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European football’s biggest leagues would be bankrupt within two years if they were “normal” companies, a new report has claimed.

An A.T. Kearney study that looked at teams in England, Spain, Germany, France and Italy predicted that leading clubs could go out of business unless stricter financial controls are put in place.

“Running as normal companies, the leagues in Spain, England, and Italy would be bankrupt within two years,” Kearney’s Munich-based vice-president Juergen Rothenbuecher wrote in a report called Football Sustainability Study.

Financial statistics in some leagues are “shocking” because of players’ “enormous salaries” – the key reason for the situation, the management consultant company said. The clubs in the five leagues also spend more on players than they take in from selling others.

The current economic system “encourages over-investment and extreme risk-taking” in order to win games, “far beyond economic sense”, the report added.