Promotion to Premiership worth £60m

The six Championship clubs still hoping to win promotion to the FA Football Premiership through the play-off system have 60 million reasons to achieve the feat.

According to Deloitte, the Championship play-off final at Wembley later this month, which will award the winner with promotion to the top flight of English football, will represent the biggest financial prize for a single football match – a cool £60m.

Paul Rawnsley, director of Deloitte’s Sports Business Group, said: “We estimate that the financial prize for promotion to the Premiership will be greater than ever.

“Promotion will provide at least £35m of additional revenue for the 2007-8 season. In addition, even if the club is relegated after one year in the top flight, parachute payments worth over £10m per season will be received for two more seasons.”

The main driver, however, for additional revenue comes from the Premiership’s new domestic and overseas broadcasting deals, which commence from 2007-08.

The new deals are expected to add a further £20m to the promotion prize fund.