Anis Mehmeti, Ipswich, and why parachute payments are breaking the Championship

Huw Davies on why parachute payments have removed risk for a privileged few in the second tier.

Words: Huw Davies

This is it. This is the one. Ipswich Town’s purchase of Anis Mehmeti from Bristol City for a reported £3m confirms what we already knew, but had never seen more plainly exemplified. Put it in flashing neon lights and shout it from every street corner: parachute payments have broken the Championship.

It may seem an odd time to write that statement. Right now, the five teams currently in receipt of parachute payments sit 3rd, 14th, 15th and 17th in the Championship, and 7th in League One, so this season of all seasons is hardly strong supporting evidence. Furthermore, there have been far bigger sums spent on a player in previous January windows.

Context is everything. Boil it down and what we have here is one of the best players – and, were it not for his contract situation, the most lucratively saleable asset – at a club who finished in the top six last season, and hope to do so again, leaving in his prime to become the third-choice left-winger and second- or third-choice No.10 at a team in the same division. That isn’t throwing shade; it’s just the facts, which Mehmeti himself will surely know.

The 25-year-old’s natural role, drifting in from the left, is occupied at Ipswich by one of Jack Clarke or Jaden Philogene, who is currently sidelined but just for a couple of weeks, according to Kieran McKenna. It’s thought that Mehmeti might play centrally instead, where Sammie Szmodics and Chuba Akpom (another ‘hell, why not?’ punt) have this season failed to replicate previous goalscoring brilliance. That has resulted in Marcelino Núñez, last summer’s £10m splash, playing as a No.10… and doing brilliantly. He’s also injured for the next couple of games. Time’s a-wastin’. Friday lunchtime: in comes Mehmeti.

To be clear, this is not a criticism of Ipswich. It shouldn’t be necessary to clarify that but this is the internet, so needs must. Ipswich are just doing what they can to achieve promotion, and if Mehmeti contributes to even a couple of wins which make that happen, the outlay will have been more than worth it. Nor should we blame Mehmeti for putting himself in a position, through good performances, where he’ll receive attractive offers.

The culprit is parachute payments, which have caused the financial balance in the Championship to become outrageously skewed. Clubs hoping to bounce back into the Premier League using the golden trampoline can strengthen their position using a grant that others don’t have. It provides a situation that isn’t so much a government bail-out as a risk-free loan.

And these risk-free signings are effectively on loan, even if the ink on the transfer sheet says ‘permanent’. Time and again we see a rich and repromotion-seeking club in January sign a player purely to get them over the line, as the cliché goes, in full knowledge they won’t be picking them much, if at all, in the Premier League afterwards. They’ll return to the Championship, and can feel proud in a job well done. Again: no shade here, to player nor club. You do what you have to do.

The point is that this has become a theme. Mehmeti is only the latest.

January 2022: Bournemouth respond to slipping to 3rd by signing five players on deadline day, spending around £6.5m on Kieffer Moore and Siriki Dembélé while loaning Todd Cantwell, Nat Phillips and Freddie Woodman from Premier League clubs. Moore’s Cardiff and Dembélé’s Peterborough are battling relegation at the time. The Cherries’ newly-purchased pair start four league matches between them during the rest of the season but contribute plenty from the bench, scoring six goals. Bournemouth go up in 2nd. Job done.

January 2023: Already clear at the top, Vincent Kompany’s Burnley sign Michael Obafemi from Swansea for an undisclosed purpose. He makes 12 substitute appearances but zero starts, even after promotion is mathematically secured with seven games remaining, and his loan-to-buy deal becomes a buy-to-loan deal: he’s bought in the summer, then spends the next few seasons away from the club. He was never going to be in Kompany’s Premier League plans, but he helped to get Burnley over the line. Job done.

January 2025: The top three are all in receipt of parachute payments. Leeds sit tight but Burnley use some of their own to subsidise the wages of Marcus Edwards, who has played in the Champions League for Sporting that season. Sheffield United drop £10m on Leicester’s Tom Cannon, who’ll almost certainly be sidelined once in the Premier League because that’s what Leicester just did – they bought Cannon for £6m to £7.5m, immediately won promotion, then just as immediately sent him on loan to the Championship. As it turns out, Blades don’t go up after all. Job… not done.

And now Mehmeti. With six months left on his contract, a reported fee of £3m represents more money than Bristol City could otherwise have hoped for, and a relative pittance for Ipswich after a year of Premier League riches.

The existence of great wealth brings visions of lavish spending, buying luxury items from the topmost of top shelves, but the most overlooked benefit of being rich is that you can afford to lose small amounts almost without noticing (and, for a team in their first year of parachute payments, £3m is a small amount). The true privilege of financial comfort isn’t that you can buy a Lamborghini, but that you never have to think about petrol prices.

When Ipswich bought 19-year-old Sindre Walle Egeli last summer for a reported £17.5m and an undisputed Championship record fee, that was obviously something beyond the financial reach of nearly every club in the division without parachute payments, which accounts for a good 83% of it. Ipswich do need to see some sort of return on that investment, however, because such a vast outlay can’t be shrugged off as a tax expense*.

*Yes, it’s self-assessment season. No, I haven’t just written off £17,500,000 as a tax expense.

Mehmeti, on the other hand? The transfer fee represents more than most Championship clubs would either like or be able to pay for a player whose contract is up in the summer, yet it makes up far less of Ipswich’s available budget. The £44m (and counting) that is awarded to the club upon relegation puts a very different perspective on paying £3m for a reserve attacker to chip in for a few months. Too much f***king perspective, if anything.

In short, transfers can and arguably should come with hazards. But due to parachute payments, there is no potential downside for the buying club in this deal. For Ipswich, there’s no risk, all reward. For everyone else in the promotion battle, there’s only the imprint of those blinking neon words upon the insides of their eyelids: parachute payments have broken the Championship.