Tottenham Hotspur crowned most profitable club as every Premier League team's finances revealed

Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy
Daniel Levy, who left Tottenham Hotspur last year, was the club's chairman for much of the Premier League era (Image credit: Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur have been named the most profitable club of the Premier League era.

That may not come as much of a surprise to Spurs fans, given their gripes with former chairman Daniel Levy for not investing enough in the team.

Tottenham’s close rivals record £1.2bn loss in Premier League era

Harry Kane will be hoping for more silverware with Bayern Munich this season

Tottenham banked an initial £86m when selling Harry Kane to Bayern Munich (Image credit: Getty Images)

The figures come from football finance expert Kieran Maguire, who posted via his X account the profit or loss of each team since the formation of the Premier League in 1992.

Tottenham sit at the top of that tree, recording a total pre-tax profit of £183.2m over the last three decades.

Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez

Chelsea have breached the £100m mark twice when buying players, for Enzo Fernandez (above) and Moises Caicedo (Image credit: Getty Images)

They are followed relatively closely by north London rivals Arsenal and northern representatives Burnley, both of which have registered just over £130m in profit.

That trio have undoubtedly been the most successful during that period based on this metric, but the picture looks altogether different for Chelsea.

Maguire reveals that the Blues have recorded a loss of £1.2bn since 1992, far and away the most of any club on the list, almost double that of the next closest team, Aston Villa, who have a still-substantial £677.9m loss to their name.

Those two, plus Everton, Manchester City, Fulham, Manchester United, Sunderland, Leicester City, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace are responsible for 90 per cent of the losses over that period.

In total, since the rejigging of the division, Premier League clubs have lost a total of £4.99bn.

In FourFourTwo’s opinion, to see Chelsea at the top of that list is not all that surprising.

While their recent years under BlueCo have been defined by relentless spending, Maguire reveals that much of that figure is from when Roman Abramovich owned the club.

Money was never an issue for the Russian billionaire, and Maguire terms it “sustainable”, so long as the owner keeps putting their money into it, as Abramovich did.

But that followed by Todd Boehly’s heavy-spending strategy was always likely to look a little scary when it comes to putting together a balance sheet.

Isaac Stacey Stronge
Freelance Writer

Isaac Stacey Stronge is a freelance football writer working for FourFourTwo, Manchester United and Football League World. He has been a season ticket holder at Stockport County throughout the Hatters’ meteoric rise from the National League North to League One and is a die-hard Paddy Madden fan.

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.