Between Saturday, May 25 and Monday, May 27, Wembley will play host to three matches, 200,000 fans and six teams chasing Football League play-off glory and, with it, promotion.
Starting with Newport County and Tranmere for the final League Two promotion spot, then Sunderland and Charlton facing off in League One on Sunday, the weekend culminates in Championship contenders Aston Villa and Derby County playing for what has become one of the most lucrative matches in world football.
Worth around £160million over the first three seasons and a coveted place in the Premier League to the victor, the financial implications for both winner and loser can be profound.
The 2018 final saw Aston Villa defeated 1-0 by Fulham, and the losers of that clash were immediately faced with serious financial peril due to the reckless spending of then owner Dr Tony Xia.
Kieran Maguire, a lecturer in football finance at the University of Liverpool, told Forbes:
They were appallingly run, he was gambling with the club's future and eventually he ran out of money. Not to sound melodramatic, but they were within an hour or two of liquidation.
The new owners have come in and put in significant injections of equity to deal with cash flow problems.
Kieran Maguire
The Villans bounced back to book a second successive appearance at the home of football, but in order to avoid Financial Fair Play sanctions may sell Villa Park to the owners - a similar trick recently used by Derby chairman Mel Morris to put more money into his club. Maguire admitted he did not have a problem with this, but that the rules were at fault:
It is the equivalent of switching something from your left hand to your right and paying for something out of your current account by transferring money from your saving account.
I don't have a moral issue on this, but whoever drew up the rules drew them up poorly. The rules were drawn up with good intentions, but for every rule there is a loophole and that has been exploited by Derby and other clubs.
Across the board, the financial risks taken by clubs - not just to reach the play-offs but to simply survive in their division - are reaching astronomical levels. In 2017/18, after factoring in parachute payments and other financial rewards, all 72 EFl clubs made a collective loss of £388million.
Fulham's triumph and newfound wealth year ago sparked a £100million spending spree in their ultimately futile attempt to avoid relegation.
Should survival have been assured the club would have earned continuing riches in the form of televiaion money and increased sponsorship, but Maguire warned they may now face trouble ahead:
I think Fulham may have an issue because they paid over the odds last summer. The likes of Aleksandr Mitrovic and Andre Schurrle are on very high wages and there is a relatively restricted market they can go to.
While a £160million windfall does appear attractive, Maguire also cautioned that, despite the extra funds, it could take a newly-promoted club at least three years to build a Premier League-standard squad. The immediate increase in running costs and wages mean the money is severely depleted before the new campaign even begins.
This season, of the relegated sides, Cardiff and Fulham were in their first season while Huddersfield were in their second season, demonstrating the increased difficulties of sustaining top-flight status. Maguire added:
Realistically, you'll almost immediately get an extra £100m to start with, but your wage bill will go up by £50m, you'll have existing Championship players who will have promotion clauses built in, you'll recruit four or five players of Premier League standard and maybe have two or three already of that standard in the club.
In a squad of 25 you're still short of players of a sufficient standard and that takes time and money to correct.
Once they've got beyond two or three season barrier they can become quite established in the Premier League because they have that rotation and extra finance available to them.
The play-offs, meanwhile, are a particularly busy time for the FA's commercial machine, with hospitality arm Club Wembley's 750 hospitality staff and 200 chefs set to serve on average nine plates a minute and more than 400 bottles of champagne per game.
Charlene Nyantekyi, General Manager at Club Wembley says:
The play-off finals are an exciting time at Wembley. While our members get priority access to tickets for the games, we open up level two to the supporters of both clubs. We’ve sold over 3,000 hospitality packages for this weekend – in fact, Club Wembley is the only way you can get access to the sold out Championship play-off finals.
This weekend is just the start of a busy summer for us – we have a packed schedule of concerts, including the Spice Girls, The Who and Fleetwood Mac. Of course, there’s lots of other events at Wembley Stadium next season, including England v Bulgaria, the return of NFL, and the Euro 2020 finals where we’ll be hosting seven matches including the semis and final.
