National Business David Casey

- Average Championship club makes losses of £9.8m

- Average club has sales of £22.6m but spends £22.8m on wages

- Full Championship club-by-club analysis

The average football club competing in the Championship makes a loss of almost £10m and spends their entire turnover on player wages, new research by Insider has revealed.

The analysis, which examined the latest accounts published at Companies House, found that combined losses among the division's sides totalled more than £200m and only one club made a profit.

Insider's research focused on the financial figures for the 2015-16 year – the most-recent available – and so concentrated on the 24 teams competing in the 2015-16 Championship season. Only Bolton Wanderers are yet to file results for the period and so are excluded from the overall data.

Middlesbrough, who finished second during the campaign and were promoted, made the largest pre-tax loss at £32m, followed by third-place Brighton with a loss of £25.9m. Hull City, who reached the top flight via the playoffs, had the third largest loss.

Title winners Burnley's pre-tax loss was £5m although the Clarets benefitted from Premier League parachute payments, designed to help relegated teams adjust to life in the Championship, after their stint among English football's elite during 2014-15.

Total pre-tax losses among the 23 clubs reached £224m against a combined turnover of £520m. The research found that only Wolverhampton Wanderers recorded a pre-tax profit in 2015-16, with the Black Country side also having one of the lowest wage-to-turnover ratios.

Profit/loss 2015-16

In terms of wages, 12th-placed QPR shelled out the most in their failed quest for promotion. Total staff costs were £40.8m – almost equivalent to the club's entire turnover for the season. Milton Keynes Dons, relegated back to League One at the end of the season, spent the least at £8m.

However, Nottingham Forest and Brentford had the joint largest wage-to-turnover ratio in the Championship at 166 per cent. Middlesbrough, Derby County and Bristol City also spent heavily on paying their star players in proportion to their overall turnover.

- Full Championship club-by-club analysis

Many clubs in the division are also carrying heavy debt burdens, although the majority of loans are owed to rich benefactors who are willing to finance ongoing trading.

But despite the large collective losses and debts accumulated, a report from Begbies Traynor in April found that no clubs competing in the 2016-17 Championship were in financial distress.

"As an industry, football has cleaned up its act significantly in the last five years, partly with the help of the FA's rules, and partly through its own good management," said Gerald Krasner, a partner at Begbies Traynor and one-time chairman of Leeds United.

"There is no doubt the business of football has changed completely in the last 20 years. In any industry there will be winners and losers, and well run and badly run businesses, and football is no exception.

"The main difference is that when poor performances on the pitch lead to a slide down the leagues, the majority of the revenues evaporate quickly and decimate the club's ability to trade soundly."

*Bolton Wanderers have not submitted their 2015-16 accounts at the time of publication