Luton Town: The defiers of football finance

Two weeks of international football and it still feels surreal that we are third in the Championship.

Surpassing our own expectations, and the expectations of the wider footballing world, we still possess a genuine chance of securing promotion to the Premier League.

Often our success and continued progression has gone under the radar, but on the periphery of something incredibly special, we are starting to attract the plaudits our monumental growth deserves.

Of course, a lot can change in what remains of this season, and even if we do miss out on the play-off positions, this campaign will represent another year of significant improvement.

Not only have we transformed ourselves from a non-league club into a promotion-aspiring Championship outfit over the last eight years, we have also done it sustainably and systematically, something that allows us Luton fans to have so much excitement regarding the future of our football club.

This notion of taking a sustainable approach whilst seeing lots of recent success means that we do not possess the same level of resources as our Championship counterparts, in fact, it was recently revealed on Quest’s EFL Highlights show that we have the lowest budget in the entire division.

Combining that with the finding that money determines 80-90% of the performance of football clubs, as written in the book ‘Soccernomics’ by journalist Simon Kuper and economist Stefan Szymanski, makes our continued rise even more exceptional.

Then, we come on to parachute payments, a series of payments made to recently relegated Championship clubs to help facilitate the loss of revenue they suffer after relegation from the Premier League. Interestingly, recent research conducted at Sheffield Hallam University, and as cited by the Mail Online, has revealed that clubs operating with parachute payments are three times more likely to secure promotion to the Premier League than teams without this funding.

This acts as yet another reminder of what a brilliant achievement it is to be sitting third in the second-tier standings.

In what is set to be an extremely competitive end to this Championship season, it is difficult not to feel nervous, however, we can be boosted by the knowledge that is onwards and upwards for us Luton fans, regardless of what the final outcome of this season may be.