Don't Forget Your Tickets
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Don't Forget Your Tickets
Steve Kavanagh (interviewed by Greig Box Turnbull) on Bridging Financial Gaps in English Football - A Live Special from Emirates Stadium in London
How Can EFL Clubs Build a Sustainable Financial Future?
Tight margins, rising costs, and unpredictable revenue streams can make or break a football club’s future. So how can EFL clubs create a financial model that balances ambition with long-term stability?
At Don’t Forget Your Tickets at Emirates Stadium, Steve Kavanagh, former Millwall CEO and Non-Executive Director of the EFL, sat down with Greig Box Turnbull to explore the financial realities of running a football club in the English Football League.
In this episode, they discuss:
- The biggest financial pressures facing EFL clubs today.
- How clubs can balance on-pitch success with long-term financial health.
- The importance of strategic leadership in building sustainable clubs.
- Why the role of the independent regulator is shaping the future of the football pyramid.
With over two decades of leadership experience at Millwall, Charlton, and Southend, Steve shares first-hand insights on financial sustainability—and why clubs must take control of their own future.
Sit back and enjoy the conversation.
This Live Special episode of Don't Forget Your Tickets was recorded at the Don't Forget Your Tickets conference at Emirates Stadium, January 23rd 2025, as the eleventh out of 12 on-stage interviews that day. Steve Kavanagh was interviewed by Greig Box Turnbull.
Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg. The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com
Tight margins, rising costs and unpredictable revenue streams can make or break a football club's future. So how can a club build a more sustainable financial model while still remaining competitive on the pitch? At Don't Forget your Tickets at Amarant Stadium, steve Kavanagh, former Millwall CEO and non-executive director of the EFL, joined Greg Box Turnbull to discuss the financial realities of running a football club in the English football league. With over two decades of leadership experience at Millwall, southern United and Charlton Athletic, steve has navigated the complex financial landscape of football, from stabilizing clubs to securing long-term growth. Today, he is leading the launch of Gunnar Cook Sports, supporting clubs, athletes and sports organizations, with advice and guidance from trusted advisors in the world of law, business and finance. In this exact episode, we dive into the financial pressure facing EFL clubs today, how clubs can balance on pitch ambitions with long-term financial health, and the importance of strategic leadership and sustainable growth. If you're curious about how clubs are tackling financial sustainability in an ever-evolving football industry, this is an episode you do not want to miss. Hi, steve, hi.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone. Great to be back up on the stage. I'm sure most of you in the room know Steve and are aware of the fantastic career you've had to date with some brilliant football clubs. I can't think of anyone better to come and talk to us about sustainability in the game. It's a topic that we've already touched on a few times today and we're going to get into the detail now. So do you want to start, steve, by just perhaps recapping on your career and perhaps outlining how financial sustainability has sort of cropped up along the way for you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, thank you. And yeah, I mean we set out my background 23, 24 years in football as a finance director. I qualified as an accountant in 92. Obviously it's nice to hear Stefan this morning call accountants grey and boring, which was good of him, but I see he's gone as well, so I did have a go at him. So no, I qualified as an accountant, I got into football and then learned the business from the ground up as an accountant.
Speaker 3:We were in the Premier League at the time, saw what was happening within the Premier League. In those days parachute payments were about £10 million to £15 million. They're substantially more now. I then became CEO at Charlton as we unfortunately fell out of the Premier League. I then spent four years at Southend United in League Two, play our final, got into League One and then went to.
Speaker 3:I was very lucky that John Berroson, the then-chairman of Millwall, took me to Millwall for eight years and then also sat with many other clubs on the EFL board as non-exec director, certainly through the last few years, where you're looking at the independent regulator, the financial distributions and all of the financial sustainability issues that are happening in the game, and Steve from Fleetwoods here today who was on the board as well at the time and it's a very interesting period and and we're in a difficult time and you listen to paul this morning talk about the independent regulator and 1.6 billion that the premier league put down into the, the efl. Of course, most of that goes to the parachute clubs and not to the other clubs, so there is a real problem in there and it actually needs everyone to get in a room and sort those things out, but unfortunately that probably won't happen in my lifetime.
