The Premier League's 20 clubs collectively lost close to half a billion pounds last year despite making record income, a Guardian analysis of their most recent accounts has revealed. In the 2009-10 financial year, the clubs currently in the Premier League made total revenues of £2.1bn, principally from their billion-pound TV deals and the world's most expensive tickets. Yet 16 of the 20 clubs made losses, totalling a record £484m, and the same number relied on funding from their wealthy owners.

Since the owners took over their clubs, they have put in a staggering £2.3bn, by way of loans or for shares, mostly to pay ever-escalating players' wages and transfer fees. The Premier League's total wage bill in 2009-10 was £1.4bn, an average £70m per club, accounting for an average 68% of the clubs' income, once Arsenal's exceptional profit from selling flats in the old Highbury stadium is discounted.

This picture of Premier League clubs making fortunes in the gilded bubble of national and worldwide popularity, but failing to control players' wages, making huge losses and relying on owners, poses a major question about whether they can reform in time to meet Uefa's financial fair-play rules. Clubs will be permitted to record losses of only €45m (£39.7m) altogether over the three seasons from 2011-12 to 2013-14, and cannot rely on owners' subsidies, if Uefa is to sanction their participation in European competitions.

All the clubs in the top seven made substantial losses except Arsenal, whose record income of £382m, and £56m profit, were swollen by £156m made from the Highbury development. By far the biggest loss was at Manchester City, where Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi put his dynastic oil millions into bankrolling a £121m deficit from signing and paying the galactic wages of players who could lead City to trophies. Across Manchester, United made £286m turnover, more than any other club if Arsenal's property income is discounted – yet the costs and interest on the debts the Glazer family have loaded on to the club, pushed United into a losing £79m.

Double winners in 2009-10, Chelsea, whose owner Roman Abramovich is always cited as a supporter of financial fair play, made the next biggest loss, £78m. Tottenham's successful push for Champions League qualification was achieved with a £7m loss and £15m investment from the owners, principally Bahamas-based currency speculator, Joe Lewis. Aston Villa lost £38m as the club's US owner, Randy Lerner, struggles to compete with clubs whose commercial income and potential is much greater than Villa's. Liverpool made revenues of £185m, more than double that of Villa, yet lost £20m, in the last full season owned by Tom Hicks and George Gillett, who had borrowed £200m to buy Liverpool then made the club responsible for paying their interest.

Even among the four clubs which avoided making losses, only one, Wolverhampton Wanderers, did so by making a substantial, convincing
profit. Arsenal's remarkable-looking £56m profit was hugely boosted by the club's £156m income from the Highbury apartment sales, and Arsenal moved into making a £6m loss in the six months from May to November last year.
Of the other non loss-making clubs, Birmingham City's profit was very small, and the club is now considered the Premier League's major financial headache, struggling with a cash shortfall which could tip into crisis if Birmingham fall into relegation this weekend. West Bromwich Albion, considered a soundly-run club resigned to a habitual yo-yo existence, made a small £500,000 profit in 2009-10, when they were in the Championship, not the Premier League.

Wolves' £9m profit stands out among all 20 clubs, yet it was made in the first season up from the Championship with new Premier League TV income pouring into Molineux. The Wolves owner, Steve Morgan, believes he can crack the challenge of establishing the club in the Premier League while not taking excessive financial risks.

Yet the overall losses on this scale, £484m in total, and net debts of £2.5bn, £400m more than the clubs' total turnover, do not in fact mean the 20 clubs are mostly in financial difficulties. Most of the losses are soaked up by huge financial contributions from club owners whose wealth looks more stable than has been true of the Premier League in the recent past.

The four clubs not bankrolled by owners were Arsenal, whose shareholders last month pocketed a combined £243m selling to Stan Kroenke, but never put a penny into the club itself, West Bromwich Albion, Everton and Manchester United. The Glazer family's ownership has cost United around £350m in interest, fees, loans to the family themselves and bank charges since 2005, and they have never put money into the club. In the year to June 30 2010, United paid £42m interest on the £500m loans the Glazer family originally took out to buy the club in the first place, and just refinancing that debt, replacing the loans with a bond, cost United an eyewatering £65m, cash.

The Glazers, though, are the exceptions in causing money to be taken out of their club, particularly with Hicks and Gillett, the other US "leveraged buyout" practitioners, forced out of Anfield. Most owners have put huge finance in, yet one of the most extraordinary aspects of this subsidy is how small a proportion of it has financed anything permanent, whether stadium-building or other club infrastructure. Almost all the stadiums were already built or refurbished when the current generation of owners bought the clubs. So the overwhelming proportion of the £2.3bn the owners have contributed has gone on paying transfer fees, superstar wages and other expenses, beyond what the clubs could otherwise afford.

At Manchester City, the prime example, Sheikh Mansour's investment is up to £493m in less than three years. City have improved the Carrington training ground, built a new office block and made other relatively inexpensive improvements, but the Eastlands stadium was already built, with £132m public and lottery money, well before Mansour bought the club. Most of Mansour's half a billion has been spent paying the transfer fees and near £10m-a-year wages each for players such as Carlos Tevez, Yaya Touré, David Silva and the others City would never have been able to afford without Mansour's patronage.

While Mansour, Abramovich, Lerner and Fulham's Mohamed Al Fayed, whose loans to Fulham increased to £187m, are high-profile figures, subsidies from less prominent owners are nevertheless huge. Peter Coates' family, who own online gambling company bet365, have invested £43m in Stoke City, US private equity investor Ellis Short £47m in Sunderland and the little-known, Isle of Man-based Edwin Davies has taken to £85m his financial ballast of Bolton Wanderers, whose loss last year was £35m.

The figures illustrate the multiple challenges facing Premier League clubs to comply with financial fair play. Clubs must not only stop paying players and their agents continually inflating wages which were already incomprehensible years ago to most of the world's population. Fans are concerned, particularly in England, that Uefa's sensible principle that clubs should rely on income, not owners, will have the unintended consequence of leading to increased ticket prices.

That has already happened at Arsenal, and this week Liverpool, owned by John Henry's Fenway Sports Group, announced 6.5% ticket price rises, to the club's loyal, generally not wealthy fanbase who must live in the real world, where there is a recession going on.{jcomments on}