Stoke City recorded a pre-tax profit of around £60m for the year ending 31 May 2025 after £90.5m of intragroup loans from former owner bet365 were waived.

Financial statements filed with Companies House show that the Championship club made an operating loss of £29.5m, slightly higher than the £26.2m loss recorded in the previous year. 

However, the overall result was transformed by a corporate restructuring that eliminated a huge portion of the club’s debt – this restructuring being the demerger of Stoke City and bet365 back on 8 July 2024.

Following the demerger of Stoke City Holdings Limited and its subsidiaries from bet365 Group Limited to current owner and Chairman John Coates, all intragroup loans totalling £90.5m were waived as part of the transaction. 

Stoke City’s bet365 connection

Coates is the son of bet365 co-founder, Peter, and the brother of the bookmaking giant’s CEO, Denise. The Stoke-based business has a strong connection with the football club. 

Peter purchased Stoke City in 1986 and had ownership for 12 years before the club was bought by an Icelandic consortium led by Gunnar Gíslason.

The Coates family, via bet365, then repurchased Stoke City in 2006 and oversaw the 2008 promotion to the Premier League and subsequent 2017/18 relegation back to the Championship. It has competed in the second tier of English football since. 

The 2024 restructuring left the group debt-free while transferring ownership of the bet365 Stadium and Clayton Wood training facility to Stoke City Holdings Limited.

When the debt write-off is accounted for alongside the operating loss, the club reported an overall profit of over £60m for the financial year.

Debt free but still struggling

Despite the headline profit, the club continued to operate with significant underlying losses. 

Turnover, however, rose from £32.3m to £35.4m, driven largely by increased central distributions from the English Football League (EFL) following a new broadcast agreement with Sky.

Operating expenses also increased to £65.1m, up from £63m the previous year, contributing to the widening operating deficit. 

Employment costs, which includes wages paid to full-time players and scholars, fell slightly to £30.3m. This is reflective of the financial constraints imposed by the EFL’s Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR). 

On the pitch, Stoke finished 18th in the Championship, with average league attendance rising slightly to 22,805. The Potters currently sit 14th 35 games into the 2025/26 season. 

Just £7.3m was spent on player registrations, compared with £18.2m the previous year. The club recorded only £151,000 in profits from player sales, down significantly from £4.4m the previous year, when the club secured seven-figure fees for Josh Tymon and Jacob Brown, which contributed to the higher operating loss.

Stoke City’s directors acknowledged that, like many Championship clubs, the business model remains reliant on owner funding unless the club returns to the Premier League, generates larger profits from player transfers, or benefits from changes to football’s revenue distribution system.

The club still has strong ties to bet365, which is the biggest private sector employer in the city and is the naming rights sponsor to its 30,000 seat stadium. 

The 2024 restructuring was justified by the duo citing licensing reasons and a ‘more sustainable way for bet365 to continue its global expansion’. It also meant that the club’s future would still be in the hands of a member of the bet365 family.