Speaker 2:Do you think that could happen at some stage? I think it has to. The gulf is getting bigger, isn't it?
Speaker 3:The gap on parachutes now and the problem I mean Paul said about the issue is the Premier League putting money down into the EFL and how the EFL clubs will spend it. And I hear that and I get that. And within the championship there are challenges as some of those clubs want to get in the Premier League and therefore are spending a lot of money. I think the average loss in the championship is 17 million pound in cash. That's a hell of a lot per club. By the way, not in total, that's a huge amount. And why is that happening? And understanding why that's happening is really important. Because what is happening they're trying to compete against the clubs with parachutes and the counter to Paul's point about what the championship clubs will spend the money if they put it down is what are the clubs spending the parachute monies on? They're using it as rocket fuel to go back up to sustain themselves in the Premier League. I get it, I've been there myself. I understand it, but at some point you have to appreciate what it's doing. It's putting community assets, which I see clubs at that level and below are. It's putting them at risk.
Speaker 3:You look at what happened with Derby. Mel Morris put a lot of money into Derby County and then said the family, I think, said no more, and then Derby nearly went out of existence. Reading when people have a go at Dai Yunga, mr Dai, and how did he become an owner? I think he's put over £200 million into that club but he stopped. Why? Because he couldn't get into the Premier League. And it's when these people put in that money to try and get up. When they stop, then those clubs are then suddenly at a huge risk. So there has to be a grown-up conversation and unfortunately, the only way of doing it now it probably is an independent regulator, because there is no way that the EFL and the Premier League can sit in a room and find a solution, and even if they could, their clubs then have to vote on it, because it's not the leagues that make the decision, it's the clubs.
Speaker 2:And that's part of the issue, isn't it? Because I guess financial sustainability looks very different for different people, different clubs, different owners. As you say, some will be investing heavily to try and get in the premier league, others it's more about survival, so there's not going to be that broad consensus if you know.
Speaker 3:Look, define sustainability. So, to an owner who's prepared to lose 20 million pound a year, sustainable is a 20 million pound a year loss, provided he can sustain that for the rest of that club's lifetime. For another owner, sustainability is breakeven and profitability Obviously, as a trained accountant. In my eyes that's what it should be, but it's not and everyone has different views of that. So finding that commonality is very, very difficult because it just doesn't exist, because all clubs are different.
Speaker 2:Typically, then, the clubs that have got in severe difficulty Derby and Reading Do you think there's a clear trend that are associated with clubs that find themselves in that position? Is it because owners have reached a point where they can't keep putting that level of money in?
Speaker 3:I think if you take a deep dive and look underneath it, it's really because clubs want to be in the Premier League. The gap in income I think now the Championship my numbers could be slightly wrong centrally from the EFL a championship club gets around about £12 million. In the Premier League it's over £100 million. So naturally a club wants to be there because they can see that is a great way of growing the club and evolving the club and coming to stadiums like this etc. So you want to be there and these businessmen invest money in clubs because they want to be in the Premier League. Some of them do it because they love their club, but certainly for lots of the overseas owners they're doing it because they want to get to the Premier League.
Speaker 3:I get that, but you can't all get there. And then also they've got to compete with the parachute clubs and when they run out of the time and energy and realise it's not easy, how many times have you heard I'm going to do this differently. I've come from such and such a business, I know what I'm doing and then three years later, oh no, I've had enough of that, I can't. It's not that easy, is it? Because it's not easy, football clubs. As everyone in here knows who works in a club, they're extremely difficult, they're complex. Your fans are massive stakeholders and getting the balance of that right is really, really difficult. And then you've got the financial issues over the top of that.
Speaker 2:So your time at Millwall, I think perhaps is worth looking at because certainly from my perception it was certainly during your tenure. Very well-run club probably punched above its weight on playing budget in terms of where they are in the championship. So you got promoted into the championship and really established yourself and stayed there and touching on to the playoffs, but did it, I would suggest, in a reasonably sustainable way. Correct me if I'm wrong, but how did you achieve that? How do you define sustainable?
