What qualifying for Europe would actually mean for Sunderland - on and off the pitch

Sunderland’s comeback win over Everton means they head into the final day of the Premier League campaign still in contention to qualify for European football next season.

They remain outsiders in that race, needing to beat Chelsea at the Stadium of Light on Sunday and hope that Brentford don’t beat Liverpool. Should they do that they will guarantee Conference League football, and a win could yet secure a Europa League place if Brighton also lose at home to Manchester United. It’s an extraordinary achievement from Régis Le Bris and his side, but the growing excitement on Wearside for Sunday’s game has also come with some minor reservations: Are Sunderland ready for Europe, and what would qualification mean?

Here we take a look at the consequences both on the pitch and off it…

How big a financial boost would qualifying for Europe bring Sunderland?

This is actually more complicated than you might first think. While Europe undoubtedly offers a revenue boost, for English clubs there will be a sting in the tale from next season onwards. While the Premier League’s new Squad Cost Ratio rules allow clubs to spend 85% of their revenue on first-team costs, for clubs in European competition this drops to 70% to ensure consistency with UEFA’s own rules. Clubs in UEFA competitions who break this rule face a fine - so Sunderland and Florent Ghisolfi would be presented with the dual challenge of increasing the size and quality of the squad while losing some of their financial headroom to do so. Whether the financial reward of playing in the Conference League offsets this is very much for debate. Clubs who qualified for the league phase this season earned just under £3 million in initial prize money, with £349,000 awarded for each win in that phase and £116,000 for a draw. A run to the final and a victory there would this season earn a club around an additional £10 million in prize money. With TV money and the additional gate receipts from three home games, a Conference League spot would likely be worth around £10 million to Sunderland even if they didn’t advance to the knockout stages. It’s very good money, but not a fundamental gamechanger for a Premier League club. 

The Europa League offers a more significant financial reward, with just under £4 million paid to clubs who reached the league phase this season. This season’s winner is likely to bank around £20 million in prize money, with the rewards in the latter stages of the competition significantly higher than in the Conference League. 

The player registration rules that could cause Sunderland a challenge 

Should they qualify, Sunderland will also have to manage UEFA’s squad rules. Clubs can name 25 players in their ‘List A’ squad for European qualification, but eight of those must be considered ‘homegrown’ players. Four of those must have trained with Sunderland for three years between the ages of 15 and 21, and four for a club within the same national association during the same timeframe. Clubs have to forfeit a spot for each homegrown place they cannot meet.

There is additional wriggle room for clubs as players under the age of 21 can be registered on a separate ‘List B’, providing they have been eligible to represent the club for an interrupted period of two years since the age of 15. Moving into next season these rules would have to be an active consideration for Sunderland, as they do not have an abundance of homegrown players and another summer of transfer business could impact that further if players such as Romaine Mundle and Simon Moore were to depart. Sunderland have room to manoeuvre, but it’s something they would have to consider as they manage the squad through another transfer window.

How much does European qualification impact Premier League performance?

One of the major concerns should Sunderland qualify for Europe would be what impact it would have on the club’s Premier League performance next season. It’s a fair point, as a club winning European qualification the season after promotion is virtually unprecedented in the modern era. The last club to do it were Wolves in 2018/19 under Nuno Espirito Santo, and Sunderland fans may be encouraged to note that the club were able to repeat their seventh place league finish in the COVID impacted season that followed.

Though Nottingham Forest flirted with relegation trouble for much of this season, more broadly most teams who qualify for Europe stay comfortably clear of the drop in the season that follows. Crystal Palace have never been in any meaningful relegation trouble this season, while the lowest West Ham United ever finished when playing Europe under David Moyes was 13th. In the 2023/24 campaign, Brighton finished 11th in the Premier League while competing in Europe. Given how they have finished the campaign under Vitor Pereira, there’s a strong argument that the issue for Nottingham Forest in the early stage of this season was off-field dysfunction rather than extra fixtures. Sunderland are clearly in a different position to all of the teams mentioned above, a side who many feel have outperformed their performance data this season and so are ripe for the dreaded ‘second-season syndrome’ even before they have the additional demands of a Thursday-Sunday schedule. Most of the clubs above also posted far stronger points hauls to get into Europe than Sunderland would with 53.

The counter argument to this is that sitting eighth in the form table for the last ten games, they are not losing momentum at the end of the campaign and as such are progressing as an all-round team. History suggests teams performing at this level can cope with the demands of European football, even if it is very clear that fatigue would impact Sunderland in the league at times.

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So - would it be worth it for Sunderland?

Without a shadow of a doubt. This is no golden ticket as outlined above, but it’s also worth considering some other benefits that are hard to immediately quantify. It will strengthen Sunderland’s position in the transfer market considerably even accounting for those budget challenges, not just in making Wearside a more attractive destination for potential recruits but also in persuading the ambitious players already in the building to stay for another year at least. Extra games would be a challenge for Régis Le Bris, but would also offer development opportunities for the youngsters who haven’t always been regulars in the starting XI this season. For a club eager to boost its profile and build its commercial revenues, the additional profile of European football will also be a big positive when going out to market. 

Above all else, it would be a generational moment not just for the club’s supporters but for the city more generally. If following Sunderland has surely taught us one thing, it is that these moments don’t come around very often and have to be seized when they do. Sunderland are a club on the up, and a European campaign could generate yet more momentum.

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