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Tottenham Hotspur will miss out on hundreds of millions of pounds if they're relegated from the Premier League and fail to qualify for the Champions League
Tottenham Hotspur could be dealt a significant financial blow at the end of the season. The Lilywhites have been sucked into a relegation battle, having failed to win any of their last eight Premier League games.
Spurs are just five points adrift of the bottom three, and they've got some difficult fixtures on the horizon. Determined to return to winning ways and climb the English top flight, Tottenham sacked Thomas Frank and appointed Igor Tudor as interim head coach.
The former Juventus boss will lock horns with Mikel Arteta in the North London Derby on Sunday afternoon. The Lilywhites will then face Fulham, Crystal Palace, and Liverpool before a relegation showdown against Nottingham Forest ahead of the March international break.
While Tudor has been tasked with keeping Tottenham in the division, higher-ups will have had their eyes on Champions League football at the start of the campaign. So, with that being said, football.london has looked at the cost relegation from the Premier League and failure to secure European football.
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How much would Premier League relegation cost Tottenham?
If Tottenham were to be relegated from the Premier League, they could be left with a '£100m black hole'. The Lilywhites would initially receive a series of parachute payments, which are deposited over a three-year period, but they would receive significantly less in television revenue.
In an interview with The Daily Mail, football finance expert Kieran Maguire said: "The costs of relegation to clubs of that stature are probably in the region of £100million. The club that finished bottom of the Premier League two years ago, the last set of data we have, got £111m.
"I think by the end of this season, we’ll be looking somewhere in the region of £120m from the television companies alone. That will drop to around £45m in the Championship. So that is already about £75m."
Meanwhile, matchday income would plummet, with Spurs likely unable to justify the same prices they charge in the English top flight. Maguire added: "You then look at gate receipts.
"I don’t think clubs will necessarily have to cut prices as far as season tickets are concerned because you’re offering more matches in the Championship than in the Premier League but for matchday tickets, if West Ham have Hull or Swansea on a Tuesday night, they’re not going to be able to charge prices to the level they have in the Premier League.
"Matchday revenues from hospitality will be substantially down because the commercial department really will have their work cut out to sell all those boxes."
Commercial revenue could also take a hit. Tottenham currently have an official kit provider deal with Nike, which runs until 2033, and, according to The Telegraph, it's worth about £30m a year.
As it stands, it remains unclear whether relegation to the Championship would impact the agreement, however, the report later pointed out that, under the terms of its agreement as kit manufacturer, Adidas could terminate its deal with Manchester United at one full season's notice or halve payments if they were to go down.
The Telegraph also reported that the Red Devils had to pay Adidas a penalty fee worth £10m for failing to qualify for the Champions League two years in a row. Tottenham also have a global principal and front-of-shirt deal with AIA, which is reportedly worth £40m a year.
In November 2025, the Lilywhites announced that the Hong Kong-based life insurance and financial services company will remain the club's front-of-shirt sponsor and global principal partner until the end of the 2026/2027 season, before becoming the training wear sponsor until 2032.
According to The Telegraph, the aforementioned AIA deal is thought to be worth between £10m and £15m a year. As per the latest set of accounts, Spurs earned £144.5m from sponsorship revenue, up from £141.3m in 2023.
Speaking to The Daily Mail, Maguire added: "In the Championship, [relegated clubs] are getting probably a fifth or a 10th of the money coming from your shirt sponsor deals compared to the Premier League because your matches are not going out to all those different countries.
"You won’t be able to charge for perimeter advertising to the same extent and so on. You add all those numbers together and they have a £100m black hole they will have to fill."
How much would no European football cost Tottenham?
If Tottenham were to fail to qualify for the Champions League, they could miss out on as much as £120m in prize money from UEFA – not to mention the eye-watering sum they'd be awarded if, this season, they either won the competition or placed in top four, potentially five, of the Premier League.
Last term, Paris Saint-Germain were the first team to benefit from the expanded new format, which paid out an extra £350m (€400m) in prize money, increasing the prize pool to a staggering £2.15bn (€2.47bn). The French giants pocketed £126m (€144m) for their efforts, humiliating Inter Milan in the final.
Last season, Aston Villa were the only quarterfinalist to bank less than £87.2m (€100m), taking home a UEFA payment of £73m (€83.7m). This term, Tottenham have already managed to get their hands on £43.94m in prize money after such an impressive group phase campaign.
Even if Spurs only managed to qualify for the Europa League or the Conference League, which pays out much less, they'd miss out on the chance to rake in a nine-figure sum...
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