Speaker 3:Look, the owner, john Berrelson, put over £100 million into Millwall while he was alive and John very sadly, died in a car crash. But he put over £100 million To him. Was that sustainable? He enjoyed it, he loved the club and he did that. So for him it was sustainable.
Speaker 3:But actually, long term, if his family weren't still there, would that club be able to carry on where they're at? Probably not, because it's losing £10 million. So you now need to sell players and then the fans have a moan about the fact well, you sold the best players and you don't want to be there. So it all gets very complicated. But no, it isn't a profitable club. It isn't a sustainable club on its own. But football isn't sustainable on its own and that's why I say we can talk about it, but someone's got to say what do we think sustainability is? And that's why the rules are there to try and give a framework for owners so that they don't have to lose so much money, and try and give a structure, because some people are prepared to lose more money and football shouldn't be about who's got the biggest wallet that's a good point and I think we touched on when we spoke last week about why the rules are important to competition as well, and there's some high profile cases at the moment that are playing out.
Speaker 2:How strong do you believe in the importance of maintaining those rules?
Speaker 3:I think stefan mentioned it this morning the importance of understanding and fans get upset when they see points deductions for breaches the rules. But you have to understand to breach the rules, you've given yourself a sporting advantage by signing a player or having wages that you shouldn't have done and therefore I I agree with Stefan that if you're going to breach the rules then unfortunately it has to be point of instruction. Where you want to get to is where people can't breach the rules. Don't want to breach the rules and you can alter people's behaviour, but that's not easy because people gamify the rules, now the rule book. I know of clubs that have sat there and had meetings about how to beat the rules to give themselves a competitive advantage.
Speaker 2:Well, if they get caught doing that, then yeah, they should face a point deduction I guess that there's been various attempts along the way to try and introduce changes to to the rules and procedures, to try and create improved sustainability or better ways of working. Um and I think you've been in football in those pivotal moments what have been the key ones for you and how do you think they've they've actually worked in practice?
Speaker 3:now there's been a number of moments that have led us to where we are, derby less. I mean, no one's mentioned leicester, when obviously leicester in terms of the rules now, but actually leicester with a club that introduced effectively the rules around administration again to administration back in I'm not sure the dates, but I think we're going about 10 years where they they went into administration and then dumped the debt and then got promoted the next year. So there have been very moments. To me, the biggest thing that has gone on is the creation of the Premier League and the growth in the Premier League. It's a fantastic product. It's grown brilliantly, but it can't leave the rest of the pyramid behind us.
Speaker 2:It's doing so and we have to remember what the pyramid is so things like what's your view on, say, fa cup replays being scrapped with? You know we had that classic the other week where we have to go there.
Speaker 3:I was vice chairman of the fa cup committee last year and if you want to google what I said when, when it came out that the EFL reps on professional game ball were being blamed for cancellation of FA Cup replays, it's on Google and all I say is I got an apology from the FA privately. The calendar is a problem, european competition is a problem, but it's a problem for the clubs at the top end and should have been sorted by redistribution down into the other clubs. So Tam tamworth should have had a replay but equally, if tamworth had had replays, they probably wouldn't have beaten burton in the previous round. So you can argue it all the way around, all ends up. But the fact is there needs to be an adult conversation because the pyramid's important and there's too much money concentrated at the top end of the game at the moment and it's put in community asset clubs such as Wimbledon or Fleetwood or Millwall. It's putting those clubs at risk because overs can and will overstretch to try and compete.
Speaker 2:So things like SCMP and PSR how do you think they're playing out at the moment?
Speaker 3:Yeah, one and league two have just changed scmp or salary cost management protocol, brought in some new rules. I actually did a as part of what I'm doing now. I did a cold review of those rules. I think they're quite good. I think they work quite well for league one and league two.
Speaker 3:I'm sure people like simon jordan will come on talk sport and tell us that they're rubbish, but it's easy to throw rocks on the sidelines. What he doesn't do is ever say what we should do. So I think they're rubbish, but it's easy to throw rocks on the sidelines. What he doesn't do is ever say what we should do. So I think they're worth a go to see if they can make clubs sustainable, because now, built into those rules, if you do want to have a little bit of a go and invest a bit more, you've got to put extra money in to make the club sustainable all round. So it will be interesting to see how that works.
