Both Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Lloyds act as bankers to debt-ridden football clubs in the top flight. And they confirmed to The Independent that they participate in lending to others.
While neither comes close to market-leader Barclays, which as sponsor of the Premier League could be expected to be heavily involved, or HSBC, the news is still set to cause controversy with campaigners.
That is because they are effectively using state funds to help finance the Premier League at a time when all banks are facing criticism for failing to do enough to lend to Britain's legion of credit-starved small businesses.
RBS, 81 per cent owned by the taxpayer, serves as banker to both Liverpool and Fulham FC. According to the most recent editor of Deloitte's football finance report, Liverpool had net cash listed at £9.6m but £202m of other debt bringing its total "net" debt to £192m.
The club, owned by former derivatives trader John Henry's Fenway Sports Group, which also owns the Boston Red Sox baseball team, made a pre tax profit of £5m in 2011 but lost £19m prior to that.
Fulham, according to the report, had bank loans and overdrafts of £20.3m and £24.6m of other debt making a total of £46m. It made a pre-tax loss of £5.4m.
The report's figures only go up to the end of 2011 because the current edition is still in preparation, with not all clubs having yet filed their 2012 accounts.
Meanwhile Lloyds Banking Group serves as banker to West Ham through its Bank of Scotland subsidiary acquired as part of the merger with HBoS.
Deloitte's report shows the East London club had bank loans and overdrafts listed at £37.6m plus £4m of other debt making a total of £41m. It made a pre tax loss of £18.6m in the 2011 financial year. Lloyds is 40 per cent owned by the taxpayer.
During the financial crisis RBS received £45bn of direct state aid and hundreds of billions of pounds in other support, including insuring its bad debt and "liquidity" support when funding markets were effectively closed. Lloyds received £20bn in addition to the indirect assistance.
Bankers privately say that lending to football clubs represents a highly risky activity, with some teams paying player wages that come close to or even exceed turnover before any other costs such as ground maintenance and transfer fees are taken into account.
"The problem is not just the risk," said one source. "You can face a serious problem with fans if you have to call in loans."
A banker involved in football finance told The Independent: "I'd rather we didn't lend to football clubs, but the higher-ups won't let me stop."
While both banks insisted that they were not the sole financiers of any of the three clubs' debt, they admitted to financing other clubs borrowings. They declined to say how many clubs or how much, despite their status as state-backed entities supported by taxpayer funds.
Lloyds released a statement saying: "We provide a range of facilities to sports clubs, including some football clubs. In making lending decisions we treat each one as an individual business, rather than adopting a broad brush approach to the sector as a whole. We cannot discuss the details of our exposure to the sector or to individual clubs."
Sir Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, last week wrote to businessman Mike Benson to express his sympathy and frustration over Mr Benson's inability to secure finance for a new transit van for his business.
Simon Chouffot, spokesperson for the Robin Hood Tax campaign, said the banks should be concentrating on putting money into the economy to help it recover.
He said: "While football fans will thank banks for keeping their clubs afloat, everyone could celebrate if banks put the same effort into supporting the rest of the economy."
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