Gambling on Premier League riches, divorce and ego trips - what it's like to own a EFL club

The end of a marriage is the price that one of English football's most savvy owners has paid to run his club.

In little more than a decade, chairman Ben Robinson took a part-time Burton Albion side from the second division of non-league football to the Championship, where promotion to the Premier League is the biggest jackpot in world football.

Rising through the lower reaches of the English Football League to make it to the second tier in 2016, he says, took a great deal of work, care and time.

The pursuit of such success recently contributed to Bury's demise and expulsion from the EFL.

The cost for Robinson at Burton, however, was much different.

"It is fair to say that it was probably the cause of my divorce," he told BBC Radio 5 Live. "I probably shouldn't say that, but it is a fact."

With the downfall of Bury, recent financial troubles at Bolton and difficulties faced by many other clubs in the EFL, BBC Sport takes a look at what attracts owners to football clubs, how they make it financially viable and what happens when it goes wrong.

Of the 72 clubs that made up the EFL in 2017-18, just 16 reported profits. None of them came from the Championship where winning promotion to the Premier League is worth at least £170m.

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, said clubs in the EFL are in "a precarious state" with the league "propped up by owners putting their own money in".

In the Championship, Burton were the smallest club with the smallest budget, smallest stadium and smallest crowds.

Their greatest source of income is what trickles down from the Premier League in the form of solidarity payments and what central money is handed out from the EFL.

In 2006, an FA Cup tie against Manchester United, which the Brewers forced to a replay at Old Trafford, generated enough money to pay off loans on their Pirelli Stadium home.

"Everyone wants success," Robinson added. "Everyone wants progress in the cup because that can create an immense financial windfall, which we have seen.

"In the two years in the Championship we made two substantial profits. For us it has always been a bigger challenge because of the fan base here - recently we played Bournemouth in the Carabao Cup and we had 2,500 here and over 400 travelled up from Bournemouth on a Wednesday evening.

"With bigger clubs what we have seen develop in this country is an influx of a lot of investment from people with considerable fortunes whose mindset really is to invest and get to the Premier League."

The rewards for taking risks in pursuit of such riches and the difficulty the EFL has in policing owners, which is the subject of an independent inquiry following Bury's demise, is a recipe for danger, according to Tranmere Rovers owner and former Football Association chief executive Mark Palios.

"What makes the (football) pyramid unique is the fact that it allows ambition to thrive through linked promotion and relegation," he said.

"But you have gaps (in financial rewards), ambition, which should be there, and you add to that poor regulation and you have a lethal cocktail.

"There is no doubt the regulations need changing and that the owners' and directors' test is ineffective. The whole thing need a radical rethink."

Notts County are another club that teetered on the brink of financial collapse in the summer.

The Magpies, a founding member of the Football League 131 years earlier, were relegated to the non-league ranks for the first time in their history in May.

Alan Hardy was the owner that saw the club sink to new depths, although he was also the one to have bought the club in a similar time in need in January 2017.

Hardy says he took over at Meadow Lane knowing the club was losing £1m per year, and within months of his takeover the Women's Super League side linked to the club went bust.

And yet, the Nottingham businessman its he allowed losses to increase as they pushed for promotion from League Two.

"The mistake I made was chasing success," he said. "If that £1m loss was stretched to £1.5m or £1.6m, would it get us success">