Speaker 3:The problem is clubs have to agree and vote. It's the clubs that decide. I remember sitting in a championship meeting and we had 12 clubs at the end of the table and 12 clubs at this end of the table and it was like a game of table tennis. They wanted to blow their brains out. We wanted to have rules and we batted the argument to and fro all day long and in the end we couldn't go anywhere because you need 16 clubs to change the rules.
Speaker 3:So we were stuck, and even now I think the championship probably is in the very same place, because in in the championship it goes through cycles where you get new owners, they want to spend money, then they realize they can't get up, then they want to control it and the number of clubs that swing, but you can never quite get to 16 in either direction, so you can never really find out one way of doing things. And then on top of that you've got the parachute clubs who've got all the money. So it's an extremely complex model, but it's set up such that the clubs own it and so no one can sit over the top of that. Even the regulator can't come in and tell you what to do really that's the interesting next point, isn't it?
Speaker 2:there's been a lot of talk around an independent football regulator. Do you think that will happen and what do you think the impact will be?
Speaker 3:well, it's interesting. When I was on the efl board we engaged heavily with with dcms and the government. I met with stewart andrew and other officials from dcms. They called me in in the summer and we spoke about parachutes and the original Conservative bill excluded parachutes and now that's been put back in, which I think is good, because it should be on the table. It shouldn't be removed. It had cross-party support, so all parties wanted to put the bill in place.
Speaker 3:But now, if you actually read it I was reading this morning it's gone into the House of Lords first and the Lords are trying to kill it by introducing so many amendments that it gets wrapped up in committees and we'll never see the light of day. That's politics and unfortunately there's every chance it's going to get wrapped up. I hope not, because football should have been able to regulate itself. We've gone beyond that point. So now let's put a regulator in place, let's get some independent thought and process in that and try and break the the position between the EFL and the Premier League, because actually there's a lot of commonality, there's a lot of thought and there just needs to be some real hard thinking about what we want for the English football pyramid and that's from the top of the Premier League right the way down into the non-leagues.
Speaker 2:That's the key thing, isn't it Taking that step back? And so are there going to be independent bodies, people that are in person into this process, To bodies people that are in person into this process To be seen, and we all have our concerns about politicians.
Speaker 3:We all have our concerns about the regulator and how much funding can be made available in that and whether they can get the right experience. You need real football experience in that room because otherwise they will make mistakes such as excluding parachute payments because politically a lord says that's a good idea. So politics then starts to get involved and unfortunately you need politics out of it, but that's very difficult.
Speaker 2:From what we've spoken about so far, it does seem difficult to find a one size fits all solution. Obviously there's different clubs at different stages, different owners at different stages of their journey as well. Do you think there's anything that can be done differently to protect clubs as community assets?
Speaker 3:Well, I think first and foremost, you have to look at your club, you have to protect your club, you have to have your plan put together, what you consider sustainability and what you want to do with your club and how your club wants to be viewed in that community. And I think most clubs, certainly in the NFL and actually probably most Premier League clubs, do that very, very well. I think they look after their communities. There are great stories out, there are what clubs do in those communities and I've seen it at Charlton, southend and Millwall. I've seen it at other clubs and there are phenomenal stories and that is what needs protecting In our heritage, in our country.
Speaker 3:Football is more than football. It's the heartbeat of that community and it's what it is and that's why we're in the place we are, because people want to fight for it. But you have to look after yourselves first. Do what you see is right and get yourself right, get yourself aligned within that club. So from the chairman down to the doorman and the receptionist or whoever, you are aligned in what you want to achieve. And then we did at Millwall. You can outpunch your weight and many other clubs have done it your pounds per point. You always want to overachieve on that. You achieve that by being a team right the way through the club, not just on the field.
Speaker 2:So have you been at a club where you've got an owner that's investing and everything's going in the right direction, and then there reaches a point in time where, for whatever reason, they can't maintain that level of investment and you've had to change your model quite quickly?
