Southampton: Saints’ 2018/19 Premier League payments fall to £104m

Southampton found themselves in a relegation scrap during the 2018/19 season and avoided the drop narrowly for the second successive campaign.

Their safety was secured slightly earlier than in 2017/18 with two games to spare, but it appears that their drop from top-half finishes to 17th and 16th respectively in the last two years has hit them fairly hard financially.

Official figures released by the Premier League today show that television payments to the Saints fell from £107,239,572 in 2017/18 to £104,302,937 in the past campaign.

This slight fall came from a number of factors that make up each team’s revenue from each top-flight season.

The main variant was the fact that Saints were featured on television six fewer times compared with 2017/18; 10 down from 16.

The facility fees that the club received from companies therefore dropped from just over £19m to just over £12m.

Overall payments to Premier League clubs are made up of an equal share of TV rights money, facility fees, merit payments based on league position, an equal share of international TV rights and a a central commercial payment.

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The equal share of UK TV money fell from £34.8m to £34.3m, but finishing 16th instead of 17th saw a rise of almost £2m for Saints.

However, the international TV money share rose by around £2.4m and the commercial payment went up by around £100,000.

Whilst the overall fall of £3m may not seem too bad, it only increases the task that the club have to reduce their costs this summer.

When Saints competed in the Europa League back in the 2016/17 season, their overall operating costs were around £146m (via companies house) as they committed more money towards players wages.

This figure had risen to £147m by the end of 2018 and the club only made healthy profit after player sales.

Some of the current playing squad – such as Cedric Soares, Wesley Hoedt, Guido Carrillo and Jordy Clasie – have failed to make the impact that was needed despite presumably commanding significant wages.

These players that no longer have futures on the South Coast will need to be moved out in order to allow room from the new arrivals that Ralph Hasenhuttl wants before next season.