"It looks nuts, but....." - Expert insight into Doncaster Rovers club accounts amid £3.7m losses

The accounts cover the period for the year ending June 30, 2025 - a season which saw Rovers clinch the League Two title and seal a return to the third tier for the first time in four years.

But that came at a cost with the full accounts showing an overall loss of around £3.7million. Respected football finance guru Kieran Maguire has been perusing over the numbers, and believes that the losses posted are indicative of many clubs throughout the EFL.

"For a club to be losing £3.7m a year, or £70,000 a week - it looks nuts," Maguire told the Free Press in an exclusive chat.

"But then I've been looking at other clubs and everyone is losing more and more money. Stockport and Bolton lost 10 or 11 million each. In Leagues One and Two, even four or five years ago, clubs weren't making profits necessarily but the losses were manageable. We seem now to have moved into a new era whereby club owners are willing to subsidise clubs to a greater extent.

"And that's ok until it's not ok. You only have to have someone having a change of heart or change of circumstances as we've seen at Derby, Chelsea and others. So if the owner has problems then the club has problems and that's the scary thing."

With regards club ownership, Rovers - like many in the Premier League and EFL - are effectively reliant on chairman Terry Bramall.

Whilst Bramall has continually reiterated his commitment to funding the club, he has often stayed coy on the exact succession plans. Bramall turned 83 last November.

"The ideal plan is immortality but until that comes along there's a genuine problem," Maguire said. “We've seen it at Preston where their owner Trevor Hemmings passed away but fortunately his children chose to carry it on. That's the crazy situation in which we find ourselves. It was the same at Millwall.

"But what happens if those kids say 'well I'm not interested in football'. So it's only sustainable if owners continue to pick up that phone call each month asking for £600,000 each month to pay the wages, for example.

"All fans want to know is 'how much can we spend?' and I guess it's a bit like having a credit card. If you have a limit then it's a target. You don't win a prize when you hit that limit - it's a danger sign! Owners are under pressure from fans to deliver on the pitch and you deliver that, mostly, by spending money. But only three or four teams get promoted regardless of how much is spent.

"With regards Rovers, it just comes down to Terry and his benevolence and that's the key point. It doesn't overspend. There's no money spent on transfers or players.

"If it was any other business you'd have closed it down years ago. To have £42million total losses since the company was formed and for a club with no chance of turning that around, you go why on earth is that?"