Speaker 3:I think I'm sure you have. I think the history of southend united is fairly well documented and uh, god bless I'm not god bless ron, because he's not dead, but um ron martin has now sold the club and moved on. Um ron was a challenge. Challenge because Ron wanted to invest in the club, he wanted the club to progress but then didn't pay for it, which introduced its own challenges for staff and myself. So you have to adapt. A young player can come through and you can sell a young player and how you invest that money.
Speaker 3:Whereas at Charlton we were in the Premier League and the ethos was to make sure that of the Premier League money it didn't all go into the players, because the players come and go. It went into the infrastructure, it built the stands, it built the training grounds and made sure some of that money set out. And Luton have done that, maybe to too much of an extent, to the fact they're struggling this year, but actually building the club up and using those peak moments where you suddenly get fortune income to make sure you grow the club beyond putting it into the player wages, because ultimately that may get you short-term success but it won't drive the long-term viability of that club in its community.
Speaker 2:There was a talk earlier about the relationship between CEO and owner. I guess, from what you've just outlined there, the importance of the owner buying into that and having a medium to long-term view on some of those issues.
Speaker 3:Your owner and that relationship is critical. John Berrolson and I had a fantastic relationship and it worked very, very well over those eight years and he let me run the club. But he spoke to me every day for a long time on the phone but he knew the important pieces and drove that club very quietly and but allowed the staff to run that club.
Speaker 2:but we were all aligned and then, with the spirit that club, had it over delivered and you see that in football all over the place so on that point, then, it's really important in a ceo role to make sure that that vision and message is articulated and everyone buys into it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's from your job as CEO is to make sure your staff understand that. A part of that Paul explained it this morning that the ethos of having the staff on side in what's achieved I call it aligning it right the way through the spine of the club. It's important everyone understands what you're doing. You're never going to get everybody, we all know that but you want the majority of the people all pulling the same direction and when you win, you all win together and that's an easily said thing. But but that's what it feels like within a club when you're being successful and you know when that happens I think there's a lot of people in the audience that have different roles within clubs.
Speaker 2:What one piece of advice could you give to people to help their club run more sustainably?
Speaker 3:So well, I'm setting up a sports consultancy business, so come and talk to me? I suppose? No, look. I think running the club sustainably is making sure that you all understand what your owner wants, what you're trying to do, and you all agree and are part of that.
Speaker 3:Being sustainable is about making things profitable, is about making sure you maximise your revenues. It's making sure your tickets, in apps and your fan engagement is spot on, making sure your community trust and how the community trust is run is being run to benefit the club and it's hand in glove, and your community trust effectively becomes a marketing arm of the club whilst delivering phenomenal benefits to the community. So it's every aspect of the club and everyone within the club can contribute to the success of a club. It isn't just the striker or the players. Everyone within that club, no matter who you are, you can contribute because every single little piece of that cog that's operating. If you're all together and you are maximising what you're doing and doing to the best of your ability, then you can make that club sustainable in your own definition of what you want Fantastic.
Speaker 2:Thank you. You touched on what you're doing now. We've heard a lot about your career to date. Tell us a little bit more about what's next for you.
Speaker 3:I've got 24 years experience. Someone described it as market intelligence, which I quite like, but I'm not sure he's right, but lived in experience. So we're combining that experience to create a sports consultancy with Gunner Cook called Gunner Cook Sport. Gunner Cook is an award-winning international law firm, so there's my experience of actually living inside a club and what that is, from the community trust to tribunals for young kids, to maximising your revenues to your finances and then combining that with some top-end sports lawyers and also having a number of lawyers behind that and business advisors who, in the different scenario, can support us on any other project that comes our way. So it can be a couple of hours of mentoring and help to takeover of a club and it's a startup business because gunner cook haven't really focused in the sports market but we've got a lot of sports work and then with with that market intelligence, if you like, we think that as we bring this out, that will be quite interesting because we can have a different aspect to to the way other people maybe approach it fantastic.
Speaker 2:It sounds like something that could be really invaluable to clubs, and I wish you every success with it, thank you. Thank you so much, steve. That's been a wonderful talk. I hope you all enjoyed it. Round of applause for Steve. Thank you, I'll see you next time.
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