Birmingham City tipped to ‘break records’ as Tom Wagner makes landmark £50m prediction

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Birmingham City continue to spend big, and EFL Analysis has gained an insight into the club’s financial situation.

In 2024/25, Birmingham City broke the League One transfer record to sign Jay Stansfield.

The attacker was the centrepiece of two busy transfer windows that saw the Blues spend around £30.8m on players last season, as per Transfermarkt.

The 2025 summer window is still ongoing, and while not as much money has been spent so far, the Midlands outfit have paid out just over £10m for new players.

Despite the high spending in League One and another £10m+ spend in this window, Birmingham are in good shape financially.

Birmingham City expect high revenue in Championship

EFL Analysis has spoken exclusively to finance expert Adam Williams about the Blues and their transfer outlay over the last year.

And while some fans may be concerned there is a PSR breach coming down the line, especially if they don’t win promotion this season, that does not look set to be the case.

This is in part due to transfers, as has become commonplace, being split across multiple financial years, but also because Tom Wagner is expecting to bring in £50m worth of revenue in the forthcoming season.

Williams explained: “With Birmingham, yes, they spent significantly but they have also said they are expecting revenues of £50m in 2025-26.

“Commercially, they are clearly enjoying big success. That’s £20m higher than they had the last time they were in the Championship. It’s also going to be one of the highest revenue figures in the Championship this coming season outside of the clubs who are getting parachute payments.

“There are different sets of financial rules in League One and the Championship, but I anticipate that Birmingham are comfortable regardless.

“They lost around £16m in 2023-24 and will have made another pretty significant loss last season too. We don’t have the figures yet. But with allowable expenditure factored in, they should have some grace regardless. Plus, matchday income and commercial revenue are going to be significantly up, which will offset some of that expenditure. And remember, the £30m or so that they spent is smoothed out over five years as far as financial fair play is concerned.

“They are going to be significantly loss-making until the point that they are promoted to the Premier League, but that’s the case with just about every EFL club. As long as they remain in that three-year allowable loss limit, which is now around £40m, they are fine. And because they have such significant revenues, they’d probably have to spend much more than they are currently to breach.”

Birmingham City can break Championship records

The Blues have made no secret about the fact that they are eager to win promotion as soon as possible.

Summer signing Tommy Doyle backs Birmingham to reach the Premier League on one condition.

But if they do fail to go up in 2025/26, Williams has suggested that they could break expenditure records in the second tier.

He added: “They have also sold pretty well. Donavon was pure profit from a PSR perspective, for example. Depending on how long they are in the Championship, I think they are probably going to break records in terms of expenditure for a club that isn’t in receipt of parachute payments.”