Leicester City "stands on the brink of winning the English Premier League after a remarkable nine-month fairytale," according to Ahmed & Burn-Murdoch of the FINANCIAL TIMES. But after the celebrations, "the Midlands team will be left with a question: are they a one-season wonder or can they repeat their success?" According to figures from Deloitte, the club will receive at least £50M ($73M), with potential to rise to about £75M ($110M), as a "direct result of winning the Premier League this season." But experts said that "much more investment would be needed to sit at the top table of English clubs." Sports industry academic Stefan Szymanski, the author of Money and Football: A Soccernomics Guide, said, "It took Chelsea and Manchester City approximately £1 billion ($1.46B) [in spending on players] each to cement their position at the top. I do not think £50 million extra is going to do it. I do not think it even gets close to doing it." Szymanski said that the "best predictor" of a team’s league placing was the club’s wage bill. Last season, Leicester spent £57M on staff, "the third-lowest wage bill in the league at the time." The biggest spender was Chelsea, with £216M, which was "crowned champion." Szymanski: "The basic relationship is that talent is something you can buy in a market fairly reliably. ... Broadly speaking, we know money equates with success, and success generates more revenue." Dan Jones, head of Deloitte’s sports business group, said that Leicester "could either bank this year’s cash and hope -- but not expect -- the current squad can repeat this year’s performance or gamble that an increase in spending would result in greater success and revenue." Jones said, "There are good arguments, footballing and financial, for going either way." No club with Leicester’s relative spending power "has ever broken into the top four, let alone reached the pinnacle." Szymanski suggested Leicester’s "unexpected success could break a fragile equilibrium at the top of the league, forcing rivals to spend more on players." He said, "In the boardrooms of these so-called big clubs, there must be interesting discussions going on about [whether] this is a one-off freak to be ignored, or if this is a trend and the shape of things to come" (FT, 5/1).
BOOKIES CONCERNED: In London, Paul McClean reported Leicester’s win "will be the biggest shock in betting history, according to Coral." At the beginning of the season it was considered "five times more likely that Elvis would be found alive," while Skybet said that a Leicester triumph "was just as likely" as Justin Bieber becoming U.S. president. The U.K.’s biggest high-street bookmakers are set to pay out about £10M ($14.6M) to several hundred punters "who backed them at such long odds," while Coral estimates the total payout across all U.K. bookies could reach up to £50M. Coral PR Dir Simon Clare said, "The bookies were too clever -- they thought it couldn’t happen. If a golfer wins a major at 500-1, it’s a brilliant result for a bookie as hardly anyone will have bet on them. The unique thing about Leicester is that people were betting throughout the season, and even in October we were still offering 2,000-1." Had one of the favorites lifted the title, such as Man City or Chelsea, "bookies may still have been left with a loss but it would have been a fraction of their payout on Leicester." Clare: "There has never been a payout like this, and there never will be again" (FT, 4/29).
