As we mentioned in our League One roundup last night, Bolton Wanderers have posted losses of almost £14m, highlighting the financial gamble behind their push for promotion.
Those numbers should shock and shame League One, but they won’t. For a club that was rattling buckets a few years ago, there was some defence of their current losses on social media when they were announced, which is just a shame.
It’s as if some fans are happy to be carried out of a collapsing building, just to rush back in again so they can look out the upstairs window, but the issue isn’t just with the Trotters; it is with all of League One.
Bolton post significant losses
The headlines are that Bolton, 18 points behind the Imps with 21 to play for, have announced operating losses of £13.91m for the 2024/25 financial year, according to accounts released via Companies House. The figures reflect a season in which Bolton invested heavily in their playing squad (again) but ultimately missed out on promotion (again), finishing outside the play-off places.
The losses are up from £9.78m the previous year and demonstrate the scale of shareholder funding seemingly required to run a promotion-chasing club at this level. The club stated the losses were part of a deliberate strategy to invest in the squad, stadium infrastructure and operational capability, backed by shareholder funding commitments.
Of course, those losses are not what is required, and the acceptance that this loss is endemic to the division is absurd. Some clubs have tried to do things the right way: Exeter City and Northampton are two, and they’ve paid the price. However, with around 25% of Bolton’s losses, we’re top of the table, and that makes the ‘this is what’s required’ rhetoric absurd. It’s not, that’s just the defence for clubs trying to buy success, not earn it.
Driving into their numbers
Turnover actually fell slightly from £21.3m to £20.5m, which the club attributed to missing out on the play-offs, although football income rose marginally from £6.62m to £6.86m. However, the most striking figure is the wage bill, which rose to £17.112m, representing 98.8 per cent of turnover. That’s a figure that will immediately stand out to anyone who follows football finance.
Bolton also spent around £3.75m on transfer fees during the period, while recouping around £1.35m in player sales, most notably Dion Charles moving to Huddersfield Town, which is a player going out of the frying pan and into the fire when it comes to clubs to blame for League One’s financial mess.
Chief executive David Ray said the accounts showed a club continuing to be backed by committed shareholders and also thanked supporters for their backing during what he described as a challenging season on the pitch.
“The 2024/25 season on the pitch didn’t go the way any of us wanted, but I look at these accounts, and I see a club that has been consistently invested in, year after year, by shareholders who are fully committed to Bolton Wanderers.”
Shareholders whose money is contributing to the breakdown of all financial law and order, more like. Hell, I thought £3m losses, underwritten by shareholders, was bad, but nearly £14m? Something surely has to be done.
Get Nate Dogg and Warren G on the phone.
What it means for League One
This is where it becomes interesting from a wider League One perspective, because Bolton are not alone. Increasingly, promotion from League One is being driven by owner funding and financial risk, rather than clubs growing organically within their means. Indeed, even in League Two, the numbers are frightening, with Carlisle announcing they had a £7m wage bill, in the season they were relegated from League Two!
Losing nearly £14m in a season at this level is a huge number, and while Bolton clearly have owners willing to fund those losses, the reality is that promotion almost becomes essential when that level of money is being spent. The Championship offers bigger TV revenue, bigger crowds, and a chance to reduce the reliance on owner funding, but the gamble is obvious. If promotion does not arrive, the losses continue. With £14m losses and an uplift of around £11m in the Championship, they’ll continue even beyond that for some clubs.
This feels like a breaking point. No wonder clubs like Northampton and Exeter can’t compete, because the likes of Bolton and Huddersfield are spending more every season on the same players. Joel Randall, John McAtee, Dion. Charles…. they’re doing the round, picking up bigger wages and for what? Promotion? No, so entitled fanbases can post stupid memes and claim that having a bigger ground means they should outspend the likes of Lincoln City.
Then, it all goes wrong, a manager is sacked, a new one comes in and spends big, and off we go again. It’s not just Bolton and Huddersfield, either. Blackpool and Wycombe are just as guilty, as are a host of other teams, and each season one goes. Bristol Rovers tried it last season, paying a huge sum for Promise Omochere, and for what? Relegation.
It also highlights the growing gap within League One between clubs with significant financial backing and those operating more sustainably. The division is supposedly becoming increasingly difficult to escape without major investment, and Bolton’s accounts are probably one of the clearest examples yet of the false understanding of financial reality behind a promotion push. It’s not all about money.
It’s easy to be smug as a Lincoln fan, isn’t it? We’re top, our losses are ‘only’ £3m a season, and we prove that being 17th in the budget table does not rule out a top six assault. Conor Hourihane at Barnsley suggested his side were not top six contenders because of money, but what sort of hollow acceptance of defeat is that? We can’t spend as much, so we’ll never compete is his message, and yet us, Orient (last season), and Stevenage prove that’s not the case. You just have to be actually good at your job.
However, I’m not going to hold Lincoln City fans up as an example, because while we do things as well as we can in the club, some of the fans were getting angry last season. Harvey Jabarra was abused in the stands for not spending enough money. How moronic is that? When there is a transfer window, the same rubbish comes out, such as Jez and the club will have ‘blood on their hands’ for us not going out and spending money we didn’t have. That sort of thinking is what drives clubs to overreach, and it would be a lack of self-awareness if I wrote this article slating big-spending clubs and pretended everything here is rosy. We’re top, yes, and so the dissidence is muted, but some of our fans were incandescent with rage in January because we weren’t signing a striker, and that’s during our outrageous run.
Bolton went bucket rattling, and now some (not all, like us) fans defend their ridiculous losses. Barnsley fans are being told that just because they can’t spend enough, they can’t achieve. Exeter will likely be relegated because nobody underwrites losses for them. Their supporters are furious; they’ve changed the chairman four times because of what? Financial frugality? Being one of the only teams that cannot lose millions every season? I suppose there is no pride in relegation, even if you’ve tried to play fair. Morally, they can hold their head high against Rochdale or York next season.
Can Bolton do the same when losses for this season get revealed? Or Huddersfield? Or Blackpool and Wycombe?
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