£3billion in revenue but £2.5bn in debt... How boom-and-bust culture ruins Premier League's big spenders

The Premier League has never been richer, with the most recent combined annual income for the current 20 clubs soaring past £3billion for the first time.

But a review of the books by the Mail on Sunday also shows club debts standing
at more than £2.5 billion.
Much of that poses no imminent danger to the clubs
encumbered with it. Chelsea’s parent company owes Roman
Abramovich £958million, for example, and he is showing no
sign of demanding it back any time soon.
Manchester United have debts of £342m as a result of the
leveraged takeover almost 10 years ago by the Glazers but
can service it comfortably, while Arsenal have ‘good debt’ of
£241m, borrowed to fund their stadium. Taking their cash
pile into consideration they had only £33m of net debt at
the end of the last financial year.
But a group of clubs including Aston Villa, Hull, Leicester,
Newcastle, Queens Park Rangers and West Ham have each
racked up debt of around £100m, much of which is owed to
their owners. And in an era when the Premier League has
never had so much cash it is bewildering so many clubs
remain financially unstable and potentially in peril should
they get relegated.
The ‘boom-and-bust culture’ of unsustainable spending in an
attempt to buy success underpins the phenomenon, according
to the chief executive of one of the clubs most sensibly run
over a long period, West Bromwich Albion.
‘The easiest thing to do when you reach the Premier League
is over-reach,’ says Albion’s Mark Jenkins, whose club have
just posted their latest set of profitable accounts and are
close to being debt-free.