Relegation from the Premier League could well force Tottenham Hotspur into selling around £300 million worth of players.
Right now, Spurs are staring down the barrel of relegation to the Championship with just five points separating them from the drop zone.
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Tottenham have a 4.2% chance of relegation, but that could grow if their shocking form continues, with the Lilywhites the only Premier League team not to win a league match in 2026.
To find out more about the potential implications of relegation from the Premier League, The Spurs News spoke to finance expert, Adam Williams, to assess the situation.
Tottenham could lose around £225m in revenue overnight if relegated
Tottenham Hotspur could face the possibility of losing over £225m in revenue if they were relegated, Williams suggests.
Those costs include television money and no European football, not even factoring in the loss of sponsorship and matchday money.
“Usually, it’s pretty simple to work out how much money a club would lose if they were relegated from the Premier League. It’s basically as simple as the minimum drop-off in terms of TV money, plus some adjustments for matchday and commercial income,” Williams told The Spurs News.
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“If you’re in the Championship for just a single season, it usually works out as about £60m in terms of revenue lost. It fluctuates from season to season depending on how many clubs are receiving parachute payments, the value of the Premier League’s central fund that year and so on, but we always have a loose idea of what the figure is going to be.
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“But for Tottenham, the analysis is much less clear. There are just so many variables. What do we use as our starting point? For one, Spurs are in the Champions League this season, and they have already picked up about £75m in prize money there.
“Even in the bottom three in the Premier League, they would earn about £130m in prize and TV money. So your total TV money would go from north of £200m for the season to around £50m in the Championship. So that’s £150m lost overnight, minimum, relative to this season.
“Then, you have to look at the commercial and matchday. Have sponsors got break clauses that mean that they can cancel or drastically reduce payments in the event of relegation? For most teams, that’s a given, but I wonder if sponsors would have thought that such a remote possibility for Spurs that they wouldn’t have even accounted for it in negotiations.”
Tottenham recently announced that they are freezing ticket prices for the 2026/27 season; however, relegation would leave question marks over whether that would be possible.
Williams added: “Also, how much would merchandise and other retail sales suffer in the Championship? How much would Spurs be able to get away with charging fans for tickets if they can’t offer fans a premium product? To what extent does the value of hospitality packages suffer? They would still have the advantages of the stadium as a multi-function venue, but there would clearly be negative impacts elsewhere across the business.
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“This is just the revenue stuff. You’ve also got your costs to consider. It takes a lot of money to maintain a stadium as impressive as theirs.
“More importantly, do players even have step-down clauses in the event of relegation? I think probably not. It’s not a standard clause for teams as big as Spurs. So you could have an annual wage bill of £200m-plus, net transfer debt of around £400m, £100m’s worth of administrative costs, interest payments of £30m.”
Tottenham facing potential £300m player fire sale
The North London club would also need to start selling many of their big-name stars if they were to be relegated.
Players like Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero, James Maddison and Xavi Simons would all need to be sold to help balance the losses stated above.
“Clearly, they would have to sell players en masse to deal with all of that. That’s called re-basing. All relegated clubs have to do it, but Spurs’ task would be so, so much more complex – even with a wages-to-revenue ratio as lean as theirs,” Williams fears.
“They have lost money on a cash flow basis in each of the last few seasons and the owners have had to put money in for more or less the first time. If you lose £200m in revenue overnight, the financial picture and meeting your cash needs starts to look pretty scary.
“I’d go as far as to say that I don’t think there has ever been as dramatic a financial swing in modern football history. It’s not at all uncommon to see relegated clubs sell £100m worth of players. For Spurs, that might be just one player, or at least not far off – Van de Ven, Romero, etc. So I really do think you could be looking at treble that figure, so £300m or so. It would be biblical.”