Stoke City will return to the English Premiership next season as a result of sewing up second place in the Coca Cola Championship. As the London Times reports, promotion to the English Premiership is a guaranteed windfall of about $120 million, regardless of how well Stoke performs in the top flight next season. Thanks mainly to the EPL’s lucrative TV deals, both Stoke and West Bromwich Albion, which also secured promotion on Sunday, can each expect an extra $70 million in revenue next season plus two additional “parachute payments” of $24 million each in subsequent seasons — even if both clubs are relegated straight away.
Staying up, of course, won’t be easy. Derby County, last season’s Cinderella team from the Championship, has managed just 11 points in 37 EPL matches and was relegated several weeks ago now. Birmingham City, which was also promoted last season, is also deep in relegation and needs a win and other results to go its way in next Sunday’s final round of games to secure a place in the top flight for next season. Of last season’s promoted teams, only Roy Keane’s Sunderland is safe.
Stoke manager Tony Pulis accepts that the job won’t be easy. “We’ll wait until the dust clears,” Pulis said. “I know we’ve done absolutely fantastic this year, but nobody has to tell me how different it is in the Premiership. I’m not asking for anything else but the opportunity to put a team in place that will be competitive. We know that we have to drastically change the structure of everything at the club if we are going to have any chance of surviving.”