A report from accountants Deloitte & Touche has highlighted the growing risk of financial collapse faced by football league clubs.

The report, a comparative review of finances from the Football League division one, the Scottish Premier League, the Rugby Union Premiership, the Rugby League Premier League and county cricket, shows that while football may lead the country in terms of income generation, other sports have a more robust financial structure in place.

The first division of the Football League, despite making more money than both rugby disciplines and cricket combined, is still operating at a significant loss - the average for a first division club is -£4.2m.

Much of this is due to spiralling wage demands, which in football, have outstripped the growth of revenue streams. The average wage of a first division footballer is now £175,000 compared with £51,000 and £47,000 (in Rugby Union and Rugby League, respectively) for premier league rugby players, and £41,000 for cricketers.

While other sports have also noted significant increases in wages - cricket has experienced a 28 per cent rise since 1998, these increases are not of the same magnitude of the football leagues - the first division has seen a 49 per cent increase in the same period, while the Scottish Premier Division, even excluding the two biggest teams Rangers and Celtic, has experienced a 100 per cent increase.

The report demonstrated that while the smaller sports - cricket, and rugby (in both forms) are currently trading fairly successfully, an ongoing problem is filling the stadium on match days. With the exception of a couple of the bigger rugby union teams, clubs are struggling to find spectators, especially in cricket, with very poor attendance at county championship matches.

The report concluded that unless the sports learn from each other - football implementing tighter restrictions upon wages and the smaller sports harnessing their commercial operations - the future for all may be uncertain.