Huge Birmingham City and Wrexham AFC Premier League transfer claim made | OneFootball

The League One sides look likely to have the financial muscle to compete with the big boys.

League One promotion winners Birmingham City and Wrexham are expected to challenge relegated Premier League sides Ipswich Town, Leicester City and Southampton for transfer targets this summer.

The financial might of the two third tier sides is well known to be way above their current level.

Sky Sports have reported that the Welsh side alone made £27 million in revenue this season and that their front-of-shirt sponsor, United Airlines, is bringing in as much as the average mid-table Premier League side does from their respective main shirt sponsors.

The top flight is where both teams aim to be, although they are said to not be hell-bent on using the new relaxed financial regulations that they will face in the Championship, which allow for losses of up to £39 million over a three-year period, to try and make that jump in their first two seasons in the division.

Birmingham's chairman, the American businessman Tom Wagner, recently told The Times that he expects Blues to have as good a chance as any team in the second tier next season of winning promotion, even those coming down from the Premier League and their parachute payment benefits, because of the revenue that they expect to generate.

Birmingham and Wrexham to challenge relegated Premier League clubs for transfer targets

And that's not the only front on which they hope to compete with the biggest teams in the division. The pair of current League One outfits are expected to be going for the same players as the likes of Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton, as well as a portion of the smaller teams in the Premier League, this summer, according to Sky Sports.

Birmingham's last summer window already flaunted their financial might over their competitors. The £15 million that they dropped on Fulham's Jay Stansfield on Deadline Day took their overall spending across the window to £20-25 million, as per The Athletic.

Wrexham weren't exactly lousy in their recruitment either, bringing in ex-Premier League players like Steven Fletcher and Jay Rodriguez across the two windows of the 2024/25 campaign, but they weren't quite as brash and bold as the third tier winners were.

The transfer policy of both clubs is to bring in players that they believe can be Premier League ready by the time they get there, rather than signing talent just for the level that they are at which they would quickly outgrow, which goes some way to explaining why Birmingham thought it was a sound investment to nearly quintuple the old League One transfer record in order to sign Stansfield.

Birmingham and Wrexham will need mega summer windows in order to challenge for Premier League status next season

Just because Ipswich did it last season, don't go thinking, Birmingham and Wrexham supporters, that going from League One to the Premier League in the shortest time possible is something easy to do. They may have more money at their disposal than Kieran McKenna did, but he worked wonders in order to get that squad to where it is now.

City's side is evidently too good for the third tier - they have broken the division's all-time points record and are on track to do the same to the EFL's record too, in case you need any proof of that. Wrexham's is too, but not to quite the same extent.

Any real hopes of playing against Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United in the 2026/27 campaign will only become somewhat realistic if another gargantuan summer of spending happens at St Andrew's and the Racecourse.