CNN –
It’s been dubbed “football’s richest game” but for Luton Town and Coventry City Saturday’s Championship play-off final means a lot more than money.
The game at Wembley Stadium in London guarantees a spot in next season’s Premier League but also signals a dramatic rise for both sides, who just five years ago were pitted against each other in the fourth tier of the English football league pyramid.
According to Deloitte’s Sports Business Group, the winner of Saturday’s Championship play-off final would earn $211m (£170m) over the next three seasons from “planned increases in its own advertising and matchday revenues, as well as secured core revenues of the Premier League”.
That amount would increase to $360m (£290m) if the club avoid relegation in their first season.
After a long, tiring season – made up of 46 league games and two playoff semi-finals – Saturday will decide promotion and potential change for a side, and spell dismay and disappointment for the loser.
The journey from the lower echelons of English football to the fringes of the Premier League has been a long and arduous journey for both clubs, struggling with financial difficulties, relegation and constant setbacks.
Luton was one of the founding members of the Premier League in 1992, having played in English football’s top flight the previous season and voted to organize it. It was relegated in the season prior to its introduction.
“That was annoying because we voted to create the Premier League but then we were relegated so we never really entered it, we didn’t taste any of the financial riches that came from that, the profile of the Premier League Kevin Harper, a Luton fan of over 35 years and a member of the Luton Town Supporters’ Trust, told CNN senior sports analyst Darren Lewis this week.
Over the next almost 20 years, the club suffered five relegations and three defeats, and were penalized with a total of 40 points being deducted as they continued to slide down the English football pyramid.
Such was the descent that Luton played in the fifth tier of English football and outside the Football League a decade ago. Harper described the club as “completely devastated”.
But through smart signings, effective managers and a new ownership group, the club has slowly but steadily climbed the leagues.
Welshman Nathan Jones has twice led the team successfully but it is his compatriot Rob Edwards who propelled the club to the promised land of the Premier League within 90 minutes.
The prospect of Premier League stars lacing up their boots and playing at Luton’s old-school stadium, Kenilworth Road, might come as a bit of a culture shock.
Built in 1905, the ground has a capacity of just over 10,000 and has many old-fashioned features – including wooden stands and an entrance that overlooks the gardens of the terraced houses that border the stadium. It remains a novelty in a constantly modernizing sport.
The club are set to move to a new stadium in a couple of years, but in the meantime Luton chief executive Gary Sweet told CNN Sport the promotion would mean the club paying around $12.4million (£10million) for it improving Kenilworth Road to ensure it meets Premier League standards.
Sweet – also a lifelong fan of the club – said promotion to the Premier League would do far more than stabilize the club financially.
“This will go beyond Luton. “It’s going to change the face of Luton, it’s going to change the perception of Luton practically overnight,” Sweet said of the city, which is 29 miles north of London.
“But it’s not always about the money. We proved that with the club. It’s not necessarily about money, it’s about what you do with it. It’s actually about what you do with the perception, because we’re more concerned with the perception of Luton.
“Luton is the UK’s most charitable city. It has a huge beating heart, it has real soul in this place. It is a great example of how diversity can live together here. There’s so much positive in it, but people keep talking about negativity because they’re looking at nothing but superficially.”
One man who has personally witnessed Luton’s rise through the league system is midfielder Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu.
Mpanzu signed with the club when they were in the fifth tier, played a key role in Luton’s rise through the divisions and could become the first player ever to play for the same club in each of England’s top five divisions.
Harper says a goal from Mpanzu in the play-off final would be the “crowning part of this story”.
“When he scores the winning goal, the story is written – it’s a fairy tale, it’s a script.”
Coventry also had a long way to go to reach the play-off final.
Between the late 1960s and early 2000s the club were regulars in the top flight of English football and featured iconic players in their teams – from Steve Ogrizovic and Brian Borrows to Dion Dublin and Trevor Peake – but the club slipped in the league system slowly off.
As with Luton, financial difficulties were a major reason for Coventry’s decline.
The club was saved from bankruptcy in 2007 by a final takeover by a consortium called SISU Capital.
However, things did not improve much for the club under the new owners: expenses were limited, attendances suffered and the team could not even play at their home ground, the Ricoh Arena, for over a year.
A dispute over unpaid rent eventually forced the team to share premises with Northampton Town – a team 34 miles away.
The association was actually dissolved in 2015, but was allowed to continue working. Results suffered even more when the team were relegated to the second division – fourth division – where they met Luton.
Then Mark Robins returned.
The former Manchester United striker was reappointed as Coventry manager in 2017, three years after his first spell with the Midlands club.
Robins has enjoyed a remarkable rise in the league system, managing promotion from the second division in his first season and then promotion to the English second division just a year later.
What made his tenure as manager even more successful was his ability to produce positive results despite adversity.
The club faced yet more stadium troubles in 2019 when they were forced to play their home games at Birmingham City’s St Andrews after owners SISU and Wasps – the rugby club that owned the stadium – failed to reach an agreement.
As a result, Coventry had to play games away from home fans for two years before being able to return in 2021.
With Robins at the helm, Coventry have improved season after season, with last place in the play-offs on Saturday being perhaps the crowning moment of their six years on the job – the team have lost just once since February 3 and are up to Losing to fifth-placed Middlesborough in the play-off semi-finals.
Coventry pulled off the feat with a group of relatively unknown players with previously modest experience.
Sweden striker Viktor Gyokeres has scored 21 goals in the league, putting him at the top of Premier League sides’ shopping list should Coventry not rise. Gustavo Hamer and Jamie Allen provided thrust from midfield and Jake Bidwell, Callum Doyle and Ben Wilson were omnipresent in defense and goal.
Captain Liam Kelly accompanied the club throughout their promotion from the Second Division. He played the entire 3-1 win over Exeter City in the League Two play-off final that marked that resurgence.
With Kelly on the brink of possibly playing again at Wembley and promotion at stake, she recalled that performance five years ago and the pressure that came with it.
“I remember that everything happened very quickly. The day flies by and the kick-off comes before you know it,” Kelly said on his club’s official website. “We know what we have to do that day and we have to make sure that we are on the right side in the critical moments because they will decide the game.” Those moments will win or lose us in the final.
“More attention is paid to this topic, but on a personal level it’s the same for me. One difference is that we were expected to move up from the second division and even from the first division. This time, very few people would have expected us to reach that position.
“We have nothing to lose and everything to gain. It’s going to be a great day for the players and the fans.”
Robins called the prospect of facing another club going through an unexpected journey “a romantic story”.
“They had to take a point deduction in the National League. It took them five years to return to the EFL and what a success they’ve had since then,” he told his club’s official website.
“They were always a year ahead of us, but now we meet here on the biggest stage. We’re both in the same place at the same time. It’s a phenomenal story, that’s for sure.
“We’ve made progress season after season despite the well-documented issues we’ve had. The club kept me on my toes when they could have removed me in difficult times, but we got away on the other side by staying focused, both the club staff and the fans.”
With a place in one of the world’s top leagues at stake, these two historic clubs, each with more than 135 years of history, will undoubtedly see it through to the end in the world’s most lucrative game of football.