The regulator’s “State of the Game” report found that 94% of clubs across England’s top five leagues recorded losses in the 2025-26 season. More than 60% of clubs in the English Football League (EFL) and National League were technically insolvent, Anadolu Agency reported.
The IFR warned that rising debt and increasing dependence on owners to cover costs were exposing clubs and their supporters to financial uncertainty.
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According to the report, 66% of clubs could not survive for more than 90 days without fresh funding from their owners, while 29% would be unable to continue operating beyond 30 days. It also found that 60% of clubs had no business plan.
“Seventeen clubs are now trading in such a way that if their players played for free, their non-playing costs would mean they would go bust,” IFR chairman David Kogan told BBC Sport.
“Thirty-two clubs are operating on only 30 days’ cash. If the owner chooses not to pay cash at the end of the month, those clubs go bust,” he added.
Kogan said the findings highlighted the need for reform before clubs faced an even deeper financial crisis.
The report also identified growing financial disparities across the English football pyramid. The average Premier League club now earns more than eight times as much as the average Championship club.
The IFR said the system of parachute payments to clubs relegated from the Premier League could encourage Championship sides to overspend, contributing to rising player wages.
It also warned that growing transfer debt, deferred payments and transfer financing were creating financial links between clubs, owners and lenders, increasing the risk that financial difficulties at one club could affect others.
“Nobody in football for 100 years has believed that football was trading in a solvent and effective state,” Kogan said. “But I think now where there’s so much more money involved, the extremes get more extreme.”
The regulator concluded that the foundations of the English football pyramid were under “intense strain” and called for urgent reform to improve the game’s financial sustainability.
