DEBT-FREE Burnley will have a ‘huge advantage’ heading into the Premier League next season as they get ready to reap the rewards of the richest season in history.

The Clarets couldn’t have picked a better time to get promoted to the top flight according to football finance expert Rob Wilson, with the new £5.136bn domestic TV deal kicking in next season, while overseas rights have also been sold for around £3bn.

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That will guarantee the club that finishes bottom around £95 million just from TV revenue, while Wilson believes the Clarets will pocket £130 million before they even kick a ball, with the season total likely to end up higher than £170 million.

That will make Burnley richer than European giants such as Ajax, as well most of La Liga, the Bundesliga and Serie A, and one of the 30 richest across the continent.

And Wilson labelled Burnley’s decision to use the money they made from their Premier League campaign of 2014/15 to clear debts as a ‘smart move’.

“They’ll have a guaranteed £130 million, that’s without kicking a ball,” said Wilson, who works in the Sport Industry Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University.

“That’s £100 million from the collective bargaining agreement from the TV deal, then they’ll get some additional live TV appearance money and some extra commercial and sponsorship revenue.

“Without doing anything they’ll earn £130million. If they were to be relegated, which obviously clubs don’t tend to have as a set of objectives, it’s anything from £170 million to £200 million.

“That’s a massive figure but I tend to stick with £130 million because you don’t tend to plan to get relegated. You’d rather have £130 million this year and stay up and get another £130 million next year.”

Burnley made a profit of £31 million in the 2014/15 season, but used a large chunk of that to clear debts, both external and to directors, as well as funding the £10.6 million redevelopment of the Gawthorpe training ground.

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In that Premier League campaign they had a wage bill of just £29 million, which was at least £27 million lower than every other top flight club.

Their revenue for 2014/15 amounted to £79 million, which meant that wages amounted to just 37 per cent of their revenue.

Having kept a lid on spending during the Premier League the purse strings were loosened a little this year, with the signing of Andre Gray for an initial £6m breaking the club’s transfer record.

Of using the last batch of Premier League money to set clear the debts, Wilson said: “It was such a smart move. That’s exactly what you should be doing.

“Don’t throw the kitchen sink at wages and transfer fees just for one season in the league. Think about it incrementally and on a sustainable footing. That’s what Burnley did.

“They didn’t throw the kitchen sink at it, they cleared a lot of their liabilities, they put themselves in a very healthy financial position. They’ve reaped the rewards of that.”

He added: “It means that all the money they’re going to get in the Premier League is disposable income, they can spend that on those slightly higher transfer fees, which we will get this year.

“The rest of Europe is going to try and cash in on the fact the Premier League has been sold for £5.1 billion quid, so there will be a recirculation of that money across Western Europe as they export players over here.

“It gives them a huge advantage and it also means that if they were to be relegated then they would go back into the Championship as the richest team in there, which would give them a big competitive advantage and could help them get promoted again.”

The new television deal is by far the biggest earner for Premier League clubs, but there are many added advantages to play at the elite level of English football.

Sean Dyche’s side will benefit from increased exposure, which should lead to better commercial deals, while there will also be an advantage to the rest of the town’s economy.

Wilson continues: “There’ll also get season ticket renewals and purchases, clubs tend to hit around 99 per cent stadium utilisation. Ticket sales are normally at least 20 per cent up from the Championship.

“That brings with it the potential for sponsorship and other commercial partners. It’s much easier to sell sponsorship space, the pool of people that are after the exposure that the Premier League offers is much, much bigger.

“It’s about 1,700 hours a week now across 260 different countries watching the Premier League. The platform that gives Burnley is just enormous, which means they can get these endorsements a little bit more easily.

“That’s great for Burnley as a town. The economy benefits from the additional money that comes in from fans travelling to watch their team play Burnley.”

Wilson is urging Burnley to continue to build carefully, as they have done in recent years, in a bid to establish themselves in the Premier League.

“Incremental building is crucial,” he added. “Signing good quality players but not the marquee signings straight away. I used to say copy the Stoke City model.

“Sign players that can add a bit of quality and try and finish 13th, 14th, 15th, not getting embroiled in a relegation battle.

“Then you get the next swathe of money and that allows you to buy slightly better quality again and so on and so forth.

“It’s only really when you start getting into the £20million player when all of a sudden it becomes a much bigger gamble, because if they don’t produce you’ve got a hugely valuable asset that’s not producing the goods and you can’t invest that money elsewhere.”

Financial experts Deloitte, who pull together the annual Football Money League, which ranks clubs across Europe by the revenue they generate, believe the 20 Premier League clubs will generate revenue of a combined £4.3 billion in the 2016/17 season, compared to the record £3.3 billion in 2014/15.

Richard Battle, senior manager in the sports business group at Deloitte, said: “It is a fantastic amount of money for a football club and really allows them to invest, not just in playing talent but also in the infrastructure of the club and the community as well.

“The financial prize of Premier League football is greater than it ever has been.

“The full stadia, global TV exposure and the will of commercial partners to pay to associate themselves with Premier League football are what make it the strongest league globally in terms of revenue generation.”