financial year, after being told he had to go as the club needed one major transfer to avoid a PSR breach in that season.
The Athletic have claimed that they have been told by club insiders that the reason the figure above is below the total reported fees for these players is because the club have deducted the amounts paid to agents to facilitate their transfers, which amounted to £18.8million. Ouch! The outlet had previously calculated that Leeds could lose £42m in 24/5 to avoid breaking PSR rules, so we have apparently exceeded that.
But we have been saved by the rule that says that bonuses relating to promotion to the Premier League can be shifted into the following season’s calculation, as they are intended to be offset by the huge increase in income in the top league. So the £19.2m bonuses for the playing and coaching staff drop out of the calculation for 2024/5, and we were fine. Thank god for that!
We didn’t have a huge amount to spare, but Paraag Marathe has previously said he hopes Leeds have “a PSR issue every single year, because everything we do is going to be about maximising our ability to be as competitive as we can be”. But to remain above the line we have to keep getting good value from the players we sign, if we’re not going to end up in the position in which Leicester now find themselves.
The 49ers provided funding of £255.1m during our two seasons in the Championship, which covered the losses made during those two seasons, and also the net transfer debt sat at £187.6m they inherited. Two years on, Leeds were owed a net £8.6m in transfer fees by other clubs. And that was before last summer’s spending spree of £100m and the start of the project to revamp and expand Elland Road.
In the Strategic Report at the head of the published accounts they say that “The Board's long-term strategy is to establish Leeds United as a leading, financially sustainable, Premier League club by delivering success on the pitch, expanding the stadium, and increasing the scale and engagement of the club's global fan base.”
So they are clearly in it for the long haul, but they also say “The primary risk facing the group remains the divisional status of the First Team due to the impact on key revenue streams, however the group is confident that it has built a commercial and player trading model that can continue to optimise performance both on and off the pitch.”
Despite the grumblings of many fans the playing side has had considerable backing since the 49ers took full control, now it’s up to Daniel Farke and his team to do the business over the final seven games and keep us in the Premier League.
Reuters
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