Richard Masters, the Premier League’s chief executive, received total compensation of £2.6m for the financial year ending 31 July 2025, including a performance-related bonus of £1.1m, according to the league’s latest accounts filed at Companies House on Tuesday.T2, The Guardian The package represents a £700,000 increase on the £1.9m Masters earned in the prior year, a 37% uplift that tracks the league’s own revenue growth and marks the largest single-year compensation package awarded to a Premier League chief executive since the role’s creation.
The bonus alone exceeds the annual median salary of a Premier League matchday steward by a factor of roughly 55. It is structured, per the accounts, as a discretionary performance payment approved by the league’s board and remuneration committee, rather than a formulaic payout linked to disclosed KPIs. The Premier League does not publish the specific metrics against which the chief executive’s bonus is assessed, a opacity that has drawn criticism from governance bodies, including the Football Supporters’ Association, which called in March 2025 for “full transparency on executive pay benchmarks” in a written submission to the league’s governance review.
Context matters here. The Premier League’s total distributable revenue to its 20 member clubs for the 2024-25 cycle is forecast by Swiss Ramble at approximately £2.75bn, a figure driven by the record £6.7bn domestic broadcast deal with Sky Sports, TNT Sports, and Amazon that commenced this season. Clubs received an average of £137.5m in central distributions, up from £120.7m under the previous three-year cycle, a 14% increase. Masters’ bonus, measured against the league’s central revenue pool, represents 0.04% of total distributions; against the league’s own operating surplus (reported in the same accounts at £38.2m), it constitutes 2.9%.
The league’s financial health, at least on the revenue side, is not in question. Broadcasting income for the year ending July 2025 rose to £2.14bn, according to the filed accounts, up from £1.88bn. Commercial revenue reached £412m, a 9% increase driven principally by new sponsorship activations in the Middle East and North America. Operating costs, however, also climbed: £1.78bn against £1.59bn, with legal expenditure a notable contributor. The league spent an estimated £45m on legal fees during the period, reflecting the still-unresolved Associated Party Transaction (APT) arbitration with Manchester City and the broader regulatory proceedings that have defined the 2024-25 governance cycle.
That context is relevant because the performance metrics against which Masters is assessed are internal to the league board. The accounts describe the bonus as “performance-related” without further specification. A league spokesperson, quoted in The Guardian’s reporting, stated that Masters’ compensation “reflects the successful delivery of key strategic objectives,” but declined to enumerate those objectives. In prior years, the remuneration committee has referenced broadcast deal completion, commercial growth, and the implementation of the league’s “football-wide” financial regulations as qualifying criteria, though none are published with target thresholds.
Comparable executive compensation across football’s governing bodies provides a loose benchmark. Mark Bullingham, the Football Association’s chief executive, received £1.05m in total compensation for the year ending July 2024, per the FA’s most recent published accounts, including a £350,000 bonus. UEFA’s president, Aleksander Čeferin, earned a reported €2.5m (approximately £2.1m) in 2024, though UEFA’s accounts do not separate base salary from variable pay. Masters’ package, at £2.6m, sits above both, which is consistent with the Premier League’s status as the wealthiest domestic football competition by revenue.
On the governance question, the Premier League’s remuneration committee is chaired by non-executive director Claudia Arney, who also chairs the league’s audit committee. The committee’s terms of reference, available in the league’s governance framework published in September 2024, grant it authority to “set the chief executive’s remuneration, including any bonus, in light of the league’s performance, strategic objectives, and prevailing market conditions.” No external benchmarking data is disclosed; the league does not, for example, publish percentile positioning against comparable media-rights bodies or sporting regulators.
Strip it to its components, the £1.1m bonus is a reward for a year in which the league completed its broadcast cycle transition, grew commercial revenue, and navigated (though did not resolve) its most significant regulatory challenge in a generation. Whether that constitutes £1.1m of value depends on what one measures. The 20 clubs who collectively fund the league’s operations through their broadcast and commercial contributions will note that their own average central distribution increased by £16.8m in the same period, a return on the league’s commercial stewardship that dwarfs the chief executive’s bonus by a factor of approximately 15 to one. The supporters who fill those clubs’ stadiums, and whose matchday experience is ostensibly a strategic priority, will note that the league has not published a single metric tying executive pay to fan engagement, ticket-price moderation, or broadcast-accessibility targets. In the Premier League’s accounting, the numbers add up. Whether the balance sheet tells the full story is a different question.
