Reading FC's strictly controlled wage bill could prove a financial disaster if the club do not avoid relegation, according to a top business scholar.
Professor Tom Cannon, football finance expert at the University of Buckingham, believes chairman John Madejski has "set the club up solidly".
But he cautions that running "a very tight ship" may relegate the Royals and see Madejski suffer financially.
"He would lose money on his investment, no doubt," Cannon told BBC Berkshire.
"Unless some fairy grandfather from Iceland came in and paid what would be perceived as over the odds, the truth is - if Reading were relegated - their finances would be a lot tougher than they are now," he added.
"John Madejski hasn't made a secret of the fact that he has tried to run a very tight ship and not risk the future of the club for a few seasons of glory"
According to Cannon, top flight football is worth at least an extra £19m per season to Reading, but that figure is "only part of the picture", with plenty of extra income sources for Premier League teams.
"If you look at average gates in the Premier League they run at about 28,000 people a game.
"Average gates in the Championship run at about 17,000, so you're roughly getting an average gate difference of about 10,000."
Reading will not want to contemplate the financial perils of life in football's second tier, but Cannon says their lack of spending so far may prove their undoing.
"Teams at the bottom end like Sunderland, who have spent about £30m, are now battling with Reading but getting much better results.
"Teams who have stayed up have typically spent over £15m, but teams who have struggled have spent significantly less than that.
"The timing of your expenditure is important as well. Those clubs who spent in the summer close-season have tended to do better than those clubs who panicked at Christmas and spent a lot of money then."
Cannon cites Reading's wage bill as an example of the club's frugality leading to relegation trouble.
"[Reading's wage bill] is very much at the lower end. John Madejski hasn't made a secret of the fact that he has tried to run a very tight ship and not risk the future of the club for a few seasons of glory.
"Of course, these gaps are now so great that those few seasons of glory can be very fleeting if you don't survive.
"He's set the club up very solidly - the stadium, although at the small end, is a superb stadium. [If he walked away tomorrow] he would lose money on his investment, there's no doubt about that."
Cannon believes the Royals will have to bounce back at the first attempt if they are relegated - before the financial hurdle becomes too cumbersome to clear.
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"If you were only just relegated you would get what is known as a parachute payment. That's only about £11m but they disappear very quickly and they shrink very quickly.
"So if you did get back then the cost would be relatively small. But the minute you don't get back immediately, the cost becomes enormous.
"That's not only in the gap between the Premier League and the Championship. There are now similar situations between the Championship and League One."
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