Norwich City’s Championship trip to Stoke City feels massive in a promotion context but zoom out and it brings home what is really at stake.

The Canaries will open up a three point gap over the chasing pack with victory, due to the fact nearest rivals Hull and Coventry are not in league action again before the Championship pauses for the international break.

At this stage of the run-in any psychological advantage must be grasped by David Wagner and his squad. Stoke have picked up of late under new boss Steven Schumacher. They needed to. The Potters sit three points and three places above the relegation zone in a survival fight that looks every bit as competitive as the top six race.

That is some fall for a club who spent seven unbroken years in the Premier League under Tony Pulis, which included an FA Cup final appearance and European football.

Pulis’ brand of football may not have been one for the purists but it was residually effective, and the financial muscle of the Coates family ensured they were able to punch above their weight off the park against rivals with global fan bases and vast revenue streams.

Since returning to the Football League they have had five failed attempts at promotion. The sixth tour is now staving off a calamitous drop to League One. Since Pulis they have burned through 11 managers in just over a decade, albeit four of those were temporary appointments, including familiar names like Paul Lambert and Alex Neil.

Decline on the pitch matched by a tightening financial straightjacket off it, given the imperative to comply with financial fair play (FFP) in the post-top flight era. In Michael O’Neill’s period at the helm, Stoke’s annual playing budget was reportedly cut from £48m to £22m.

Imagine that type of shock treatment at Carrow Road, and the inevitable drag on future efforts to scramble back out of the Championship?

The Premier League glow has long disappeared for Stoke, but as recently as the January 2023 transfer window Ricky Martin - another Norwich connection - was having to balance the books as the club’s technical director to comply with FFP rather than look to focus on bolstering Neil’s squad.  

The Pink Un:

Martin and Neil have since departed. But not before signing 13 players last summer, once the financial clouds started to part, to try and push Stoke back into the promotion pack.

Yet why does any of that matter beyond a vital three points for both clubs in the Potteries this weekend? Because in recent days the divisions between the power brokers of English football’s top two leagues have played out in public.

A Premier League shareholders’ meeting in London on Monday ended without any offer being made to the Football League (EFL) regarding a new funding deal. Some top flight clubs feel the priority is now to overhaul the current financial system in a bid to replace the existing profitability and sustainability rules (PSR).

A six-year commitment granting the EFL 14.75pc of net media revenue with the Premier League – projected to be worth in the region of £900million – had been mooted, but reports in recent days suggested up to 10 top flight clubs, including Nottingham Forest and Crystal Palace, were against the proposed plan.

The government wants the football authorities to agree a new financial settlement among themselves, but warned one could be imposed by ‘backstop’ powers set to be given to the new independent regulator.

Beneath the soundbites and the postering those who matter inside the game expect the parties will find an agreement. Better to put self-interest to one side and get their own house in order than have it done for them.  

But given this is the last season City are technically in receipt of parachute payments, from their most recent Premier League tilt, it underlines the financial imperative to get back there.

The chance is now. The chance is these next nine league games, and successfully navigating the play-offs. Difficult terrain but far more favourable odds compared to the challenges on and off the park clubs like Stoke have had to face through sustained Championship exposure.

Norwich have their own ‘backstop’ in the shape of Mark Attanasio, Richard Ressler and the Norfolk Holdings group. That Football League rubber stamp of a share allotment process that earned independent shareholder approval last October still awaits official club confirmation.

Among the regulatory checks is believed to be proof Norfolk Holdings have the financial wherewithal to ensure the Canaries as a club could meet all their financial obligations at some ‘hypothetical’ point in the future.

Hypothetical as the ‘shareholders’ agreement’ outlined in the documentation which landed with City shareholders last year reaffirmed a lock step arrangement was in place with the previous majority shareholders, for a three year period from January 2023.

That provides clarity and in all probability a blueprint for how Norwich may proceed if they fail to plot an immediate return to the Premier League in these weeks ahead.

There were more tangible signs recently with Attanasio and his family in attendance at Carrow Road for the win over Sunderland, tied in around his appearance at the Business of Football summit.

There is already a healthy and regular dialogue across the pond with sporting director Ben Knapper, and another scheduled fact-finding visit to America from City’s top officials in June.

The Milwaukee Brewers principal owner reiterated in a recent interview for his domestic baseball audience there is a potentially ‘lucrative’ end game for his involvement in the ‘soccer’ club.

But as a razor-sharp businessman Attanasio will already have realised there is volatility on and off the park if you get involved in English football. Results on the pitch, and off it on the balance sheet, can be unpredictable.

That is why Stoke City away this weekend is much more than three points.